Here, we will report on the class and the activities of the students at Ryukoku University, Daigoji × Ryukoku University’s “Advanced Community Management: The Process of Discovering and Solving Problems Learned from World Heritage Sites” (in charge: Prof. Kenki Kasai).

In addition, Prof. Kasai has set up a special Facebook page for this course “Advanced Community Management”. Detailed class reports for each session are also available, so please refer to them as well.
“Advanced Community Management” Facebook page

Participation in the Daigoji Manlankai

On Wednesday, August 5th, almost all of the students participated in the Manlantern Ceremony at Daigoji Temple for interviews and observations.
The Manlankai is an event held by the entire mountain of Daigoji Temple, where lanterns and lanterns are lit to pray for the memorial service of the ancestors of each family and the preciousness of life in anticipation of the Obon festival. This event is visited by many people who have a connection to Daigoji Temple and local residents.

The students who participated in the Manlankai were able to discover a side of Daigoji Temple, which has a deep connection with the community, in a way that will be useful for future research activities.
In addition, in conjunction with the participation in the Manlantern Festival, the team in charge of “Outside Daigoji Temple” interviewed the principal of Daigo Elementary School. This interview was conducted under careful preparation, with an appointment made with the principal in advance through a staff member of Daigoji Temple. Children from Daigo Elementary School also dedicate lanterns, and many children participate in the lantern party every year. Through the interviews, we learned that Daigoji Temple and Daigo Elementary School have a deep history of connection, and that they are working with companies to support elementary schools in the areas affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake and to interact with children at elementary schools in the affected areas.

Through the interviews, the students will discover aspects of Daigoji that they had not discovered before, which will lead to problems being solved.

Looking back on the training camp and planning activities for the summer vacation

On Thursday, July 9 and Thursday, July 23, classes were held to review the training camp and plan activities mainly during the summer vacation.
Prof. Kasai gave a lecture on how to make an appointment when visiting Daigoji Temple and related facilities to be investigated in this course, and about “civic pride” (the attachment that people who live in the city and those who are related to the city feel).
Future activities will also be divided into three teams, each of which will be in charge of “inside Daigoji”, “around Daigoji”, and “outside Daigoji”. The team in charge of “inside Daigo-ji” will work to solve problems for the monks and staff of Daigo-ji and the shops in the temple grounds. The team in charge of “The Periphery of Daigo-ji” will conduct a survey on the “Terakoya Project” and “Daigoichi City” that are being implemented in cooperation with Daigo-ji and other organizations. We will conduct interviews with the team in charge of “outside Daigoji” and local residents, as well as research on Daigoji’s community contribution efforts through nearby elementary and junior high schools.

They immediately made plans to participate in the “Mankankai” event at Daigoji Temple to be held on Wednesday, August 5th, and showed a very positive attitude.

Training camp

On Saturday, June 20th and Sunday, June 21st, we held a training camp at Daigoji Temple. The purpose of this training camp is to “find clues to find problems”. PBL is an abbreviation for “Project / Problem Based Learning”, which is a style of learning that discovers problems and proposes solutions mainly through group learning. As for this method of discovering issues, there are cases where a theme is set to some extent in advance, but in Professor Kasai’s class, students collaborate with the people of Daigoji Temple to discover problems from scratch through this camp. Therefore, this training camp is a real start.

The training camp will start at 13:00 on Saturday 20 June. In order to deepen the understanding of Daigoji Temple in order to deepen the understanding of Daigoji Temple in order to hold a training camp at Daigoji Temple and to discover issues, a lecture was given by Rev. Junhide Nakata, General Manager of Daigoji Temple, on the theme of “The Situation of Daigoji Temple and the Direction It Aims For.” From Master Nakata, since its founding, Daigoji has valued the spirit of valuing the “relationship,” “nature,” and “life” of its founder, Seihojojin, as well as gratitude and prayer for them, and has overcome many difficulties such as the Onin War in the Muromachi period and the abolition of Buddhism during the Meiji Restoration through cooperation with the people who believe in Daigoji Temple, the people in the community, and sometimes the people in power at that time, and their “heart” and “prayer” are still present today. He talked about the fact that he is operating on the basis of.
Next, a lecture by Prof. Kasai was held, and he emphasized that learning in PBL requires not only on-site learning but also accumulation of knowledge through classroom lectures and preliminary surveys (in order to connect discoveries and realizations in the field to problem solving, it is necessary to be backed up by knowledge and wisdom gained through classroom lectures), and that “heart” and “prayer” that value connection, nature, and life, which are the foundation of Daigoji. He talked about the importance of always keeping this in mind.

