[Music]

This is Ayumi, 36 years-old living in

Tokyo and she's just waking up for work.

Oh, and that's her two-year-old son Hiro-Kun!

They live in a 3-LDK apartment

together with her husband, but he's away

during the weekdays. It's called Tanshin-Funin

in Japanese, which means married

partner living separately from the

family for work.

It's fairly common in Japan. Since he's

not around, Ayumi's mother comes by

every morning to help out.

Hiro-Kun is quite active so she helps

watch him, while Ayumi cooks and gets

ready for the day.

The first thing she does is prepare for

Hiro-kun's breakfast. She feels it's

important for her son to have a balanced

Japanese-style meal

every day, but doesn't have the time in

the morning to prepare all the dishes,

so she does a lot of the meal-prep

whenever she has free time.

Now, while Hiro-kun's slowly works on his

breakfast with grandma; Ayumi prepares a

typical Japanese Bento-box for his lunch.

Wow! That looks delicious!

Oh no, I think her son is getting fussy!

Oh! Ayumi is making a Kyaraben, it's short

for Character Bento and it's very common

in Japan

to prepare for kids, so they can have fun

during their lunch-time.

After breakfast, she helps Hiro-kun

practice reading Hiragana.

Finally! She gets time to get herself

ready.

It only takes Ayumi five minutes to

get ready, since she took a bath the

night before.

I think that's a Day In The Life series

women's record!

And for her breakfast, she's having a banana smoothie!

Nice! That's a pin given to only city-

council members.

Before work, she takes her son to nursery school.

In Tokyo,

getting your child enrolled in a nursery

school can be as competitive as getting

into university,

but, dual working parents have a slight advantage.

So, Ayumi lives fairly close to her office,

sometimes even taking her bicycle but

today,

she's decided to take the bus. The ride

itself is less than 20 minutes,

relatively-short compared to most

Jjapanese-salaryman commutes.

So Ayumi works as a Kugikaigiin,

in English a city-council member for

Minato ku in Tokyo. Confusingly, the term

'ku' in English means ward, a subdivision

of a city. Yet in Tokyo, all of the

23 wards, like

Minato-ku are classified as cities, since

they're equally-independent and governed

like a city.

Even with their own mayor! So I'm just in

front of the city hall and Ayumi should be

arriving in just a little bit.

Oh there she is!

Let's go see how she's doing.

Good morning!

What time did you sleep last night?

It's super hot today, right?

So Ayumi has been working as a city council member

for over five-years and this

is her second term. There are 34

council members in Minato city, directly

elected by citizens every four years.

City council members decide on matters

such as budgets, ordinance and deliberate

and decide on municipal policies,

all the while working closely with the

mayor. This term 13 out of 34 members are

women, one of the highest representation

of women council members

in Japan. In fact, only 10.2 percent of

Japan's diet members are women, the

lowest in the G20.

Oh, it looks like our intern is patiently

waiting at her door.

This is Ayumi's office, a very typical-style

Japanese office.

Open-island style desk-setup with

no cubicle, so that everyone can easily

communicate with one another.

Oh! Another intern has arrived.

So why did you decide to become a city council member?

As an intern for a Japanese politician,

it's important to always be available

when needed.

In this case, they stand at the edge of

the desk ready and waiting for Ayumi's

next instruction.

How old are you?

Oh you're a college student.

Which university do you go to?

What are you gonna do now?

As a council member, one of their jobs is

to discover useful services that the

the city can offer to its residents.

Today, she's meeting with a company who

provides short-term childcare services,

with the company's hopes to offer the

service to the city.

In Japan, it's crucial after the meeting

to see your clients off, and even more

important to wait until they're no longer visible,

before you leave.

Just after her meeting, she decides to go

to the city assembly-hall to practice

her speech for the next council meeting.

She usually doesn't practice, but since

they installed the plastic panel for

the Coronavirus recently, she wanted to see

how it would be like to speak.

Oh cool! That's her seat.

All council members are assigned their

own seat in the hall.

It even has their name on it!

So nobody uses the assembly hall right now?

