“Ohara House Katalyzer,” a nationally designated Important Cultural Property in the Bikan Historical Area.
It is a residence with a historic building and a beautiful garden, but there is more to it than that.
As “a place to talk about the present and the future,” it also puts a great deal of effort into educational programs.
One of the programs hosted by Ohara House Katalyzer is “Kurashiki Mirai K-juku.”
I attended the seminar “9th Kurashiki Mirai K-juku: An Honest Talk with the People Behind ‘Regional Futures’” held on Sunday, January 26, 2020.
Here is a report on the seminar.
The information presented was current when this article was published in February 2020. Please note that it may differ from current information.
What is Kurashiki Mirai K-juku?
“Kurashiki Mirai K-juku” is a monthly seminar held at Ohara House Katalyzer, with the aim of comprehensively reforming education in schools and society and supporting teachers with a sense of purpose.
It began in December 2018 as “Kurashiki Mirai Teacher Juku,” and was renamed “Kurashiki Mirai K-juku” in December 2019.
Since December 2019, the seminars have featured themes such as the following:
- Community ✕ Education ✕ Ways of Working
- Culture ✕ Manufacturing
- Community ✕ SDGs ✕ Education Reform
- Changing Ways of Working ✕ Community
Overview of the 9th Kurashiki Mirai K-juku: An Honest Talk with the People Behind “Regional Futures”
The theme of the ninth Kurashiki Mirai K-juku was “An Honest Talk with the People Behind ‘Regional Futures.’”
| Date and time | Sunday, January 26, 2020, 1:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m. |
|---|---|
| Venue | Ohara House Katalyzer |
The seminar proceeded as follows:
| Format | Topic | Speakers |
|---|---|---|
| Lecture | The Work of a Regional Community Member | Nobuyuki Tsuji |
| Session | Discussing the Future of the Takahashi River Basin | Hiroshi Sakanoue, Yoshikazu Saeki, and Hiroshi Sasaki |
| Audience session | (Q&A) | Nobuyuki Tsuji, Hiroshi Sakanoue, and Hiroshi Sasaki |
Greetings from Yoko Yamashita, Director of Ohara House Katalyzer
Yoko Yamashita, director of Ohara House Katalyzer, offered the following greeting:
“I’m never quite sure what titles to use when introducing Mr. Tsuji and Mr. Sakanoue, who will be speaking today.
Lately, I feel that people who are hard to describe with a title like that are the ones driving innovation.
Today we have these two people involved in Kurashiki’s innovation, along with two special guests invited by Mr. Sakanoue.”
Lecture by Nobuyuki Tsuji: The Work of a Regional Community Member
Nobuyuki Tsuji is someone who works in Kurashiki in harmony with the community and the seasons, creating places, making things, and nurturing people.
In his lecture, he spoke about his background and activities, and the ideas behind them.
Nobuyuki Tsuji’s Background
While at university, Tsuji traveled around Japan alone.
To make the journey grounded in real life and socially engaged, he reportedly wrote a newspaper column and even appeared in television broadcasts from the road.
After graduating, while working in education, he planned and appeared in Kurashiki Cable TV’s program “Let’s Go Wandering Around from the Morning with Ochan” for about 12 years.
He has continued to share the town’s appeal and is also affectionately known by locals as “the old guy who takes you on walks around town.”
He also runs the following businesses, which are well known to Kurashiki residents:
- Machiya Cafe Miyake Shoten
- Hayashi Genjuro Shoten
- Waterside Cafe Miyake Shoten Sakazu
- Former Harada Residence: Miyake Shoten Cafe Workshop
Regional Work: A Town Connected by Community Members
What is “work”?
“Are you serving numbers and titles?” Tsuji asks.
For Tsuji, “work” means:
- Serving the things that make the people in front of you smile, feel happy, and become enriched in spirit
- Serving the things that enrich the community and the times we live in
He wants to foster community members who can take pride in their region as something personal, and wants to be one himself.
With that hope, he engages in activities related to town-building, making things, and education.
Among the many examples of activities to “learn about, share, and connect the community,” let’s look at Miyake Shoten, a machiya cafe that opened in 2002.
Tsuji says, “If you only learn about and share the good things in a community, they will eventually fade away.”