After that, the students and Daigoji officials were divided into groups and after an icebreaker, they performed a “town visit” at Daigoji Temple with Daigoji officials, and in the evening, a monk of Daigoji Temple gave a lecture on Daigoji’s cultural properties, connections with the local community, and how to make contributions.
At the end of the day, Mr. Minoru Takahashi, who is involved in the Daigoji Terako and projects, talked about his experience and advice on the project he is running in cooperation with Daigoji.
The next day, the group had a brainstorming session to share issues and ideas that they had noticed in the previous day’s activities, followed by a World Café where they shared the issues and expanded their ideas among the groups, and finally presented the results of the training camp to each group.

What kind of clues were the students in Professor Kasai’s class, who conducted a very intense training camp class, such as participating in sutra rituals and morning services, able to find clues to their assignments? It will be interesting to see what kind of solutions will be presented by concretizing the clues to the issues discovered this time.

Preparation for training camp

On Thursday, June 11, the 12th class was held.
Mr. Kasai’s class will hold a training camp at Daigoji Temple from Saturday, June 20 to Sunday, June 21. In the previous class on Thursday, June 4 and this time, we prepared for the training camp.
As in each class, following the check-in, Mr. Kasai explained the activities at the camp, the schedule, and points to keep in mind.
After Professor Kasai gave a lecture, the students were divided into three groups and began preparations for the camp.

The activities of this group started with last week’s class, and the training camp will be active with the same members. In addition, there were three people from Daigoji Temple this time, so each of them joined the group and participated in the work.
At the camp, activities such as icebreakers, town breakers, and brainstorming ideas for issues are held, but the students in each group take the lead in planning what exactly they will work on in each activity, not the teacher.
This was the second time that this group had been working with the group, and there was a very lively discussion.

What kind of issues can be found in the training camp, and the project is reaching a major peak.

“Machiariki” Experience

On Wednesday, May 14, the 7th class was held. In each of Mr. Kasai’s classes, “check-in” and “check-out” are carried out at the beginning and end of each class. Each student will have 30 seconds to talk about their nicknames, their enthusiasm for the class, and their reflections on the class. This check-in and check-out seems to have the effect of fostering a sense of camaraderie and getting a sense of time, such as when giving a presentation. This time I checked in using a card called “Catalta”.

The main theme of this class is “Machiariki”.
As the name suggests, “Machiariki” means taking a walk around the city, but instead of just walking normally, you walk while consciously trying to discover something. In future classes, we will do a “town ariki” on the stage of Daigoji Temple, but this time we will do a rehearsal in preparation for it, and we will go around the town around Kyoto Station.
First, Prof. Kasai gave a lecture on the importance of setting a theme, the fact that what you discover does not have to be something that the government or the community intentionally stands out (such as historical site guides and tourist maps), and that those who have knowledge can make a variety of discoveries. After that, we formed a group of 3~4 people and had a 10-minute operation time. Based on the teacher’s advice earlier, we discussed the area to walk while looking at the guide map, theme setting, and division of roles.

Finally, it was time to set off for the 40-minute “town area”.
One team set the theme as “the atmosphere of the city” and made a rule to “say what comes to mind” and went around Kyoto Station. I discovered the differences in the scenery between the north, south, east, and west of the station, as well as the characteristics of the sounds that can be heard in each. After the event, each team gave a report on the town, and there were many things that could be seen by actually walking around the town and walking with Mr./Ms. theme, and there were also discoveries unique to students who are not from their hometown (Kyoto).

I hope that the students will make use of this experience to make new discoveries that will serve as resources for Daigoji and the community from their unique perspectives.

1st class ~ First visit to Daigoji Temple

On Wednesday, April 16th, Professor Kasai of Ryukoku University, who is active in Daigoji Temple, started his class. This course is the only year-round course (4 credits) among the Kyoto World Heritage PBL courses offered this year, and it is the subject with the largest number of classes among the Kyoto World Heritage PBL courses, which are taught 30 times.

This time, as it was the first class of the class, the teacher explained the annual class schedule and the attitude toward learning in this subject, and then the students introduced themselves to each other. It was so exciting that it was hard to believe that it was the first time, and the class proceeded in a very friendly atmosphere.

