The Base of Community Welfare
Chiiki no Chanoma and Me
It was 20 years ago when I visited the Chiiki no Chanoma of which Ms. Kawada created for the first time. When I paid the admission fee at the reception, Ms. Kawada found me and we greeted each other. Then, she brought me to a hemiplegic lady who was drawing a very nice picture and introduced me to her. Ms. Kawada told me that the lady had held a private exhibition of her drawings. She gave me a small piece of her work: a postcard of Japanese paper with the drawing of a flower. She has become a friend of mine in the Chiiki no Chanoma. I meet her whenever I visit there. I still remember the time when I met her for the first time. Everybody was friendly but not obtrusive. I enjoyed feeling free without feeling isolated. It was a very comfortable space and it felt like taking a forest bath. So, I told Ms. Kawada that I could call this feeling a “human bath.” I immediately asked myself how they were able to create this kind of comfortable human space? Later, I came to learn that there were unspoken rules in the Chiiki no Chanoma, like: Do not appear to be asking, “Who is that person?” when you see a new-comer; you shall not wear an apron except in the kitchen when you are on duty. That was when I thought I found an answer to my question, and I felt that Ms. Kawada, who came up with those kind of rules and created that kind of human space, must have been an extraordinary kind of person. That was the starting point of my interaction with Ms. Kawada that continues today. When I think about the future of a super-aging society, it tells me that my intuition at that time was correct.
