Nagano is one of my favourite places in Japan - I used to spend most of my weekends during the winter ski-ing at Togakushi and Okushiga. I’m sure it will be lovely at the moment.
I was working in a foreign aid programme (not US) and the PL soldiers were cheerful even friendly. But the new government quickly decided that they didn’t want any foreigners in the country outside Vientiane so we were pulled out. But I can imagine that local employees of the former government would