Shun's Bar at Re:gendo: Alternative Common spaces of play

Hi there everybody, it’s been a little while since I made a post here on my website.

Been having to take care of various projects I started, as well as help out around the company.

This season in Japan is especially busy with people taking mini vacations because of all the holidays. But thanks to that tourism chaos I pretty much been trained to fill in any on the ground jobs at our inn and cafe here in Omori.

Okay enough excuses…

This was about a month ago, but on August 2 I hosted a Shun’s Bar event at my company’s restaurant in Tokyo called Re:gendo.

People seem to keep up with what I do on Instagram or this website, but not many get the chance to physically experience the information I put out on the internet. So I thought to myself, why not bring my lifestyle to the people, and even better:

Instead of trying to recreate something by substituting, why not just bring it over and make the real thing but just in a different place?

Brilliant right? lol it was exhausting trying to send everything from Shimane to Tokyo.

I sourced almost all my ingredients from Shimane, with each dish and ingredient being tied to some memory I have from my life in Omori. I also brought the plates I used for the event from my own house, all ceramic plates from various local areas. The beer I served was my very own beer that I produced as well.

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I wanted this event to have several components:

1. Fun and Interactive

2. Good Food and Drinks

3. Reconnect

4. Bring together a large variety of people who have similar values, but have different professions, experiences, skills, and perspectives

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I’m personally not a fan of events where you get a paper cup with some juice and snacks which were bought at the convenience store down the street.

I wanted to provide people who came, a space that I personally made for them.(Also a shout out to my mentor Sugimoto-san who helped me so much with this event!)

For this event Sugimoto-san and I served:

1.Beets and Grape Salad

2. Grilled Vegetable Salad

3.Toscana Style Potato Fries

4.Oak Smoked Wild Boar Bacon and Corn Bread

5.Trout Carpaccio

6.Hidaka Bread

7. Blueberry Compote and Cream

The veggies all came from Suzuki-san (my co-worker who is now a farmer in Omori), the boar from a local butcher in Shimane, the bread was baked by Omori’s Hidaka-san who used the yeast at the bottom of my beer, and the blueberries were from a friend who owns a blueberry farm.

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I recently read a book about the basics of work, where there was a page that stuck inside of my head which said something like “When the sense of community in your team starts to weaken, make sure to come together and do anything, but do one action together.” This was the thought behind the event I held a month ago. In my mind these were a group of people who, in my opinion, shared similar values but never had the chance to actually meet. So if they got a chance to speak while enjoying good food and drinks, perhaps it might lead to a concentration of an awareness of some possible community that could be formed.

Now, did this happen the first try, to be honest no. It’s hard trying to host people and managing human relations so that the right people meet each other at the right time. I think the overall atmosphere was buzzing, and all the separate worlds I had were colliding, but I had a feeling that this was going to take time before some reaction occurred.

In this way, I think this turned out to be more of an event to tell people:

Hey I’m wanting to start something with this kinda atmosphere and these kinds of people who have values and ideas that could resonate with yours.

It may be just me but after graduating college and now working for a company, I keep thinking everything I want to do needs to go through the machine and system that is my company. That things must first be processed through the various bureaucratic systems that makes up your team or department. Honestly it may just be me, but after working for a year in a company I have this automatic reaction that anything that is not done in “work” is not legitimate, that much of what you do out side of “work” is simply “play”.

I’m not blaming anybody for this, I’m just starting to feel strongly that things that are done outside of “work” or communities and systems of social relations that are built outside or “work” can be powerful, meaningful, and constructive as well. Maybe I’m just late to the party but, in a larger sense I think what I am trying to say is that things don’t become more important or less important because they are not built within larger structures and systems (the corporation, neoliberalism, the city, college). Yet at the same time, I’m not saying throw away or escape that larger system and start some commune. I think that a partnership can be built between the preceding larger systems and these “third or alternative common spaces of play”.

This blog always helps me work through my thoughts and I think that is what I am trying to build through my events:

alternative common spaces of play

Has kind of a nice ring to it.