On Saturday the 18th, the 2nd and 3rd classes were held at Daigoji Temple. At Daigoji Temple, which was my first visit to the class, I first participated in a service at Maitreya Hall. After that, we received a word from Rev. Junhide Nakata of Daigoji Temple, and were guided by the people involved in Daigoji Temple to tour the precincts. Even after the class, all the students voluntarily toured the temple grounds, and it seemed that they were already developing an attachment to Daigoji Temple.

Inquiries

University Consortium Kyoto Credit Transfer Project
TEL 075-353-9120　FAX 075-353-9121
〒600-8216 Shimogyo-ku, Kyoto-shi, Nishitoin-dori, Shiokoji, Shimo-ku, Kyoto, Campus Plaza Kyoto
* Reception hours: Tuesday ~ Saturday 9:00 ~ 17:00 (excluding year-end and New Year holidays)

Here, we will report on the class and the activities of the students of Doshisha University’s “World Heritage PBL Course ~ Regional Revitalization through O2O Marketing” (in charge: Prof. Minoru Tada) at Nijo Castle ×.

Fieldwork in and around Nijo Castle

In the class on Sunday, July 12, we conducted fieldwork in Nijo Castle and the surrounding area, and interviewed the staff of Nijo Castle.
In Dr. Tada’s class, there are four teams: two groups of “Team M,” who are in charge of marketing strategies such as research, analysis, and consideration of crowdfunding, “Team A,” which is in charge of public relations strategies using social media, and “Team Y,” which is in charge of video production and publication on YouTube. This time, we were divided into four teams.
On the day of the event, we gathered at 1 p.m. and first did fieldwork around Nijo Castle for about one and a half hours for each team.

Team A investigated the Shinsen-en Garden, which is adjacent to Nijo Castle. At Shinsen-en, we conducted research on its history and cultural properties, and confirmed its relationship with Nijo Castle.
Team Y conducted a survey around Nijo Castle, and since there are elementary and junior high schools in the vicinity, it was suggested that it would be effective to approach the children and students in the surrounding area to get them interested in the goodness of Nijo Castle.
Two teams from Team M surveyed the shops around Nijo Castle, and one of them visited the Sanjo shopping street. In the Sanjo shopping street, I discovered that there are many shops that place more emphasis on local residents than tourists.

After fieldwork in the surrounding area, the students were divided into teams and continued their fieldwork in Nijo Castle for about 90 minutes. During the fieldwork in the castle, while the information pamphlets are available in multiple languages, many of the signboards installed are only in Japanese, and there were many discoveries and realizations, such as the possibility of conveying the charm of Nijo Castle by making it multilingual, and the usefulness of devising catch phrases that match the historically significant Nijo Castle.

After the fieldwork, we interviewed Tamaki Goto, the head of the Nijo Castle Office of the Kyoto City Culture and Citizenship Bureau. In the interview, questions were asked about the events that have been held at Nijo Castle so far, as well as the restrictions and difficulties due to the fact that it is a cultural property. In addition, there was a lively exchange of opinions on specific proposals, led by students.

In the future, we will go through voluntary activities during the summer vacation to make our proposals concrete.

Guest lecturer: Lecture by Mr. Ryoichi Kawajiri

Mr. Ryoichi Kawajiri (Ginga Writer / Visiting Professor at Tohoku University of Art and Design) was invited as a guest lecturer to give a lecture on advertising and promotion.
Kyoichi Kawajiri is an editor specializing in advertising creative. Since the theme of Professor Tada’s class is to attract tourists to Nijo Castle and revitalize events through online promotions, he gave a lecture that was very helpful when planning future promotions.

Mr. Kawajiri covers the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, a competition for advertising, communication and promotion, held annually in Cannes, France. This year’s event was held in late June, and we talked about the recent trends in promotion and tips for planning, including the contents of the interview. In the lecture, while introducing the award-winning works of the Cannes Lions, there was also an explanation with specific examples, such as how the O2O method is used in the process.
Mr. Kawajiri also gave important suggestions for future projects, such as the importance of “simple and bold ideas and stories that bring strong empathy” in promotions using O2O, and that “O2O has already been incorporated into daily life (in an “O=O” state), so there is no need to think so hard.

After Mr. Kawajiri’s lecture, the students were divided into groups and shared what they felt and learned in the lecture to deepen their experiences, and each group had a question-and-answer session. During the Q&A session, opinions were exchanged on the pros and cons of using “Yuru Chara”.

