15 Years On: Newcomer Helps Revive Ishinomaki's Fishing Industry

Ishinomaki, Miyagi Pref., March 12 (Jiji Press)--In Ishinomaki, a Pacific coastal city in northeastern Japan, Miki Takahashi begins work before dawn, following the rhythm of the sea she chose more than a decade ago.

Now 38, the woman from an inland area is helping breathe new life into a fishing community still recovering from the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

In a rare achievement for someone who was not born into the local industry, Takahashi has earned fishing rights from the local fisheries cooperative, a sign of the trust she has gained in the community. Working at Yamase Takahashi Suisan, she has steadily expanded her skills beyond "wakame" seaweed cultivation to octopus and sea urchin fishing, driven by what she calls a desire to "keep improving."

Takahashi grew up far from ocean, in Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo, but from an early age she loved visiting her grandmother in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, and spending time by the sea.

After the disaster, her grandmother's health deteriorated while living in evacuation shelters, and she later died. Takahashi had just started working as a teacher at a special-needs school in Saitama, but in 2013 she moved to Ishinomaki, hoping to help in whatever way she could.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]