Tabismile

Koichi Nakatani was born in Seattle, USA, in 1971. He is on a journey to walk around the world and plant trees in the ground. His ambition is not only to love the earth and make it greener but also to make people realize that they are a part of the world too..

I have been on the journey to walk and plant trees on the earth for three years, after six years of working as a businessman. In 2000, I started wandering.

I had been wondering whether my common sense or sense of value is the same as people from other nations. While I have worked for my company in foreign nations, I started thinking about it. ¡ÈCommon Sense¡É is knowledge, and an ability to judge and understand, which most people have or should have. For example, it is common knowledge to take shoes off when you enter a house in Japan, but not in other countries. If ¡ÈCommon Sense of the world¡É is the average of common sense from various regions, I wanted to know and own it. You know, you can only live your life once so I decided to go on journey to look for the ¡ÈCommon Sense as a member of the world.¡É

Firstly, I went to the United States, where I was born and then, India, Nepal, the Republic of Zambia, the Netherlands, Spain, France, Germany, Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Brazil, the Republic of Bolivia, Peru, Argentina, and South Africa. It took three years to travel around these countries; the three years have past swiftly.

As a business man, the most important thing in my life before the journey was to make profits using the least resources. However, during the journey, my life changed and I realized that the purpose of one¡Çs life is to know local people, culture and nature. I became interested in these values.

In South Africa, I met with Mr. Paul Coleman who has visited 39 countries and walked 45,000 kilometers over 16 years, planting trees in the ground. He is on a journey to China from his home country, England. He plans to walk and plant 100 million trees, in memory for 100 million people who died during all of the Wars that occurred in the 20th century. I spent about a year participating in his activity in South Africa. I walked around Zimbabwe and the Republic of Zambia planting trees.

Paul Coleman has traveled around the world for more than 30 years, including a period when he was a sailor, and a driver for a British lady. As a person who has the ¡ÈCommon Sense as a member of the world,¡É he gives you a message ¡ÈLet us stop killing, let us start surviving.¡É I think it can be understood that we should stop taking lives (which can also be symbolized as ¡Ætrees¡Ç) and start giving lives instead. The message is so simple and direct that it is easy to understand. Someday, I wish the message would be part of the ¡ÈCommon Sense as a member of the world¡É.. I walk and plant trees for the message to be delivered to people.

I put everything that I need in my backpack and spend nights at the entrances of schools and shrines, without a tent, during my journey. Sometimes, there are people who are so kind that you can stay a night at their place. The more I continue on my trip, the more I think things become simple. The most important job in a day is to find something to eat and a place to sleep.

Planting trees in the ground is a message to people: ¡Èthe survival of the earth¡É.

Walk on the earth, plant in the ground. My journey is about the survival of myself and the earth.

Koichi Nakatani's web site
http://earthwalkerjp.cocolog-nifty.com/

Paul Coleman's web site
www.earthwalker.com

We are glad to publish Tabismile 9th. We are focus on enviromental tralever Mr.Koichi Nakatani and owener of Paxi restrant " Kyo Satani". Let's take it and read at our distributro shop.

Also we have pubishing party at Yoyogi Park on May 31th Sat 13PM. This is open mic style and appriciated briging food and drinks. Thank you.


I will send you mail wheter we have party on Yoyogi Park at 11AM tomorrow. Estimate says tomorrow will be rainy. When it will be rainy we have lunch at Cafe shift, Meguro.
cafe¡¡shift
«ý¡¡03-3721-4574
15mins from JR Meguro on foot.
10 mins from Tokyu Meguro Fudo mae

When you come there, just call me 09017390363!!!

Thanks.

He, who started a music label called ¡ÈViajar Discos,¡É meaning discs on journey, will step into a new world with help of sounds. Launching a new business has a same impact as big as stepping over a border. Here¡Çs a story of Wataru Tanaka, who is an owner of the label and Kazusa Kawahara, who is a musician from Kumamoto prefecture and touring all over Japan.

Kawahara (K): I really appreciate for your help to make a wonderful CD. Telling you the truth, when I asked you the recording I couldn¡Çt imagine that you would start up your own label.

Tanaka (T): I realized that I could identify myself by creating music through the recording. I wanted to choose something that I truly wanted to do. By the way, how do you always work on your projects with such a natural touch?

K: I feel connections with people from my town and bountiful natures, and the feelings from those and my heart will change its forms to my songs. Each moment I make a bond with other musicians who played with and audiences is truly joyful.

T: I think you are a traveler in the sense of having 113 shows a year through the tour based in Kumamoto prefecture, not in Tokyo. Even though I do not create and express something directly, I want to build a space by a hand of artists where people have a chance to meet up with travelers like you.

K: Well, that¡Çs ¡ÈViajar Discos.¡É (Discs on journey). How come you started up your own label?

T: When I played in a band of music club in my high school, one day I set up and prepared a concert stage. I was in charge of sound systems. That¡Çs how I got known with it. Since then, I started getting interested in the world of sound systems creating a space which artists can express them and audiences have a good time both comfortably. I like to watch people enjoying and having fun. So I wanted to do it again. I worked on some related part-time jobs related to the system and started to help some performances and recordings of my friends. That¡Çs what I went through.

What makes you so motivated to keep on doing what you do?