In the next class on Sunday, July 12, we will visit Nijo Castle and try fieldwork and interviews.

Learning about Nijo Castle

On Thursday, June 11, a class was held by Professor Tada of Doshisha University, who is developing activities at Nijo Castle. The first class of Mr. Tada’s class was held on Saturday, May 30, at a joint opening ceremony and general orientation with other classes, so this was the first time that he had a class held alone.
The theme of Professor Tada’s class is “creating a ‘device’ for regional revitalization from O2O marketing methods.” O2O is an abbreviation for Online to Offline, which refers to a marketing method that uses online (web) promotions such as social media to direct consumers to physical stores that sell and provide related products and services (offline).

Nijo Castle is in the midst of a full-scale repair project that has spanned 20 years since the castle was built by Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1603, and aims to cover part of the repair costs with donations and profits from various event projects. One of the challenges of this class is to propose how to increase interest in Nijo Castle, increase the number of visitors and participants in various events, and earn revenue to cover repair costs using the O2O method.

In this class, in order to deepen the understanding of Nijo Castle, a lecture was given by Mr. Umebayashi, the head of the former Nijo Castle Office. Mr. Umebayashi introduced the history of Nijo Castle, the cultural properties in the grounds, and the evaluation of Nijo Castle from Japan and abroad, and then explained the “World Heritage Nijo Castle MICE Plan” that Nijo Castle is working on. MICE is an acronym for “Meeting,” “Incentive,” “Convention,” and “Exhibition/Event.” By providing Nijo Castle, a World Heritage Site with high historical value, as a venue for MICE, we aim to widely disseminate the charm of Nijo Castle and Kyoto, as well as the value of cultural properties, and at the same time, earn revenue. He talked about the events he has held so far and the difficulties that arise from the fact that it is a cultural property that arises in holding the event.

After the lecture, the students were divided into four groups for group work. In addition to deepening the content of the lecture as a group, questions were asked to Mr. Umebayashi and opinions were exchanged on the possibilities of MICE.

In this section, we will report on the activities of the students and the classes of the Toji × Kyoto City University of the Arts “Introduction to Conservation Science “Making a Toji Picture Scroll” (in charge: Professor Shigeo Uno).

Production of Toji Picture Scrolls

On Wednesday, July 22nd, we finally started the production of the picture scroll.
In the past, classes were held at Campus Plaza Kyoto and Toji Temple, but this time they were held at Kyoto City University of Arts, where the atelier is located. In the class, Professor Uno first gave a lecture on the types of brushes used in Japan painting, how to draw with each brush, and how to use ink and paint, and then we actually started making picture scrolls.

As a result of repeated research and interviews at Toji Temple, it was decided to draw a picture scroll with three themes: “Lotus Gate”, “Three Pine Trees”, and “Five-storied Pagoda”.
Students will be divided into three teams and will be assigned to each theme. The team consists of students from Kyoto City University of Arts and students from other universities who are transferring credits, and students who are transferring credits work together to complete the painting of the part they are in charge of.
“Lotus Gate” depicts a legend that is said to have occurred when Kobo Daishi Kukai passed through the gate to travel from Toji Temple to Mt. Koya.
“The Pine of the Three Bells” depicts the legend that when Kobo Daishi Kukai went to the Tang Dynasty to train, he threw the three bells (Buddhist utensils used in esoteric Buddhist rituals) toward the sea on the sandy beach in the Tang Dynasty in the hope of the prosperity of esoteric Buddhism, crossed the sea through the clouds, and hung on the pine tree of Toji Temple given to him by the Emperor after returning to Japan.
“Five-storied Pagoda” depicts the burning and reconstruction of the five-storied pagoda, which has been repeatedly burned down and rebuilt in its long history of 1,200 years.
While some of the students were creating Japan paintings for the first time, the team exchanged opinions, checked the Mr./Ms.drawings, and asked for advice from Professor Uno.

During the summer vacation, the students will work on their respective parts on their own, complete the preliminary drawings by early September, and have a meeting with the people involved in Toji Temple about the contents.

Second interview with Toji

On Wednesday, June 10, I took on the challenge of conducting a second interview at Toji Temple. This is my first visit to Toji Temple in a month since my last interview on Wednesday, May 13.

