The place where I live is really nice, so please come and visit. I want Yosano to remain an attractive place that people can still say the same about 100 years from now.

This episode of Monosus looks at the "yardsticks" of people connected to Monosus. This time, we have Hisakazu Ariyoshi and Yosuke Takaoka, representatives of the general incorporated association PLACE in Yosano Town, Kyoto Prefecture.

Yosano Town, located in the northern part of Kyoto Prefecture facing the Aso Sea where Amanohashidate is located, is a major producer of silk fabric "Tango Chirimen" and is also a thriving agricultural region producing rice and vegetables. Based in "nest", a renovated former soy sauce warehouse, the couple support activities that bring new appeal to Yosano Town under the slogan "people meeting people = possibilities are born".

Ariyoshi and Takaoka first met at Field Huck YOSANO , an event jointly organized by the Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences (IAMAS) , PLACE, UCHICO, and Monosus last year. The event brought together engineers and designers from around the country to identify issues and possibilities in the town, develop ideas, and create prototypes.

Since then, we have had the opportunity to deepen our relationship with Ariyoshi and Takaoka, who have visited Monosus' satellite office and the Food Hub Project 's base in Kamiyama Town, Tokushima Prefecture. Following on from last year, Food Hub Manager Manabe was asked to give a lecture at the Yosa no Mirai University run by PLACE, and held a workshop in August.

Both of them are CEOs in their day jobs, while also actively working to develop the town. Even in their busy schedules, Ariyoshi and Takaoka are relaxed and always smiling.
In the first part, Manabe asks them how they came to return to the town where they were born and raised, and what their thoughts are about their efforts to develop the town.
(Interviewer: Yoko Omura)

Returning to Yosano, the town where they were born and raised: How the couple began developing the town

Manabe
Once again, Ariyoshi-san and Takaoka-san were born and raised in Yosano, right? What is your relationship like, senior and junior?

Ariyoshi-san
That's right. We both grew up in Yosano and moved out for a while before coming back. When I was in college, my father, who runs a furniture store, got sick, so I came back to help out, and that's why I came back. I was in a band and doing creative work in Kyoto.

Manabe
Did you originally aspire to be a musician?

Ariyoshi-san
While studying sculpture at university, I played bass in a light music band. The vocalist had high ambitions and wanted to become a major star, so he performed at live music venues. He wanted to be a musician and an artist.

Ariyoshi-san

Since I came back to Yosano, I didn't have furniture deliveries every day, so I usually held art classes for local children or was asked to come as a lecturer to an elementary school in Ine (Ine Town, a town facing the Sea of Japan north of Yosano Town) and serve as the homeroom teacher for sixth graders.

Takaoka
I often meet people who say they were taught by Ariyoshi-san.

Ariyoshi-san
Yes, a customer. I always went to school in a light truck, and in the past it was okay, so I would put my kids on the back of the truck and go to the sea and let them swim or draw pictures. It was fun.

Manabe
That's out now (laughs)! Have you been to Yosano ever since?

Ariyoshi-san
I was planning to go to Tokyo once my father got better, but I've stayed in Yosano ever since.

Manabe
I see. How did you end up returning to Yosano?

Takaoka
After graduating from university, I worked at a real estate company in Osaka. I worked there for about two years. But the economy got really bad. The entire Kansai branch was forced to withdraw. After that, I was given leave of absence and had six months of free time. I went to the Hello Work office once a month, but there was no job I wanted, so I gained a variety of experiences during that time.

Takaoka

Manabe
Didn't you go back to Yosano right away?

Takaoka
Yes. My father passed away when I was in elementary school, and my grandmother ran a lumber store. She hadn't asked me to take over the business, so I had no intention of returning to Yosano right away.

During the six months I had free time, I took a real estate qualification exam, met various people, and made connections. In the meantime, I returned to Yosano Town, and I began to realize that there were things I could communicate because I was in the countryside, and that I could do interesting things that I couldn't do in the city.

Manabe
Where did your relationship begin?

Food Hub Project Manager Manabe

Takaoka
We've been doing business with Ariyoshi since my grandfather's generation, and we used to buy furniture from him.

Ariyoshi-san
My grandmother brought the couple, who had just gotten married. The first time we met, we were just regular customers. But then we became a team in the Junior Chamber (JC). At that time, Yosano Town had not yet merged, so Iwataki Town, where he lives, and Nodagawa Town, where I live, were neighboring towns, but we worked together on town development, and both he and I served as chairpersons.
*In 2006, the towns of Iwataki, Nodagawa, and Kayo in Yosa County were merged to form Yosano Town in Yosa County.
But that kind of town development activity ends when you reach the age of 40. From the age of 40 onwards, working hard at your job and increasing employment through your work will lead to town development.

Manabe
So you've graduated for now.

Ariyoshi-san
But it's difficult to double the number of employees at your own company in a short period of time, and town development is a slow and steady process.
Three years ago, when he graduated from the Junior Chamber, we started talking about how we had to do something.