K: I think it¡Çs like cooking. If your friends enjoy the dishes you made and tell you they are delicious, you want to cook them again and feel like making better ones. For me, music is similar to sleeping and eating, and in essence it is a life. So it was very hard for me not to sing as I was sick last spring. Because I am really grateful for having audiences who listen to my music and spaces to share my feelings, I will keep working on it harder to let my audiences be happier.

T: That¡Çs nice. I have something that I want to share with artists as well. It is to create a moment people make a smile. I think human beings like to share same feelings as a person right next to you also has. Whatever people do, it is one of the greatest things to be able to connect with others through music.

K: For sure.

T: What¡Çs your plan in the future?


K: I want to work as a professional musician who can sing a song such that as if some moments of a usual daily life will show up by listening to the song and also want to have my own steady life other than music. I have an image of my future such that my circle becomes larger and larger slowly. In the future, I hope I¡Çll be able to sing songs such as the voice of forests and sounds of rain drops. What about you, Wataru?


T: Honestly, I just stood up on a start line. I will work on some projects such that artists, my customers and friends will surely be pleasured. In addition to it, it would be great if I can distribute my works abroad. Through music, I want to create networks between people, and be on the road to where I want to go.


Wataru Tanaka: Representative of Viajar Discos
Under the theme of which creates a large space to connect with others through music, he conducts recording, provides supports for sound systems in various events and manages an online radio station.

Kazusa Kawahara:
Under the theme, ¡ÈHarmony and Communication through Music,¡É she performs in live shows with some concepts such as peace, earth, nature, home to

Khaju Art Space



Khaju Art Space is a renovated 70-year-old house, where various people across genres and nationalities gather locally. The representative Makiko Tanaka is a person who boosts the exchanges of individualities with her cheeriness and pleasant resolution.


Khaju Art Space is run by Ms. Tanaka along with a pianist, an architect, creators who use the space, and their friends. Its activities include hosting various classes, planning/executing events/workshops and community related activities.


Originally, Ms. Tanaka had majored in textile weaving in art collage and then worked as a high school teacher and a teaching assistant. However, she gradually became unsure about continuing her creative activities with the constant anxiety in passing/failing craft shows.


¡ÈWhat is important is to bring people some happiness when they come across my works," she thought, and rented a 70-year-old house in Kamakura to set it as the center of her creative activities. That was in the winter of 1997. ¡ÈI was distressed because it was over the budget, and the house was quite worn down after 6 years of being deserted. But I thought my life would have no meaning if I couldn¡Çt live by my own values,¡É she looks back on her decision.


Ms.Tanaka thought about sharing the place which was too big for one person, and spoke about it in a caf? she frequents. Little by little, there came some share-mate candidates, such as a young architect and a pianist. Everyone pulled up the weeds and grass around the house and helped to restore the house.

During the first spring, they hosted an event called ¡ÈKhaju-Sai(fair)¡É, where numerous creative works were shown. The relationships with the local communities were deepened through experiencing and showing the creative process together. In this way, the Khaju has been expanding a wave of exchanges.

This year, Khaju goes into its 10th year, and it is expanding with activities such as Java dancing school, business training, etc. It is a character of Khaju that people from completely different genres would gather there. ¡ÈIt wasn¡Çt a special feeling that has brought me all the way here, but it was rather like, I decided to have a particular space, and then people would come join there. Then, it went with the tide for some time. When I looked back, there was a road created behind me¡É, states Ms. Tanaka.

In recent years, some international exchange has begun, and it enabled Ms.Tanaka to have a show in Russia and a symposium in Germany. These plans also spawned from communication between people who visited Khaju. ¡ÈI like such events because then I can write and send thank you cards after the events,¡É says Ms.Tanaka.
The relationship built through the 2005 symposium in Germany has been continuing. In October this year, there will be a ¡ÈTrave Art Festival 2007 in Kamakura¡É, which is an artistic exchange festival that connects cities across the border through art.
This festival not only shows some collaboration works and workshops of Japanese and German artists, but also joins another festival held by the a local Yuiga-hama shopping district.
Don¡Çt miss it, since this is going to be the best chance for you to see international and inter-genre works with the same eye level as the artists. Ms.Tanaka¡Çs journey continues as she weaves people, traditions, and communities into one union with her big smile.
_


Contact information on Khaju Art Space and Trave Art Festival 2007 in Kamakura:


57-1 Nikaido Kanakura-shi, Kanagawa ZIP:248-0002
tel/fax 0467-23-3663

khaju@pastel.ocn.ne.jp

http://khaju.com

http://1192kamakura.net/taf

A happy new year.
We spent 4th year from starting Tabismile. Last year we issued Tabismile 7th and 8th, distributor shop were expand to Shanghai in China, Madrid, Granada in Spain, and Croatia.
Also We had a open Mic event at Yoyogi park. We appreciate all corporation of interviewee, staffs, supporter and guests of event. We are very glad to make new friendship between travelers and business person beyond the distance. Such as we got email from reader of Spain. I introduced this her story on web radio.
Theme of Tabismile is " Traveling and Society". We continue to focus on person contribute to society and great traveler. Then I promise you bring big smiles to you.
Aim of this year are
# Tabismile 10th will be issued in May(5th anniversary)
# Finding real estate for Guest House Tabismile
# Take place events twice

Thanks
Jiro Tanaka