Ayo Chan, a 2011 Sylff fellow at Peking University and one of 20 participants in the first Sylff Leaders Workshop, reflects on his journey in Japan during two eight-day sessions of the 2018-19 Sylff Leaders Workshop.

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I think that life is a journey on which we are presented not just one path but a series of opportunities to experience and be experienced by others, each one of which makes us wiser, stronger, and in most cases happier. I am very thankful for having this fortunate opportunity to participate in the inaugural Sylff Leaders Workshop. There is no doubt that Japan is an internationally renowned hub for workshops, conferences, and other academic activities, and Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto are popular choices for hosting international events. However, this Sylff Leaders Workshop was such a unique experience in terms of not only intellectual exchange among Sylff fellows from a wide range of personal and professional backgrounds but also in the thoughtful arrangements that allowed us to immerse ourselves in the culture, customs, and traditions of the Land of the Rising Sun.

I still remember the excitement during my flight from Singapore to Osaka to join the fall session of the workshop in 2018. As a lover of the Sengoku Period in Japanese history, I always feel excited to visit the Kansai region, where various daimyos and heroes fought and sacrificed themselves to restore harmony, peace, and order 400 years ago. I arrived late but managed to wake up early the next morning to visit Osaka Castle. The castle was built by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a legendary daimyo who was born to a peasant family but eventually succeeded Oda Nobunaga to become the ruler of all Japan. I was amused by the castle’s picturesque gardens and historic architecture, and the stunning view at the top of the castle tower. The renowned farewell poem with which Hideyoshi ended his legendary life was also on exhibit: “Appearing like dew, vanishing like dew—such is my life. Even Naniwa (Osaka)’s splendor is a dream within a dream.” Indeed, the impermanence of being is a major theme of Japanese Zen.

From Osaka, it took us an hour and a half by bus to travel to Sasayama in Hyogo Prefecture, where the fall session of the workshop was mainly conducted. Sasayama is a small, quiet, and beautiful castle town surrounded by hills with a scenic natural landscape. Under the theme of “The Future of Food Production in 2030,” the workshop aimed at equipping us with approaches to envision a better future for the world and providing a systematic framework to approach conflicting scenarios and to bridge different stakeholders toward common goals.

Despite the intensive schedule of the workshop, we were given some free time to explore the town and visit small shops and houses with centuries-old wooden architecture. As the tallest structure in the town, Sasayama Castle was built under orders of Tokugawa Ieyasu, who succeeded Hideyoshi as the de facto leader of Japan in the 16th century. I was told that the castle’s architectural style was similar to Nijo Castle in Kyoto, and it is exceptional to see such a luxurious castle design outside of Kyoto.

In this historical town gifted with good quality agricultural land and environment, we had the privilege of trying different types of Japanese delicacies with local ingredients. While it was our great pleasure and honor to have French-Japanese fusion, full-course welcoming dinner with Sasayama Mayor Takaaki Sakai, having a Japanese-style barbeque with wild boar meat, black soybeans, and Japanese yams and drinking home-brewed sake was also great fun. We spent a few days in Sasayama before moving to Kyoto and Tokyo, but the tranquility and peacefulness of Sasyama was deeply rooted in my mind in the remaining days.

Chan, center, with Sasayama Mayor Takaaki Sakai, second from left.

Maiko experience in Kyoto.

The spring session was conducted in Beppu in Oita Prefecture on the island of Kyushu, the southwestern part of the Japanese archipelago. Beppu is a famous hot spring resort in Japan, and naturally onsens became one of the biggest highlights for this session. It was a long but joyful journey from Fukuoka to Beppu. The weather was great, and the views of coastlines, forests, and mountains of Kyushu were magnificent. Also, the Sylff Association Secretariat thoughtfully prepared some culture tips and fun facts about onsens to share with us. I could feel the enthusiasm in the coach when we were told that the baths still maintained ancient traditions, including bathing naked with strangers!

Another distinctive cultural highlight that is not easily found outside the country is fugu cuisine. Because of pufferfish’s deadly, toxic parts, the preparation and cooking of fugu are strictly regulated and licensed by the government, and only seasoned chefs are qualified to do the work. From fugu skin and fugu karaage to fugu sashimi and fugu shabu-shabu, we celebrated our successful teamwork and friendships with one of the most dangerous dishes in Japanese cuisine.

The final presentations took place at the beautiful campus of Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (APU), located on the top of a mountain in the Jumonjibaru area of Beppu. This was an ideal choice, since the university is one of the most internationalized tertiary institutions in Japan. This echoed the purpose of this workshop to nurture a new generation of leaders who could interact with and learn from people from a variety of cultures and backgrounds.

We were delighted to present our key takeaways, thoughts, and stories to Mr. Yohei Sasakawa, Chairman of the Nippon Foundation, APU President Haruaki Deguchi, and other distinguished guests and to have a dialogue session with Mr. Sasakawa. I spent considerable time in Myanmar where Mr. Sasakawa is well-known in the field of charity and education, development, humanitarian assistance, and the peace process. I had visited a school donated by the foundation in Kayah, a landlocked state in Myanmar, and was very pleased to learn of his views on and insights into the country’s development.

Chan’s final presentation at APU.

Words are not enough to express my deep gratitude to the Sylff Association Secretariat at the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research and to the Nippon Foundation for the warm generosity and hospitality throughout the workshop. “Ichi-go ichi-e” is a saying in Japanese that describes the treasured but unrepeatable moment of every get-together. While we will never have the same kind of meeting again, I do look forward to catching up with my dearest Sylff friends again soon.

