Glocal Diary for Local-to-Local

Pada tanggal 18 Juli 2020, kami mengadakan Kuliah Khusus Online Yoridori Indonesia (1), mulai pukul 13.00 WIB. Kuliah Khusus ini merupakan kesempatan bagi banyak orang, termasuk tidak hanya pelanggan majalah informasi web "Yorori Indonesia", tetapi juga masyarakat umum. Untuk saat ini, sementara pelaksanaannya secara gratis. Ada keinginan untuk menyebarkan informasi berbagai macam keanekaragaman Indonesia terutama kepada masyarakat Jepang lewat kesempatan ini. Sekaligus, kami mencoba melaksanakan dengan dua bahasa (Jepang dan Indonesia) sesuai dengan permintaan dari pembicara dan ini diharapkan menjadi kesempatan dialog langsung antara orang Indonesia dan orang Jepang di dalam tema yang sama. Dalam acara pertama kali ini, kami mengundang Mr. Yuta Takashima, salah seorang pendiri dan tetap aktif di Yayasan Satu Jalan Bersama, sebuah yayasan yang membantu para pemulih kusta di Indonesia, dengan tema “Berpikir tentang Kusta di Indonesia dan Diskriminasi berdasar Penyakit Menular...

As an annual tradition, we had the O-bon festival at home in Tokyo this year, too. In my hometown, Fukushima, the O-bon  festival is in mid-August (called the  Kyuu-bon,  that is Old Obon, based on old lunar calendar), but in Tokyo, it's in mid-July, called the Shin-bon (New Obon based on new solar calendar) festival. . During the Obon season, our ancestors return to this world to spend time with us, and then return to the other world, once a year. We make cow and horse from eggplant and cucumber, and decorate them as a vehicle for the ancestors to ride back to this world. On July 13th, we make a "welcoming fire ( Mukae-bi )" to welcome our ancestors. First, open the gate of the house and prepare to welcome our ancestors. After the gate is opened, an ogara  wood is placed on a roasting pan (called houroku ) like a tower. The smoke from the roasting pan is used to mark the return of our ancestors. When the burnt-out ogara is finished, a flickering red color remai...

Recently, I am interested in the role of design for social innovation. Last month, I have known an Italian designer, Prof. Ezio Manzini, who wrote his book, titled "Design, When Everybody Designs: An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation". I have not yer read this book until now, but tried to watch his lecture video on this book. I learned the viewpoint of designer on social innovation, especially from social problems to social sustainability via social innovation. There are many points as he mentioned about the role of designers for social innovation. In different ways from it, I have learned the same thing as the role of facilitator or catalyst as strangers to local community. The basic role of designer looks like the same as that of facilitator.  Especially, I focused on his word "cosmopolitan localism". He tries to avoid extreme "globalization" and extreme "localization". Local community should keep a kind of equilibrium between them a...

Saat ini dimana-mana siapa pun terasa dampak Covid-19. Dengan istilah social distance, kita menahan diri dan tidak bertemu teman secara langsung meskipun sangat rindu. Namun, kita perlu berusaha minus diubahkan jadi plus. Misalnya, work from home bisa dilaksanakan karena ada alat komunikasi lewat internet. Rapat online sudah menjadi hal yang biasa. Maka, sebenarnya kita sudah bisa ketemu kapan saja dimana saja asal ada internet. Saya di Jepang bisa langsung kontak sama teman-teman di Indonesia, Eropa, AS, atau dimana saja, asal lewat alat online. Dengan demikian, muncul suatu ide yang sederhana tapi belum coba. Yaitu, online meeting secara langsung antara orang Indonesia dan orang Jepang. Online meeting dilakukan dengan bilingual, dua bahasa antara bahasa Indonesia dan bahasa Jepang. Saya dan teman juru bahasa bisa membantu sebagai penterjemah antara dua bahasa tersebut. Mungkin bilingual online meeting coba dilakukan setiap bulan, diselenggarakan oleh inisiatif saya.   Saat ini, s...

I was born in Fukushima, Japan, from my father and mother with Japanese nationality. Automatically, I had my Japanese nationality. I did not have any right to choose my nationality. Nothing more than a coincidence. If born in Indonesia from my Indonesian parents, I became an Indonesian. I could not decide to choose the place I was born. If born in the Dutch East Indies 100 years ago, I might have no sense of any nationality. Nothing more than a coincidence. But, after I was born, I had lived with my family at a place. The place is called as my hometown. My place of birth has had a special meaning for my life. Maybe I has lived in several places other than my place of birth. Those places often have special meanings for my life. There are deep memories of my living there. Such place is not regarded as the nation, but as the local. I have special feelings on Fukushima as my place of birth, Tokyo as my current living place with my family, Busan as my first visited foreign city in my life, ...

Saat ini, Indonesia berusaha untuk menarik penanaman modal asing (PMA) sebanyak mungkin ke Indonesia. Untuk itu, berbagai kemudahan prosedur perizinannya diteruskan. BKPM mengharapkan banyak perusahaan China yang relokasi ke Indonesia. Saya bisa memahami apa yang diinginkan oleh Indonesia. Memang PMA dibutuhkan untuk pembangunan perekonomian Indonesia, meskipun saya pikir PMDN juga sebenarnya memiliki banyak kemampuan untuk berkontribusinya. Sebaiknya perlu ada dorongan agar PMDN yang berinvesitasi juga. Dari kacamata orang asing, mengapa harus PMA berinvestasi ke tempat yang tidak diminati oleh PMDN. Indonesia masih terlalu mengharapkan peranan PMA seperti dulu. Dibandingkan love-call dari Indonesia terhadap PMA, saya masih merasa tanda tanya bagaimana seriusnya penarikan PMA. Pasalnya, banyak teman orang Jepang komplain begitu sulitnya untuk mengambil visa kerja. Persyaratan dan prosedurnya makin ketat. Sering berubah. Sulit sekali mendapat visa, katanya. Sedangkan, pengawasan terhad...

Last week, I watched the TV program "Zen and the 21st Century" in the morning. Various important words were spoken. In particular, I thought about how Zen and meditation are different. Meditation has taken root in Western societies thanks to people from Western countries who have learned Zen. What is the purpose of meditation there? I often hear the word 'mindfulness', but it seems to be a way of life that values ​​this moment right now. It may be a story about how to live like yourself, in a sense, how to live your true self. However, it might be different from Zen. Zen opens yourself, opens yourself in the relationship with the surrounding things, releases yourself into the environment, so the boundary between yourself and the surrounding environment disappears, it connects with nature and the environment. According to the TV program, that was the story of the basic idea of ​​Zen. In other words, meditation and the mindfulness are considered to be what you do and ho...