Saji is one of the neighborhoods in Aogaki. In fact, it is theneighborhood. It is certainly the most densely populated part of town and is home to several schools, the bank, the post office, and many vending machines. It's sandwiched nicely between the river and mountains. Thus, it was a good place to house the Saji Studio.
The Studio (if I understood correctly) was a joint project between Kansai University and the town government. The University asked what was needed and delivered it. The University uses the Studio as a sort of mini base of operations. Students might spend the weekend there while they participate in some hands-on projects, research independently, or attend seminars. Saji neighborhood gets a bunch of young and willing volunteers to renovate select buildings, a way to bring in interesting speakers, and cultural events. Strawberry picking, knitting, cooking, gardening, Nordic walking ... you name it!
It's somewhere between a community center and a university laboratory.
It also brings a lot of younger people and ideas into the town. Not to mention, people I can hang out with and relate to a bit! I usually stop by after work at my base school to see what's going on. It's a good way for me to practice my very poor Japanese and meet some new people in town.
This weekend the Saji Studio hosted a certain Mr. Yoji Inoue, a landscape architect, who went on a tour of Aogaki with us on Saturday (followed by a great dinner) and then had a presentation on Sunday at the community center. I wish my Japanese were good enough to be able to understand everything, because the handouts were certainly impressive, but I have to admit that I had little idea what was being said. Still, the visuals were enough to get me by and Mr. Inoue was kind enough to banter with me in English a little bit. He asked me what I thought about Aogaki and gave me a little insight into the layout of the town.
His current (or latest) project is Art in Farm in Tachikawa outside of Tokyo. Check it out!
2 comments:
cool sounds like a fun experience! do you find that many people can speak english? or is this a rare occurrence?
Lots of people can speak a little bit of English, like how most Americans can speak a little bit of Spanish (basic greetings).
Few people can speak enough to form a sentence or have a conversation.
But even out in the countryside there are enough people that speak some amount of English that I can sometimes use a bit of it if I don't know the Japanese word.
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