Takaoka
Ariyoshi-san is a lively guy who will start eating yakiniku at 2 or 3 in the morning (laughs). That's how we all drank together until late into the night and talked about the future.

Ariyoshi-san
After all, it's fun when there are lots of lively people. That sort of thing spreads, or is it contagious? It's no fun if the town is gradually losing people and it gets dark.

Turning town development into a money-making activity

Ariyoshi-san
I'm a furniture store owner and he's a lumber dealer, so I felt a sense of crisis about the increasing number of vacant houses in town. The number of classmates for our children was also decreasing. I have three children, and the oldest child had 36 classmates. The youngest child, six years younger, had about 17 classmates. That's less than half the number. It's terrible that something like that happens in just five or six years. When I looked further into the age range, there were none at all.

Manabe
ah…

Ariyoshi-san
When I thought about it, there were no babies in the neighborhood. As we talked about what we should do, we discovered that there were many old houses and buildings that had been left abandoned because there were no successors. We thought it would be interesting to do something there. This coincided with the town's policy, and we began to carry out various activities under the commission of the town.

Manabe
You launched PLACE as a general incorporated association. How many years ago was that?

Ariyoshi-san
That was three years ago. Until now, we at the Junior Chamber of Commerce had been paying money to volunteer for town development. However, we are also business owners, and we felt that we needed to do activities that would generate income.

Manabe
Isn't the Yosanomirai University administration office also having a hard time?

Takaoka
For now, I am managing to get by with help from acquaintances and people who have completed their work as local revitalization volunteers in Yosano, but starting this year I am hoping to recruit people to help run the business.

Manabe
The administrative work is quite hard.

Ariyoshi-san
We decided to learn from note , which is working on revitalizing old houses and revitalizing local areas, because we wanted to learn the know-how and advanced examples of management that we lack. We will learn the know-how for half a year, and although we at PLACE will do our best, we need to increase the number of our allies and make them work hard as well, and we need to change things.

Manabe
Are you planning on utilizing vacant houses now?

Ariyoshi-san
We have just begun. We renovated a soy sauce warehouse, named it nest, and will use it as our base of operations.

Nest is a renovated soy sauce warehouse. The Aso Sea spreads out in the distance.

The chalk art on the blackboard at nest will be created by Ariyoshi to coincide with the event.

Takaoka
We occasionally have it used as a rental space for events, but it can be quite difficult.

Ariyoshi-san
Sales are tough with just nest, but the rental business for event equipment such as tents is surprisingly doing well. I think it would be interesting to hold weddings outdoors at nest or rent out equipment for events.

Manabe
Last year, you held a field hack at the nest venue. How was it? Can you be frank about the good and the bad?

Last year's Field Hack

Ariyoshi-san
Relatively speaking, it was good.

Takaoka
Positive people voluntarily put in the effort to do good things for the community, and it gets to the point where everyone feels good about it, but it's hard to go any further than that, or rather, the current situation is that it's impossible to go any further than that... I think it's good in the sense that it gives people the opportunity to meet people through these events.

Ariyoshi-san
I think there are still some issues to be addressed, but I had my son, a high school senior, participate in the final recital. I think it had a big impact on young people. There were local people in their 40s and 50s who came, and it seemed like it had a big impact on them.

On the last day of Field Huck YOSANO, a presentation was held at the nest, where locals gathered.

Even in this rural area, people like this can come, come up with such interesting ideas, and have them carried out in their own town. I think this leads to people realizing that their own region is actually quite amazing.

After all, there aren't many people in the countryside, so I think there aren't enough brains. Even if we do something, there's one more thing missing...

There is no time or opportunity to think about it that much. It is said that "three heads are better than one," but it is difficult for the three people to develop something. However, I realized that having one outside person can make something amazing.

The theme of the field hack is "hacking the potential of the region," but I realized that Yosano has a lot of potential. After completing the field hack, I was able to have a variety of perspectives when thinking about my local area. I researched things myself and did things myself. My perspective on the same things has changed.

We want our town to be an attractive place for our children to return to.

Ariyoshi-san
Speaking of the sense of distance between the countryside and the city, Yosano Town is about an hour and a half away from Kyoto city by car, so we don't feel the distance at all. But for people here, the distance between the countryside and the city is still very real. To use the analogy of the frog in the well, they still have the sense of being in the well, thinking, "It's fine the way it is."

But I think if we had a more interconnected and global perspective, that kind of thing wouldn't happen. I think the same is true for Takaoka-kun, but I've had standards since I was little that told me I had to be a certain level compared to other people.

Takaoka
Things have really changed now, but in our grandmothers' day, when we went out in the car, we often didn't wear our formal clothes, but would change clothes on the way out.

Manabe
very?

Ariyoshi-san
If you act like you're rich, you'll be ostracized.

Takaoka
That's not the case anymore though.

Ariyoshi-san
You have to appear smart to a certain extent, but if you're too smart, you'll be criticized. After all, you're different. You have to eliminate things that are different. That's how you maintain the community.

Manabe
That's where self-governance is stabilized.

