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On March 13, 2019, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attended the presentation ceremony of the FY2018 Prime Minister’s Awards for the Hometown Development Grand Prize and Hometown Event Grand Prize, at the Prime Minister’s Office.
 
The Prime Minister said in his address,
 
“I offer my heartfelt congratulations to the recipients of the Prime Minister’s Award, Mr. Tetsuro Toyoshige and the Great Yonabaru Tug-of-War Festival Executive Committee.
 
Firstly, Mr. Toyoshige has succeeded in the development of an original local shochu (distilled liquor), raising the banner for village revitalization without depending on public support for the past 23 years in Yanagidani Village, commonly known as Yanedan, in Kanoya City, Kagoshima Prefecture. He also organizes the Yanedan Furusato Soseijuku, a leadership program to create leaders to promote local revitalization. I heard that the program has produced more than 1,000 successful graduates today who are active across Japan.
 
The people of Yonabaru Town in Okinawa Prefecture are committed to preserving and passing down the Great Yonabaru Tug-of-War, which has a history of more than 440 years. The parade, ‘Michi-Junee (road tour),’ in which the ‘Chinamushi (rope warriors)’ and others pull the huge rope and parade to the venue, spiriting up with ‘gae (stick fighting),’ looks like a dragon god dancing into the sky.  
 
I was told that the whole town cheers the parade on, with the town’s elementary school students making rice straws for the rope, junior high school students performing ‘memoi (opening dance)’ or joining the parade as ‘kinkotai (marching drummers),’ and kindergarten children dancing along with the parade. Were the chance to present itself, I would love to see it. 
I feel that your activities are full of love for your hometown and therefore admirable. The spirit to foster love for the hometown and create one that you are proud of is precisely the source of momentum to create communities full of charms.
The Government will continue to strongly support hometown development and I have high hopes that all of you will make even greater success. With that, I would like to close my congratulatory address. Once again, congratulations.”