門司港と下関：予測不能な時代のミニマリズムMoji Port and Shimonoseki: Minimalism in an Unpredictable Age

Today I am moving between Moji Port, Shimonoseki, and back to Moji Port. Until now, minimalism has drawn attention as one Japanese way of living, but beyond the idea of simply reducing possessions to live richly, in today’s world it is about the necessity of responding instantly and flexibly to unpredictable risks in order to survive. In fact, the equipment I currently use on my research travels is so lightweight and compact that most people are surprised I can move around so extensively with just this gear. It feels as if I were traveling with the luggage I would take to meet a friend. Recently, this tendency has grown even stronger. To keep moving while avoiding sudden natural disasters such as torrential rains and typhoons, what matters most is being prepared and mentally ready to move immediately. First and foremost, this depends on optimizing the tools I use to increase my speed of movement. In other words, by optimizing tools, then adapting my mindset and lifestyle accordingly, this cycle of trial and error seems to me the thing modern society needs most.

For example, yesterday when the news announced that a tropical depression had suddenly turned into a typhoon and was landing off Kagoshima, the initial projected path showed it crossing northern Kyushu and then hitting western Japan, Hokuriku, and the Kanto region. Originally, I had planned to take care of errands in Tokyo today and return to Osaka on Friday night, but the moment I saw that projected path, I canceled my Tokyo plans and postponed my return to Osaka until Saturday. After carefully watching the typhoon’s track, I saw that northern Kyushu would be almost unaffected, as the typhoon shifted course toward Oita, Shikoku, southern Kansai, and Kanto, so I decided to stay in northern Kyushu. As a result, yesterday there was only light rain, and today the sky is a pleasant blue, with strong winds but no real impact, allowing me to spend the day comfortably.

Furthermore, Japan is one of the world’s leading disaster-prone nations, with about 20 percent of all global earthquakes of magnitude 6 or higher occurring here. This means that beyond presenting Japanese lifestyle ideas through culture, it feels that a new era is approaching when Japan, as a leading disaster-prone country, and the Japanese people, who have lived here with long-accumulated wisdom, will draw global attention for their new lifestyle models. For instance, while one can somewhat avoid torrential rains and typhoons by predicting cloud movements in detail, earthquakes are different. When moving from hotel to hotel to conduct research, earthquakes can strike suddenly, but by minimizing luggage, I can still respond. In fact, once I decide to check out, I can leave my accommodation in under five minutes. This essentially means I can move house in under five minutes. Living with such mobility allows new ideas to arise continuously, which brings tremendous benefits to me as I research invisible layers of ancient history. For this reason, although I decide on a general direction of “roughly investigating this area,” I rarely fix a detailed schedule, instead determining my destinations moment by moment while facing my own inner state. I also almost never book hotels in advance except on the same day, and sometimes I spontaneously shift to a different region. In this way, I feel that the cumulative act of continuing whatever can be done in each moment is the most important element of this new lifestyle.

Today, while moving around and speaking with various people, something especially left an impression on me. Shimonoseki is located in Yamaguchi Prefecture, and this area once belonged to the Choshu Domain, which after the Meiji era produced many politicians and key figures. In a café, I saw two men in suits hand their business cards to the owner, and they turned out to be secretaries to Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) politicians. The female owner told me she was deeply connected to Yamaguchi’s LDP support network and also provided political backing. In a sense, this represents a modern extension of Yamaguchi’s tradition since the Meiji period. The connection between Yamaguchi Prefecture and the LDP carries great meaning for understanding Japan’s political history. The figure of Shinzo Abe is particularly symbolic, and although he was born in Tokyo, his family registry is in Yamaguchi, representing the last remnants of a lineage of power maintained since the Choshu Domain. However, after they left, a local woman in her 80s murmured, “The LDP is finished.” This struck me because for someone in Yamaguchi to make such a statement is a serious matter. The fact that locals are beginning to feel this way signals that the long-standing power structure dating back to Choshu is becoming difficult to sustain, and I see this as a harbinger of a major shift in Japan’s history since the Meiji Restoration. Since the postwar period, Japan has effectively continued under one-party dominance, but in reality, that dominance was maintained through factions. Particularly in the 2010s, when the Seiwa-kai faction led by Shinzo Abe grew stronger, the entanglement of the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and other bureaucratic silos with the structures of diplomacy and security accelerated Japan’s overall decline, ultimately bringing about today’s extreme exhaustion of the Japanese people. In other words, this is a man-made disaster. Walking through the streets of Yamaguchi, one sees little vitality, but whether this conservative region—long supportive of the LDP—changes or not is where the next transformation of Japan is visibly emerging.

From Moji Port to Shimonoseki is just a five-minute ferry ride, but the port name Karato (唐戸) in Shimonoseki historically refers to a settlement of people who had crossed the sea, a site where people tied to the continent and the peninsula came and went. Walking around, I could feel the presence of people with ties to many different lands still living in the town, which made me realize how much this land functioned as a gateway. And as I continue my travels, I feel that in modern times, the question is strongly posed: how and where does one create richness in life? Yet unlike before the pandemic, richness is no longer about which country or region you are in, but about finding a place where you can genuinely spend time richly, restoring your spiritual energy there, and then moving forward again. In the face of ultrafast-flowing modern time, and at the same time the slow, almost timeless flow of another kind of time, the ability to live within both extremes and move instantly is what I feel will make a person strong in the world ahead. Sitting in a lovely café where the sunlight shifts across white walls, I sense this truth vividly—it is, indeed, mono no aware (もののあはれ).