Kengo Yoshida is a Japanese musician, instrumentalist, plastic artist, and dome architecture researcher. Also known as the developer and godfather of "
Pachika".
After working on "Gourd Market", he is now living off the grid in a forest of Aso in Japan with his partner Nobu.
I tweet what I want on Twitter.
One day... it's shot into my place.
Sometimes even cash.
The letters and DMs attached say encouragement for the Gourd Market.
I wish I could publish them all someday.
I call them "treasure chests" and keep carefully.
Sometimes... I look into it and charge my "thank you"... I think I should call it my charger...
More than half of the visitors are Koreans. Lots of kids too.
The Koreans returned to their home once, but after they heard that the market building camp was extended for another month, some of them started to come back again.
Many people come and go, so I don't have the total number of participants, but there were probably about 60 Koreans joined.
Actually we were supposed to have about 40 people from Taiwan, but their presidential election started... and after that we had to cancel the camp for the Covid pandemic.
This Gourd Market building camp started on December 25th of the year before last.
It will soon be a year and a half.
More than 50 people from Korea came and spent two months, and when March rolled around, the world was in a Covid frenzy😞
The Gourd Market building camp 🏕 ended there.
From then... until today, there are only those who remain.
We're going all out to develop the Gourd Market.
Because I feel that the world is facing a crisis.
"This is different from the past" is ringing in my head.
All sides... I feel like I'm surrounded 360 degrees.
We can't go on like this. The global environment is deteriorating at an alarming rate.
There are so many endangered species.
What a horrible thing to say... 40,000 species of plants and animals are going extinct in one year!!
That's terrible news. In my mind, it's a life expectancy sentence.
But... Humans, the endangered species, don't take it seriously😞
If we remain like that, it will come... or I should say it's already here.
Please everyone, let's start together!! let's build it together!!
That's what "Gourd Market" is all about...
I can't get this through to people... I know that's reasonable though😞
In the midst of such a situation... it's fun that I can't give up at all.
On the contrary... I keep feeling a clear sense of "living" right here, right now.
This is something that has never happened before.
I think this feeling may be an instinct of life in the age of destruction⁉️
If that's the case... I start to think... let's see how the instincts are manifested.
This is so interesting.
Cuz it's something I've never had in my mind before.
I came to feel like that... actually, a while after this camp started.
Gradually, I started to feel a strange interest... and to think about it.
Every time I come to it... I talked about it to my sons... Nobu... and Satsuki, who was nearby then, and I realized.
I was heading for a world I don't even know yet.
This may be the "Gourd Market".
So, I gave it my all... or I came to relax and throw myself into it🙆
There are many things to do at all times... making a space... gathering materials... tools... foods... fuel... it's everything about survival.
Sometimes I'm exhausted moving around all day long, thinking I don't have enough time at all.
Or I come to tell myself "Calm down, My Mind."
Such a lot of heart experience☺️
And so... In Covid disaster I keep thinking about what I need to do to survive.
I make rocket stoves 🚀 or kalimbas to earn the necessary expenses.
But if I spend too much time on these things, I can't make progress on the Gourd Market...
But if I don't do that, I have to worry about the repair cost of the yumbo... the car inspection fee... the cell phone bill... or the horse feed... and so on.
While I go back and forth between the two...
donations are shot in from twitter... And even foods, clothing, and stationery...
Some who bought a rocket stove 🚀 paid more than the price... Someone who I have no idea who it was shot money into my bank account...
I couldn't even deliver a word of thanks... I was genuinely thankful and made a nice catch.
So many people shot things to me with thankful words...
We are like over-packaged bombs wrapped in unexpectedly positive and warm hearts.
This was even more amazing than I thought it would be... I’m dying to convey this strange unresolvable feelings that I don't want to resolve...
It's totally new!!
I come to think this is a new economy❓
This is the new energy❓
Or Dalai Lama❓... I'm sorry, Dalai Lama came up... When I think about "compassion" Dalai Lama comes to my mind.
"Thank you" is directly connected to "compassion" for some reason...
I put this aside to take time to think later but...
My THANK YOU feeling is about to explode💥. This is what I mean.
This is a phenomenon where imagination exceeds reality...
All the people at the Gourd Market talk about it all the time.
And... We are thinking and talking about how and where to direct this feeling (full of positive energy).
We are thinking about what we should do
and... what is a nice catch.
I inform the Gourd Market is progressing with such energy❣️
P.S. We are about to move our camp from here in Miyazaki's Tsuno town to "Aso Forest" (Sato's Forest).
"Sato" is... the name of Nobu's grandma who passed away 6 years ago.
I will write about why "Aso Forest" is "Sato's forest" in the next note.
I want you definitely to read the next note.
It's a miracle type story.
