California native Neil Hartmann, 51, moved to Sappporo at age 19 with his father. He was the first English-speaking radio DJ for FM Hokkaido (now Air-G’) and was instrumental in cultivating the snowboarding scene there through DIY videos in the 1990s. He and his wife, Erina, now run a pop-up cafe and soft-serve ice cream business called SKS International Cafe located at the summit of Sapporo Kokusai Ski Resort in the town of Jozankei.
1. When did you first come to Japan? My family had a connection with some friends in Sapporo, and we came together when I was 13. We did a homestay here. I got into skiing and snowboarding.
2. That’s a rare experience. Were your parents previously interested in Japan? My parents were kind of hippies — not in appearance maybe, but I was home-schooled, and we traveled a lot. So when they ended up separating, my father came back to Japan, and I got to have the best of both worlds.
3. Japan must’ve been quite different at that time. What year was this? This was the late 1980s so there were very few foreigners in general in Sapporo at the time. My dad loved it, so he started teaching English, and I’d come in the winters and snowboard.
4. When and how did you end up coming back to Sapporo permanently? Well, I graduated high school in the U.S. and thought, “What am I gonna do? I guess I’ll go back to Japan.” This was winter of 1991.
5. What was your plan? I wanted to do visual work — photography, video — but this is 1991! There’s no Instagram, YouTube, no internet — nothing. But I did not want to teach English. I barely graduated high school, I didn’t know how to teach English!
6. How did you start working in media? I came on a family visa and got a tiny, cheap apartment. I went door-to-door, to NHK and other places, looking for work. No luck. Thanks to that process, I heard there was an audition for a DJ position at FM Hokkaido. Never thought I’d do that in my entire life. There had never been an English-speaking DJ in Hokkaido.
7. Sounds like impeccable timing. What was the job like? I had no experience, but the station managers were like: “Well, we got a 20-year-old from California. This’ll work.” It was two hours a day, four days a week, playing “Black contemporary” music, R&B, which was really popular. Boyz II Men, Mariah Carey — stuff I was definitely not into being a snowboarder from California.
8. How long did you work as a DJ? Seven years. It was the best experience for me. I tell people that that was my university, and I majored in music and Japanese language.
9. Were you still looking to do visual work? Yes. I was working at the radio station and snowboarding, and that led to an opportunity to be on a TV show. They had started a snowboarding-focused TV show in ’92 or ’93, and I was the token English-speaking cast member.
10. Was the TV show the beginning of your visual education then? Sort of. I was already photographing the winter here. I just kept saying to them, “Give me the camera! Give me the camera!” Little by little, I was able to start directing my own snowboarding movies around ’98 and ’99.
11. What an era that was — total DIY culture. How were you making these movies? I was using VHS tapes to make snowboarding films. Also, photography. It got noticed. Snowboarding was just overtaking skiing. At the 1998 Nagano Olympics, I emceed the first snowboarding event. It was an exciting time. I just rolled with it.
12. What was the Japanese snowboarding scene like in those early days? At first, snowboarders in Japan went straight to what they call “pro shops” — small indie shops. Eventually, big players and chain stores went, “We can do snowboarding, too,” and flooded the market with crappy products. So the indie pro shops disappeared. Snowboarding eventually hit a peak and flattened out, both in Japan and globally.
13. Has the snowboarding scene improved at all since then? Yeah, about 10 years ago or so it changed due to tourism, especially ski tourism. An example: You had Niseko, which was like a dying town. We had it all to ourselves. All the sudden you had Aussies showing up to snowboard.
14. How did those Australian snowboarders affect things? This is not my quote but somebody said: “Aussies are the marines of the tourist industry.” They are the first to arrive, they lay down the infrastructure, build the camps, and then the rest of the military (tourists) come in. They’ve done it in Bali. And they are a hearty, strong, fun-loving bunch of people.
15. Did that wave of tourism affect you personally at the time? Well, I was making my movies at the time. I was a part of the media promoting Hokkaido. Australians were taking my tapes home, using my snowboarding photos — often without permission — and spreading the word that Hokkaido is the best! To this day, promoting Hokkaido is a huge part of what I do.
16. Would you say you are economically dependent on tourism? Well, my wife and I now run a cafe and (soft-serve ice cream) shop here in Jozankei in the summer. For the past three years, it’s located at the top of Sapporo Kokusai in winters. Part of it is running a local business and doing media for promoting resorts in all seasons.
17. With ski season and the Sapporo Snow Festival, winter in Hokkaido sort of sells itself at this point, right? How do you work to promote other seasons? Yeah, there’s a lot of summer promotion I am involved in. I direct TV commercials for Rusutsu Resort. They have a huge amusement park with roller coasters in the summer. There’s golfing, horseback riding, canoeing, rafting — all the Hokkaido outdoors sports.
18. Are you creating content geared mainly toward the foreign market? Yeah, the English ability is an added bonus, being able to add subtitles. Not much of that work is for domestic consumption.
19. Are there differences in sensibilities as a non-Japanese creator in Japan? I think so. When you are a foreigner, or just out of your comfort zone, you look at things differently. Although I’ve been here 30 years, I still see Japan as a foreigner. Just as a Japanese photographer might go to America and really focus on the Americana, I try to use that difference to my advantage.
20. Do you feel like you’ve finally found a creative and professional balance working to promote Hokkaido? Yeah, but I still feel like I have a lot more to do. A lot of people are antitourism, but I’ve never felt that way. I’ve been here when it was empty and no one had any money. My feeling is if you put in the work and you are in the right place, you can have the economic benefit and enjoy the mountains and the powder just as much as we did back then. With the kindness, the service and the natural beauty, Japan and Hokkaido can definitely become the ultimate tourist destination. I want to be a part of that.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.