Ariyoshi-san
Yes. The smaller the community, the more like that it feels. One of the reasons I didn't want to come back to the countryside was because I hated the bad things about it. I'm this type of person (referring to myself) and I'm considered quite odd.

Manabe
Well, I think it has changed quite a bit (laughs).

Ariyoshi-san
When I was little, I used to play with dolls with my sister, and although I look like this now, I was really cute. But as always, I was bullied by older kids.

Manabe
I can't imagine it.

Ariyoshi-san
I was in the same class as Yuki-chan from Masa Farm (the farm that provided the theme for Field Hack), but when I was little I only hung out with girls, played with Licca-chan dolls, and was good at drawing girls' manga. I enjoyed it when girls told me I was amazing.

But that kind of thing is rejected. If a boy uses words like a girl, he is bullied, and he fights against that. He can do more, but he doesn't. I wonder if that was my childhood.

I could do more, but I'll leave it at this. I hate living like that.
It’s a lot of fun now though (laughs).

Manabe
Now you're freed.

Ariyoshi-san
It's so much fun right now.

Manabe
What was that turning point?

Ariyoshi-san
Of course, it was going to art school.

Takaoka
That's big.

Ariyoshi-san
It made me think that it's okay to say things like this.

Takaoka
I wonder if there is something conservative about Kyoto Prefecture as a whole... Yesterday, Food Hub's head chef, Hosoi-san, told me that Shikoku has a pilgrimage culture and that's why it's open.

Manabe
There's a constant flow of people from outside, coming in and out. If you're in a town in Shikoku you don't really notice it, but in Kamiyama, not a day goes by without a pilgrim, and there's a culture of showing hospitality to pilgrims, known as "osettai."

But aren't you two very open-minded? I think an open mentality is very important, and I try to act with that same mindset, and I really get that feeling from you two.

Ariyoshi-san
It's okay to be open about it, so I'm being open about it (laughs).

Manabe
When you say things became good, does that mean after you became a student?

Ariyoshi-san
Yes, I was repressed until I was in my third year of high school when I went to college. But the older I get, the more fun it becomes. I tell my kids that they may worry about a lot of things, but when they become adults, it's fun, so they should study what they like.

Manabe
Is there anything you want your children to do when they come back to Yosano after they go outside?

Ariyoshi-san
I don't want to die in Yosano, and I want to live in many different places. But if my family is going to continue to live in the town where I was born, I don't want it to become deserted.

That's why my original desire to start PLACE was to make it a fun place.
I'm sure Takaoka-kun had no intention of dying in his hometown.

Takaoka
That's right. I don't necessarily want my children to come back. If they ever want to come back, they're welcome.

Ariyoshi-san
I guess it's just that it would be good if the town was attractive when people wanted to come back. So I want people to go where they want and live their lives how they want. But I want it to be a place where people can say, "I live here, it's amazing, so come and visit." And when people come, they can tell me the food is good, too. It doesn't have to be high-end. If the town was full of things to be proud of, like how the rice balls are delicious, or how the view from here at Masa Farm is great, I think more people would stay.

View from Masa Farm

With that in mind, the Food Hub lectures and field hacks are aimed at showing everyone that if you want to farm, you can do farming like this, and that there are other forms of output. We've come to love Kamiyama, and we think the way everyone there thinks is great.

Takaoka
We also had a complex about being from the countryside. We went to the city for university and wanted to erase the fact that we came from the countryside. But when we came back and went to Kamiyama, our perspective changed. Now, as we have various exchanges in Tokyo and Kyoto, we have the confidence to promote our own region and town.

In the past, I used to brag about myself because there was no McDonald's in Yosano. But now I feel the exact opposite, because I have more things to brag about and I want to be more confident about them.

Manabe
It's true that there are no fast food restaurants in Yosano.

Takaoka
It doesn't work as a market.
But through my encounters with so many things, I've come to understand that there is value in things that are the polar opposite of the city. Kamiyama's existence is very fresh and innovative.

Ariyoshi-san
How you present yourself is also very important. I think that good looks and good content, essence and the outside, should be one and the same, and I think it's good to try to look cool. I think coolness is the starting point for communicating with many people.

Now that I'm 50, I think this especially, but in the past I thought it was okay to look cool on the surface, but it's important that both are good. Food Hub has an unusual presentation that goes beyond just looking good, and we ask people who know how to make a store to design it. It shows the quality of the local ingredients. I think that's what makes something loved for a long time.

That kind of awareness is necessary in the countryside. Even if it means choosing to get rid of something, rather than getting rid of that, we want to take another look at signs that are no good, but that are good, and make our town a wonderful place even 100 years from now.

Manabe
Personally, I like design, so I've been studying it. In a broader sense, design is not just about what's on the surface.

Ariyoshi-san
Design is a matter of thinking.

Manabe
Yes, if I talk too much about it it becomes a philosophical discussion, but it's closer to a way of thinking.

Ariyoshi-san
It would be a shame to not be able to take advantage of the many wonderful things about the countryside, so we at PLACE also want to be conscious of the design and presentation of the place.

(To be continued)