自由 Freedom

The first and last time that Mr Sakuramoto travelled abroad was in 1976, to China, right after the death of Mao Zedong. And even that trip was organized by the Yamagishi association — he was already living on a jikkenchi at the time.

Mr Kaneko, who works at the noodle factory, travels occasionally to Korea with his wife; but they only do so with other members of Kasugayama jikkenchi, to visit their Korean counterparts.

I asked Yuuki, the informal “boss” of the pig farm and one of my tokkoh facilitators, how many days of vacation does he get in a year: “None.” Apart from his weekly day off, which he occasionally has to scrap if the job so requires, he gets up at 5 am every single day. For him, travel prospects are limited to the occasional stint in some other jikkenchi elsewhere in the country, or the visit of another country’s organisation.

I suppose travelling outside of the organisation for the simple purpose of tourism and leisure should be possible by working for a while in the outside world in order to earn the money necessary. But it doesn’t seem to be a very common occurence.

Joining the Yamagishi Association can ressemble entering a monastery, in more ways than one. In essence, it is about focusing less on one’s personal satisfaction and pleasure, and seeing oneself as part of a larger group with a noble purpose. It is also about binding one’s fate to that of those other people in the community, and rejecting selfishness.

“The only truly good society is that in which everyone is happy,” as the motto goes.

If building the future of mankind is at stake, is spending money on a trip to Hawaii or Morocco really that important?