“To preserve good things, you need to connect them with others, involve the people around you, and turn them into sources of pride and enjoyment, so that the local economy keeps moving. It can’t be temporary.” Miyake Shoten, he says, was started with that commitment.
Machiya Cafe Miyake Shoten is on Honmachi-dori, one street away from the banks of the Kurashiki River.
Tsuji felt that “Honmachi-dori is an appealing street that shows you the richness of the community.”
At the time, however, it was called a “back street,” and reportedly only about one in ten tourists walked along it.
When Miyake Shoten, which had been a household goods and general merchandise shop since before the war, became vacant, he bought the property and opened a cafe as a place where anyone could get involved.
He kept the name “Miyake Shoten” to carry forward the memory of a business that had been loved by local people.
Miyake Shoten now has contracts with 30 farmers.
After learning exactly who produces the goods, how they are grown, and the care that goes into them, the shop buys the entire harvest from its contracted farmers, including fruit that cannot normally be shipped.
It turns the fruit into ice cream and juice, offering a menu that follows the seasons.
Tsuji concluded his lecture as follows:
“I believe anyone can become a community member if they have the personal desire to learn about, share, and connect with their community.
A community member takes pride in their region and cares deeply about the next generation.
Creating opportunities for people like that is my life’s work.”
Talk Session
For the talk session, Hiroshi Sakanoue, who plans and runs community projects, invited two guests whose stories he wanted people to hear.
Through their backgrounds and stories, they considered the future of the Takahashi River Basin.
Yoshikazu Saeki, a Forester in Niimi
The first guest was Yoshikazu Saeki, who works in forestry.
Born in Imabari City, Ehime Prefecture, Saeki went on to study law at Okayama University.
Having grown up surrounded by nature and loved making things since childhood, Saeki researched trees and discovered forestry.
As a student, he took part in volunteer activities for environmentally sustainable forest conservation, and after graduating, worked as a Community Revitalization Cooperator in Niimi City, Okayama Prefecture.
After his term as a Community Revitalization Cooperator ended, he continued living in Niimi and joined Hitotomori, a general incorporated association that works in forestry while protecting forests.
He has made long tables combining Niimi timber with steel from the Mizushima Industrial Complex, wooden jungle gyms, mobile bar counters, and more.
He left the company and became independent in October 2019.
He now makes custom furniture and develops and sells charcoal products.
People often tell him that his career path is unusual, but for Saeki, it seems to have unfolded naturally.
There is also a table made by Saeki at Sumiyoshicho no Ie Bunbuku, the coworking space run by Hiroshi Sakanoue.
Hiroshi Sasaki, an IT Evangelist
The second guest was Hiroshi Sasaki, an IT evangelist.
An IT evangelist explains the latest technology to the public in an easy-to-understand way and raises awareness about it.
For 12 years, Sasaki served as an instructor for computer classes aimed at beginners and middle-aged and older people on the NHK Educational TV program “Shumi Yu-Yu” (now E-Tele).
He lives in Tokyo and travels to Ina City, Nagano Prefecture, to start a new company.
Sasaki quoted the words “80% of careers are determined by chance” from the theory of planned happenstance developed by Stanford University Professor John D. Krumboltz and others.
Reflecting on his own career, he spoke about what is important for turning chance events into career advancement.
One day, an NHK producer offered Sasaki a television appearance. As he put it, he was “nothing special in computers, just a guy who liked them.”
Taking the plunge, thinking, “I’ve never done this before and I’m scared, but maybe I’ll give it a try,” changed his life.
Sasaki said:
“Looking back, at turning points, someone would appear from somewhere I hadn’t expected and say, ‘Wouldn’t you be able to do it?’
When someone appears who can bring out another side of you, that’s an opportunity.
Isn’t one of life’s important lessons to find many trustworthy people who broaden your possibilities?”
Sasaki says that IoT education is especially valuable in rural areas.
He now teaches IoT to children in rural areas and also conducts classes where they put into practice how technology can solve local challenges.
IT is a way to create free time and shape your own lifestyle.
He believes it is important to consider what technology can solve when you encounter a familiar problem, and then put into practice what you can do.
Audience Q&A
During the audience session, the speakers answered questions from participants.