Anna Plater-Zyberk, a 2014 Sylff fellow at Jagiellonian University and one of 20 participants in the first Sylff Leaders Workshop, held in fall 2018 and spring 2019, gives her impressions of the Visioning and Road Mapping methodology used during the discussions at the workshop.

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It was nearly a year ago that 20 fellows from all over the world came to Japan for the first Sylff Leaders Workshop. We were a highly diverse group in terms of nationality, academic background, and occupation, but we also had some things in common. First, earlier in our career, Sylff helped us to achieve some of our academic goals, and, second, we were all focused on helping our respective communities.

My adventure with Sylff started in 2014 when I was struggling to finish my PhD thesis. This was particularly difficult as simultaneously I had to work full time. It is really thanks to Sylff funding that I was able to finish my doctoral thesis, obtain the degree, and move on to pursue a career at the Polish Academy of Sciences. Now, once again, I am truly thankful to Sylff for an amazing experience offered to us during the Leaders Workshop.

The workshop was composed of two one-week-long residential sessions (one in September and one in April) which took place in Japan, as well as reading assignments in between the sessions. The workshop’s key topic, “The Future of Food Production,” turned out to be an excellent field for a strategy thinking exercise and our further deliberations. The topic was preselected in such a way that none of the fellows was an expert on the subject matter. This made it easier to work without any preconceptions and to engage all of us in vibrant and stimulating discussions.

During our session in September, which took place mostly in Sasayama, thanks to excellent facilitators from German-based Foresight Intelligence, we learned about Visioning and Road Mapping methodology. We applied a back-casting approach to the food production theme. This exciting planning methodology started with defining a desirable goal in the future and then working backwards to identify the actions needed to link that desirable future to the present.

In other words, we started with a desirable goal set in 2030 and worked step by step back to the present. For the purpose of the exercise, we adopted two-year time intervals: 2028, 2026, 2024, and so forth. With every step we had to ask ourselves what needed to happen at that stage and what factors could prevent us from achieving our 2030 goal. Again and again, we brainstormed, drawing on our diverse backgrounds and extensive work experience. At the end of the exercise, when we reached 2018, we had a detailed work plan with actions scheduled until 2030.

Learning about Visioning and Road Mapping methodology.

I come from Poland, which in Japan is mostly recognised as the homeland of Chopin or Maria Skłodowska-Curie. Apart from these two extremely talented and influential persons, Poland is also known for its turbulent past. The country’s tumultuous history has heavily affected our behaviour, making us skilful improvisers and good short-term planners but less engaged in long-term planning activities. In our contemporary, strongly interconnected world, this attitude is significantly hindering our development. Thus, I found the back-casting methodology and other long-term strategy building tools extremely interesting and useful in furthering my work.

Apart from our stay in Sasayama, renowned for its picturesque landscapes and delicious food, including black soybeans, sake, and tea, during the September session we were also able to experience the stunning beauty of Kyoto and the vibrant capital of Japan, Tokyo. During our final presentation in the offices of the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research, fellows presented their vision of the future and discussed the main challenges that lay ahead.

Intensive group discussion in the spring session.

The second residential part of the workshop took place in April 2019 in Beppu on the island of Kyushu. This beautiful town located in Oita Prefecture is renowned for its natural hot springs and delicious, steam-cooked food. Upon reaching Fukuoka we were extremely happy to meet other fellows, facilitators, and the Sylff team again. The training part was hosted by Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University. This time we were asked to come up with concrete project proposals that would strengthen global food security, broaden ethical dimension, or raise awareness in the area of food production.

The fellows came up with a number of extremely interesting applications ranging from a mobile phone app linking food grown by ethical producers to a network of vegetable community gardens set up for victims of sexual violence. Our projects were reviewed by Dr. Steven McGreevy, an expert in environmental science and associate professor at the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN). His expertise was crucial and helped to both ensure the projects’ relevance and broaden our perspective.

The Sylff Leaders Workshop was an amazing opportunity to challenge ourselves in a truly friendly and stimulating environment. I enjoyed every moment and every discussion with other Sylff fellows, Foresight Intelligence facilitators, and participating experts. For me, the key thought that came up during our workshop was the growing understanding that whatever bad happens locally has global consequences but that whatever good happens locally will have global applications only if we make a joint effort. In our interconnected world the global perspective is no longer a choice, it is an obligation and an opportunity. The amazing Sylff network provides us with tools to share best practices and to transform our initiatives into globally relevant projects.

The session in Beppu concluded with a number of exciting cultural activities set in the stunningly beautiful sceneries of Kyushu. We participated in a Buddhist ceremony at the Monjusen-ji and visited Dazaifu, including the ruins of the Mizuki and Ono Fortress.

The Sylff Leaders Workshop offered us a unique chance to see the most picturesque places in Japan and to immerse ourselves in the stunningly beautiful Japanese culture, not to mention the Japanese cuisine. Thanks to the truly friendly and hardworking staff of the Sylff Secretariat who were our dear hosts and guides, we had a unique chance to gain new insights into the incredibly rich and diverse life of Japan. After this amazing experience we developed strong bonds, and it was really hard for all of us to say good-bye to a group of friends, as well as to the Land of Cherry Blossoms.

Participants of the workshop in front of cherry blossoms at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University.