Bow Yamada ( Interview part 1)

Bow Yamada ( Interview part 1)_d0255328_1412396.jpg


Bau Yamada was born in Osaka in 1951. After leaving high school, he moved to the United States and became a local tour conductor. He discovered canoeing in Canada and became the first person to introduce canoeing to Japanese people after he came back.

Around 1990, he quit his job and started to visit more than 1,300 local governments by himself in order to appeal recovering chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) for prevention of depleting the ozone layer.

In January 1995, he went to Kobe soon after the Great Hanshin earthquake struck, then he became a representative of a NGO "Kobe Genki-mura" (assisted volunteer workers for supporting local people and restoring Kobe city) for 7 and a half years.

When the Nakhodka (Russian tanker) oil spill occurred in the Sea of Japan, he started to ladle by himself since the oil reached rocky shore and no machine could be used. This inspired other volunteers to take action on saving the sea with human power.

After the September 11 attacks, he raised contributions of tens of millions of yen as a coordinator of the Global Peace Campaign, in order to place peace ads to avoid war in major newspapers in the United States.

***********************************************************
Naoko Mitsuda: I'm always amazed by your way of thinking.
Please tell us why you have such a grand vision and what is your driving force for carrying out your projects?


Bau Yamada: If I think I have to reason and sum up my actions to answer your question. Well, I can think of too many occasions. Can you ask me more specifically?

NM: For example, with ordinary projects, we usually prepare by spending a long time planning and collecting people and money. On the other hand, disasters like earthquakes and oil spills happen out of the blue, on a large scale.

The great Hanshin earthquake gave a shock to all of the Japanese. I've heard that just before it happened, you were thinking of going back to canoeing work since your project of recovering CFCs brought satisfying results. Still, you went to Kobe straight away and started to work.

And before that, you started the activity of protecting the ozone layer because a person who you met through canoeing work told you that CFCs are causing the ozone depletion and asked you to help stopping it. You quit canoeing work right after you were asked, and started to visit local governments throughout the country by yourself to ask them to work on recovering CFCs for protecting the ozone layer.

Normally, like if it was me, I'd end up choosing to do nothing after I stand still thinking of what I'd have to do about my job and my circumstances. I'd think of an excuse that even if I didn't do it, someone would…

So I'd like to know how you could make immediate actions when disasters happened. Also, you always sought and found new ways of doing it by yourself. Please tell us why you have so much energy and leadership.


BY: In my case, I never plan for things for long term. I always decide just before it starts. But when I think "Ok, I'll do this!", it immediately takes shape and I know what I'll need for the project. Then, a long term project begins. Even a three-day project, it's long term to me. But I decide in a second. The moment I see or hear the happenings, I decide everything that I need to do.

NM: Haven't you ever acted according to a plan for your future in 5 or 10 years later?


BY: No, never! First of all, the earth isn't created that way and neither earth nor humans work in such long term plans. It's obvious that not everyone plans for such long term.

NM: When managing a company, it's always said to plan for 10 years, or 5 years.

BY: That is weird. When you work for a large company, you work for 30 years until retirement. You have a quota, need to increase sales, become a manager, etc. But to me, this kind of predictable life has no meaning. Let alone a life being controlled by a boss, like being told to go work in Hamamatsu from next week, has no meaning to me. So I have no plans for 3 years, or 5 years later.

NM: Have you never planned in your past, even in childhood? Didn't you ever think of going to a certain place for canoeing in a year or 3 years later?

BY: No, never. How come you think in such way? What can you do with such thoughts on such basis? Why do you need to plan when the earth isn't working in such a system? The large companies use such a method because it's easier to hire people, but I would never work for such companies. I know that we have different views.

NM: You were working in Canada as a travel agent when you were young. Weren't you working for a company then?

BY: I went to the west coast of Canada only because I wanted to be able to speak English. At that time, financially wealthy people started to travel individually, so major travel agents needed to provide not only package tours but also original made-to-order tours in order to meet the demand. So the major travel agents asked me to plan the optional tours as I liked.

I didn't have any plans day by day, and it wan't the kind of job that I had to be somewhere or do something according to a plan. I was not a tour guide, I was a planner of optional tours.

For planning, you have to have marketing sense to find out what people want, and good sense of perspective. It can be said about all the projects I've been involved in. Getting back to the subject I was talking about earlier, I never plan ahead like going somewhere in a year time, even with my private traveling. I don't even own a diary. So on the contrary, I respect people who can work for the same company for 30 years. I can never do that and I don't have such a quality within me.

NM: Do you ever think that it would natural and easier if you could live according to schedule like everyone else?

BY: I think your question includes the wrong context. It sounds grammatically correct, but it's based on a strange concept. When you say "it would be natural", you are suggesting that "it's wrong" to be the way I am.

I was talking with someone yesterday about the fact that I didn't attend the coming-of-age ceremony. I can't bare sitting in a hall with 100 or 200 people listening to the speeches of politicians for a few hours. I'd much rather go for a walk.

NM: When we look at your achievements, they all involve negotiating with public offices.
How could someone like you, who doesn't like the coming-of-age ceremonies, bring negotiations to conclusions with public officials with different ways of lifestyles and views?


BY: I know exactly how people who would say "it would be natural" think. Yet we can talk with respect to each other even when we think "what you're doing is full of mistakes".

NM: When you start an action, you don't think like "Let's just try to do the best with these 3 people here". When you worked for Kobe Genki-mura, you created a huge project involving so many people in no time. How come you don't have any limitations in your ideas and actions?