How have you overcome challenges so far?
Tsuji
If I compare my life to a plastic model kit, it’s more fun to build it myself, even if it gets messy with glue, than to be given a neatly completed model.
I’d never made a TV program or run a cafe before, but I had watched TV and been to cafes.
I believe “the biggest amateur is the biggest professional.” When you approach everything as your own concern and act from the perspective of an everyday person, it becomes real work.
As IT technologies such as AI advance, what should adults be mindful of when it comes to children?
Sasaki
I think the problem is that adults are becoming more uninformed.
Children learn on their own as a skill for living.
Since their values are different, adults worrying based on their own values may have a negative effect on children.
I think it’s good to start by taking an interest and learning about things—for example, asking, “What is AI?”
Many people want to solve local challenges but are struggling to balance that with their main jobs. Could you offer some advice?
Sakanoue
I think the first big question is whether you’re in a position to decide for yourself how to use your time.
It’s hard if you think in terms of all or nothing. It’s very important that your family can be happy.
So, on the premise that you don’t sacrifice your family, you could, for example, devote 1% of the year—three or four days—to your community.
If you keep doing things that way, someone might eventually show up and say, “Could you do this? I’ll pay you.”
Tsuji
I’m the king of debt, though (laughs).
For example, the waterside cafe Miyake Shoten is in a place with neither convenience nor economic advantages. But there’s water and greenery, and after walking nearby for five to ten minutes, the “pores of your sensibility” that are usually closed open up.
By experiencing things as your own, you become able to imagine all sorts of possibilities, and I think the economy will start moving from there.
Sasaki
I think unstructured time is important.
In relationships where you can talk without watching the clock, ask someone you trust, “If you were to pay someone to do something for you, what would it be?” If they speak honestly, you may discover something about yourself you hadn’t noticed.
Please tell us what you have felt through the heavy rains of July 2018.
Tsuji
The home of the manager of Waterside Cafe Miyake Shoten was flooded up to the second floor.
When we visited the disaster area the next day, the people affected kept saying, “The water frightened us, but the next day we were longing for water. Maybe it was trying to teach us something.”
It made me feel that we need to think again about flood control and a rich life.
There was flood-control equipment on one embankment, but its operation was complicated and it didn’t work at all.
Now they are trying to build equipment that residents can operate themselves.
I feel that across different communities, the movement toward “not just me, but the whole community” is gaining momentum.
Sakanoue
Even now, when I hear about torrential rain, my body tenses up.
When I was in my second year of high school, the Great Hanshin Earthquake happened.
It may have influenced my career path, even unconsciously, and led me to be involved in community activities today.
I think all adults bear responsibility for what kind of lives the students affected by disasters will be living 20 years from now.
After the Seminar: An Informal Gathering
Have you ever talked with others around a well?
After a seminar by Kurashiki Mirai K-juku, participants gathered around a real well for a “wellside discussion.”
In a casual atmosphere, we heard many fascinating things, including plans for the future.
From the Writer
When the author is asked, “What are Kurashiki’s stylish spots?” two places that are always on the list are Miyake Shoten and Hayashi Genjuro Shoten.
They’re welcoming places that make you want to bring other people along.
Learning about the thought and care that went into the shops made me like them even more.
The seminar taught us about more than just education and the future of the community.
It offered a chance to think from many angles about our relationship with our communities, how we work, our careers, and what we should pass on to the next generation.
It also showed that so many people are seriously working toward a future for Okayama, and that worthwhile seminars are held regularly.
As a resident of Okayama Prefecture, I felt very proud.
Kurashiki Mirai K-juku will continue to hold seminars on education.
Be sure to check the Ohara House Katalyzer website for details.
Articles about Ohara House Katalyzer
Kurashiki Mirai K-juku Information
| Name | Kurashiki Mirai K-juku |
|---|---|
| Dates | The 9th session: Sunday, January 26, 2020, 1:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m. Please check the time for each session. |
| Location | 1-2-1 Chuo, Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture |
| Admission (tax included) | General: ¥3,000 (tax included) KATALYZER members: ¥2,000 (tax included) |
| Website | Ohara House Katalyzer | OHARA HOUSE KATALYZER |
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