Finally! Lunchtime!

As a Japanese Politician, her schedule is filled from

morning till evening.

So much so, that she can barely take a 30-

minute lunch.

She often takes lunch at the city hall

public cafeteria, located in the building.

Prices are quite reasonable so you'll

find even residents visiting city hall

eating here.

Tanuki Soba! Great choice!

Wow, the food here is quite reasonably- priced and

check out this view; it's pretty amazing.

And a little secret for all of you;

anyone can actually come here.

Do you three eat together every day?

In between meetings she must diligently

follow up on paperwork, as her time is limited.

Oh! She's using a Hanko,

an official Japanese stamp.

So the Hanko-stamp system is embedded

deeply in Japanese government procedures

and sign-off documents.

It's equivalent of an official signature in western

culture. Basically, any official documents

in Japan require Hanko stamp for approval.

But, just this year Japan's

state minister has been pushing to remove

many of the Hanko-stamp procedures

from government documents. But who knows?

This plan still needs to get hunkered off.

That's a staff member from the city

council office.

As a council-member, Ayumi often works with the office

to discuss council operations.

So, in addition to meeting with people

from the outside, she's also responsible

for handling internal administrative tasks.

Since the Olympics were cancelled in Tokyo,

is there a lot of things that you need

to take care of?

They constructed a fence to block out

the ocean section used for the race,

so people couldn't get in.

But, since the Olympics were canceled they had to take

it down.

Now, if the Olympics proceed next year;

the city will have to rebuild all of the

infrastructure, costing additional

taxpayer money.

So it looks like they're going to be

working for a little bit.

Let's take advantage of this time and explore the

place.

So we're on the first-floor lobby area

right now, and it looks like there's some

open-meeting tables so if you wanted to

meet someone, you can actually meet them here.

And just right in front of our office, it

looks like they have some mailboxes for

all the people on this floor.

Wow! This office is stacked with papers!

Like many businesses in Japan,

a Japanese-government office is still

very much paper-based.

In fact, Suga, Japan's new Prime Minister

as of this year, is proposing to digitize

much of Japan's government services,

even ordering the creation of a digital agency.

But again, much of this still

needs to be budgeted and passed to the

national diet for approval.

So just right here it looks like they

have all the cups and plates.

But, I'm kind of curious to see what's

behind these doors.

Let's see. Oh wow! A sink!

Who would have thunk?

Now it's time to get the party started.

As a city council member, she spends a

lot of time meeting people,

gathering information and hearing

problems from residents.

So much so, Ayumi is often out of the office.

What's there?

So Ayumi belongs to the Tokyo branch of

the Democratic Party for the people.

And today she has an appointment at the

party headquarters.

She's supposed to drop off a list of

supporters, but the truth is

she could probably do this by email.

The real reason she's here is to discuss

internal party matters that don't

necessarily get discussed during general

party meetings.

As a Japanese politician it's always important to understand

what's happening behind the scenes.

Now, she's gonna visit one of the

officials in the Sangiin,

in English, House of Councillors, which is

the Upper House of Japan's national diet.

He also belongs to the same party, just on

the national level.

She's visiting him to also hear his

thoughts on recent party matters.

She says it's critical for her to always gather

information from different sources in

order to make the best decisions.

So where are you going now?

By the way, she's wearing a bright blue

dress today, which is her campaign color.

In Japan, many politicians embrace a

theme color,

usually something bright, like a strong

red or green.

Damn! It's such an open office back there!

Very typical in Japan for

government offices to be open like this to the public.

As a mother herself, one of her goals is to improve

the lives of her community

members by making it easier to raise children.

In order for her to do that, she

regularly hosts hearing-sessions with

parents in the community.

Oh! It seems like she's giving feedback

about the support Minato city offers,

after giving birth.

Apparently, you can get support from the

the city for a home-helper and postpartum doula.

That's interesting!

Where are you going now?

Can I ask you what you love about this job?

So local residents have been voicing

concerns about how people are getting

injured at the bike gates by the bridge.

And one of the residents has volunteered