BY: I think it's because I don't decide on how big they should be.
I kept them open to whoever and whatever. There was no criteria on personalities or past experiences, anyone was welcome. Even gangs or yakuza. In Kobe, the local yakuza helped us too.

NM: You worked for Kobe Genki-mura for 7 and a half years, but you didn't decide to do it for 7 years when you started, right?

BY: I wasn't going to do it for so long. I actually wanted to leave after the first 2 weeks. When I left my house in Saitama, I told my family "I'll be back in 2 weeks". But there were more and more reasons for me to stay… Mainly because there weren't enough people.

NM: You mean there wasn't a person who was capable of putting the group together.

BY: "Putting together" is a slightly incorrect term for this, there was no one who could "control" the group. "Putting together" means to unify people, but my work was to control people.

NM: Was it like "a commander"?

BY: "A commander" also unifies people by telling them what to do, so controlling is the most appropriate word to describe what I did.
I had to welcome anyone who turned up and assign work. So there was no one who could control the work place and people other than myself.

NM: Kobe Genki-mura might have disintegrated in midair if you had said "I'm leaving!".

BY: In fact, it almost did a few times when I tried to leave.

NM: What was the reason for closing down Genki-mura?

BY: So I'd been wanting to quit since the second week after I started. There were many projects I wanted to do within that 7 and a half years, from time to time.

And one of the projects I did was "Kokoro-no Bunto (sharing the ember of the heart)".
It was about walking Japan with the ember from the atom-bombed site in Hiroshima to share it with the people on my way. I also had a project called "108 prayers" which was about climbing the 100 famous Japanese mountains and 8 holy mountains to pray. To do these projects, I deliberately left Kobe Genki-mura so that they could run without me.
More things happened during that time. It was the second year when I went to Fukui after the oil spill in the Sea of Japan happened.

NM: Well, I'd like to ask you about "Kokoro-no Bunto" first. What on earth made you think to walk through Japan with the ember of the atom-bomb in Hiroshima? If it was about taking the ember to Hiroshima, you could directly walk to Hiroshima after you received the ember, couldn't you?

BY: I think the reason "why I walked" is similar to the reason "why I have a grand vision", which you asked me at first. The theme of my life is seeking the value of my existence. I'm always thinking about "what is the originality of myself, which can only be done by myself?".

When something happens, the others might do in one way. But I'm doing in my way. And one of my ways was "walking". "Ladling" at the oil spill in Fukui was another original action of mine.

When you start doing things which can only be done by yourself, I think you can send out small messages. Then people realize that "There're things can only be done by ourselves!" and they come to you.

NM: When I heard that you walked to share the ember of the atom-bomb throughout Japan, I thought how romantic a person you are.

BY: This is a long story… I think it was exactly 4 years after the Great Hanshin earthquake struck. Around the same time it happened on January 17th, I sat on the spot where I pitched my tent as soon as I entered Kobe. There I announced to everyone that "I really want to leave Kobe now". But they were persuading me to stay for a little longer. Though I decided to leave.

It's very important for us to make decisions. Soon after I made my decision, the word "Hiroshima" came into my mind. I didn't know what it meant, but I felt like there will be something if I went to Hiroshima. So I went back to the office and waited for the phone to ring.

The first person who called was Tetora Nagasaki. He is a scenario writer. I asked him "Tetora, you have something on your mind that you should tell me about something, don't you?" He said "Let me just talk about business first", and after he finished talking about business he said "I don't really understand what you were talking about". So I repeated to him that "You have something on your mind lately, don't you?" Then he said, "Well then, I recently saw the ember of atom-bombed of Hiroshima in Matsumoto, Nagano".

After I heard about this ember, everything went smoothly. I arranged the day to visit Matsumoto to receive the ember and asked media reporters to come there.

But I didn't really know what I should do with the ember then. At the interview with the media, I made a statement that "Since this is the last year of the 20th century (year 2000), I'd like the people who receive the ember to use it for some kinds of events at the end of this year". Then I started to walk.

If you were familiar with that area, you'd know that there is the mountain pass of Shiojiri on the way to Kofu from Matsumoto. I walked all the way to the mountain pass and when I reached the Suwa Grand Shrine, the ember was dying out. So I went away from the wind, into the side of the shrine. I was carrying the ember in a narrow paper lantern, then I heard a voice saying "I want to go home" from the bottom of the lantern.

When I heard it, I couldn't help crying. I was so upset because the ember was saying it wanted to go back on the day after it had departed. I arranged the media to report. The buddhist monks held a ceremony and about 50 friends of mine came from all over the country for this walk. I thought if I have to return I must at least enjoy the hot spring of the lake Suwa. So I started to walk again and then I started to understand the meaning of it.

I knew a monk in Hiroshima who was always helping me, so I called him and said "I found an ember of the atom-bomb of Hiroshima in Matsumoto, Nagano. Yesterday, I was told that this ember came from Hoshino-mura (outland) in Fukuoka, not Hiroshima. But now, the ember is saying that it wants to go home. I'm thinking that maybe it wants to go back to Hiroshima. Can you check if there's an ember in Hiroshima?"

As I assumed, there wasn't any ember in Hiroshima. However, this was after I made the announcement to walk to Hokkaido with the ember, so I was compelled to walk to the Hokkaido government office in Sapporo. Then I walked back to Yamaguchi. I occasionally used bicycles, but I walked mostly to Yamaguchi sharing the ember with people who requested.




To Part2

Japanese version

by legacyofcayce | 2013-10-16 14:23 | Interview