This project is approaching the second half of its life, and the subjects to be drawn in the picture scroll, such as the Lotus Gate, the five-storied pagoda, and the sky and sea people, have been solidified. This time, in order to gather the information necessary to create a story for a picture scroll and to actually draw it in a picture (historical facts, episodes, etc.), we interviewed Mr. Niimi, the head of the Toji Temple and Cultural Properties Protection Division, who is familiar with materials and documents related to Toji. In the interviews, the students were actively asking questions, perhaps due to the results of their training and previous experiences, as well as their preparations. In addition to the main subject, there were also questions unique to art university students, such as confirming the details depicted in the picture scrolls, such as the cityscape, scenery, and seasonal sense of the area around Toji Temple at the time when each episode occurred.

In addition, although the information that the students had researched in advance was a mixture of historical facts and legends, he advised that it is important to understand historical facts and non-historical facts, organize the information, and then formulate the story of the picture scroll.

Interview Training ~ Interview Challenge at Toji Temple

Interview Training

On Saturday, May 9, we invited former NHK announcer Yoshihiro Mori as a lecturer and conducted interview training jointly with Professor Wakamatsu’s class at Kyoto Sangyo University, which is conducting classes at Kamigamo Shrine. Interviews with people involved in World Heritage sites and local people are very important in order to deepen our understanding of the World Heritage sites that take place in the process, and in the process of discovering problems and establishing hypotheses for solutions. Uno-sensei’s class is scheduled to have an interview at Toji Temple next week on Wednesday, May 13.
According to Mr. Mori, of the many jobs of an announcer, interviews are one of the most difficult. In the limited time of 90 minutes, he explained in an easy-to-understand manner with his own experience about how to prepare for an interview, the necessary preparations, and interview techniques that even beginners can use.
The students listened attentively to Mr. Mori’s enthusiastic lecture and took notes.

After the interview training, a strategy meeting was held based on the content of the training in preparation for the next class. We discussed how to prepare for the interview and how to divide the roles on the day of the interview.

Interview at Toji Temple

On Wednesday, May 13, we visited Toji Temple to get some hints on the subject matter to be drawn in the picture scroll, and interviewed General Manager Sunahara. Toji Temple has a history of 1,200 years, and there are many important cultural properties, national treasures, and episodes of great people related to Toji such as Kobo Daishi. In this interview, the students researched Toji Temple in advance and interviewed Director Sunahara about what they were interested in and what they were interested in to deepen their knowledge. The students conducted interviews on a wide range of topics, including the origin of the name of the gate at Toji Temple, their roots, Buddha statues, the life of Kobo Daishi, and events that still exist today, such as Kobo City.
The student who conducted the interview said, “I was able to hear what I wanted to ask to some extent, but I received more information than I expected, and it is difficult to summarize it. I was talking.

After the interview, we visited places that we could not visit during our previous visit to Toji Temple, under the guidance of Director Sunahara.

1st class ~ First visit to Toji Temple

This class started on Wednesday, April 15, ahead of other World Heritage PBL courses. The theme of this course is “to create original records that can be passed on to future generations using traditional expressions of Japan painting.” In line with the theme, Professor Uno, who was in charge of the exhibition, explained the characteristics of traditional Japan painting, including picture scrolls.

While current recording media have disadvantages such as deterioration due to color fading in the case of photographs and the inability to play records due to technological advances in the case of digital devices, picture scrolls created with traditional techniques have survived vividly after hundreds of years due to the excellent properties of the materials. He explained that he was able to convey the events of the time effectively and in an easy-to-understand manner.

In the second half of the class, the students created illustrations and introduced themselves and gave presentations on their enthusiasm for the class, which is unique to an art university.

On Wednesday, April 22, we actually visited Toji Temple and toured the temple grounds under the guidance of Mr. Sunahara, General Manager of Toji Temple. The lecture was very intense, as he carefully explained the valuable cultural properties of Toji Temple, which has a history of 1,200 years, and the willows and anecdotes related to the Ono Michi style, a Heian period calligrapher who is also known as the Sankan, and their anecdotes.

Inquiries

University Consortium Kyoto Credit Transfer Project
TEL 075-353-9120　FAX 075-353-9121
〒600-8216 Shimogyo-ku, Kyoto-shi, Nishitoin-dori, Shiokoji, Shimo-ku, Kyoto, Campus Plaza Kyoto
* Reception hours: Tuesday ~ Saturday 9:00 ~ 17:00 (excluding year-end and New Year holidays)