Five pairs of shoes carried five people out of Tokyo. All five were restless companions, floating somewhat uneasily through the world. Their faces were not thick-skinned, nor were they particularly bold. What nevertheless made them appear somewhat weightier and more substantial than they really were was the credit of those five pairs of shoes—large, thick-soled, and thick-skinned. Five Pairs of Shoes, by The Five Companions[English translation by the author]
From September 11 to 13, a Japan–Korea exchange event brought together twelve Wikimedians—five from Korea and seven from Japan—for a field trip through Karatsu and Dazaifu. The event was organized to foster exchange between Wikimedians from the two countries, combining editing data for Wikimedia projects with walks through historic sites and opportunities to share knowledge and experiences from the Wikimedia movement in each country.
We chose Karatsu as the main destination because of its long and complicated history of relations with Korea, which I will discuss later in this article. Karatsu is also my hometown, so I had the opportunity to help plan the itinerary and guide some of the participants through the city.
Over the three days, we visited historical sites, museums, and other places connected to the region’s history, while also making time and topics to edit data of Wikimedia movements. For me, the trip became an opportunity to think about what it means to organize a Wikimedia event across linguistic, cultural, and historical boundaries.
The Itinerary
Day 1: September 11 — Exploring Karatsu
The participants first gathered at Fukuoka Airport before traveling to Karatsu, where everyone met at Karatsu Station.
We began with lunch, with participants enjoying local specialties such as the famous Karatsu Burger (whose Wikipedia article was edited through this event!) and champon noodles.
After lunch, we split into two groups to explore the city. One group visited the Former Karatsu Bank, a historic building established with the support of prominent local architects, Kingo Tatsuno, who designed the Tokyo Station, along with local philanthropists. The group I guided, on the other hand, visited the Karatsu Hikiyama Exhibition Hall, which displays the floats used in Karatsu Kunchi, a local festival registered as a UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Although the exhibition hall is dedicated to a local festival, its captions were available not only in Japanese and English but also in Korean. This was a small but striking indication of how frequently people who use Korean and other languages as their primary means of communication visit the area. At the same time, it made me realize how much effort the local community puts into making its culture understandable to visitors in their own languages. I found this to be an instructive example that also connects with the importance of communicating with one another in our respective native languages, as I discuss later.
Karatsu’s historic center is remarkably dense with historical sites. Within a small area, visitors can encounter the former bank, shrines where Kunchi floats gather during the festival, stone walls that were previously parts of the castle, the remains of former schools, and other historical sites. Even on our way to the editing venue, the participants were able to experience this history simply by walking through the city.
After walking, we held an editing session at the Former Oshima Residence. The building was once a private residence of Kotaro Oshima, the head of Karatsu Bank, and has since been preserved and now opened to the public, with exhibitions including materials about Mr. Oshima.
For a group of Wikimedians, it was almost an ideal editing venue: a traditional Japanese room equipped with air conditioning, Wi-Fi, tables and chairs, and power outlets. Participants worked on Wikimedia projects including Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Wikimedia Commons, and the results of the editing session were recorded on a dashboard.
Day 2: September 12 — Yobuko, Whaling, and the History of Japan-Korea Relations
On the second day, we took a bus to Yobuko, a port town known for its seafood.
Our first stop was the Yobuko Morning Market. The market dates back to the Taisho period and is still held almost every day. Participants enjoyed freshly grilled shellfish, local specialties such as squid dumplings and fish doughnuts, as well as traditional Japanese snacks.
We then split into two groups again. One group headed to Kakarajima, an island located near Yobuko. The island was one of the reasons we chose Yobuko as a destination for this Japan–Korea exchange event: it is associated with a tradition concerning the birthplace of a Korean king. There are also a number of outdoor displays on the island that refer to its historical connections with Korea.
The group I guided, meanwhile, took a ride on Zeela, an underwater sightseeing boat that has been operating in the area for around 30 years. Unlike an aquarium, the boat allows visitors to observe marine life in its actual environment, beneath the surface of the sea.
The name “Zeela” itself has a connection to the local history. It is derived from kujira, the Japanese word for whale, reflecting the fact that whales were once frequently caught in the waters around the region.
Yobuko is also home to the former residence of the Nakao family, a wealthy family whose business prospered through whaling. Although we did not have time to visit there, the family’s former house has been preserved as the Important Cultural Property of Saga Prefecture, whose exhibitions illustrate how deeply whales were connected to people’s livelihoods and the local economy, as well as the ways in which people carefully treated whales by making use of almost every part of the animal.
Because of changing international attitudes toward whaling, some people may have the impression that whale meat is now rarely eaten in Japan. In the Karatsu area, however, the tradition of eating whale meat remains visible. Even today, whale pickles are widely sold as a local specialty.
We then visited the ruins of Nagoya Castle and the Nagoya Castle Museum, which houses materials related to the castle and its history. This was arguably the highlight of the trip.
One reason Karatsu can speak of such a long history of relations with Korea is that Nagoya Castle was once used as a base for the invasion of the Korean Peninsula under Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
The museum, however, presents not only the history of the invasions but also the subsequent history of exchange between Japan and Korea. The purpose of our visit was likewise to understand what happened and how that history has shaped today’s relations between the two countries.
Still, as one of the organizers, I have to admit that I was nervous. Japan has a history of invading Korea, and I did not know how the participants from Korea would react to visiting a site so closely associated with that history. Although we had discussed these issues extensively before the event, I was honestly still a little anxious about what might happen. In the end, however, we were able to complete the visit without any major difficulties.
Day 3: September 13 — Dazaifu and the Wider History of East Asian Exchange
On the final day, we traveled to Dazaifu, another place that historically served as an important hub for Japan’s interactions with other parts of East Asia. For more than a thousand years, Dazaifu has played a role of a center for cultural exchange, hosting ceremonies to welcome foreign envoys for diplomatic and trading purposes, as well as bringing together scholars and intellectuals.
We walked along the approach to Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine, taking in the sense of its ancient history reflected in the buildings and monuments, before spending some time exploring the area individually.
I chose to visit the Kyushu National Museum, one of Japan’s major national museums. Given Dazaifu’s historical role as a point of contact with the continent, the museum has many exhibits related to diplomacy and cultural exchange with countries including Korea, such as historical documents, mirrors, and other artifacts.
I also spent some time looking at the monuments and poetry inscriptions around Dazaifu. They offered glimpses into how figures such as Ōtomo no Tabito and Sugawara no Michizane felt about the place and how they remembered it after leaving.
Organizing a Wikimedia Event
This was my first time taking part in the planning and operation of a Wikipedia editing event on this scale. Among other things, I helped select destinations, communicate and negotiate with venues, and look for potential topics and sources for participants to work on.
Organizing a Wikimedia event requires a somewhat different perspective from organizing an ordinary tour. A place may be interesting to visit, but can people actually edit Wikipedia there? Are there Wi-fi, power outlets, and suitable tables and chairs? Is there a library or another place where participants can consult sources?
These are relatively mundane questions, but they made me see GLAM from a perspective quite different from that of an ordinary visitor, and to act accordingly. In a sense, the experience of “editing the editing space” with my own hands also prompted me to think about how the conditions of GLAM institutions shape their relationship with Wikimedia practices, and in turn, what kinds of knowledge can be documented and shared through Wikimedia projects.
Incidentally, Five Pairs of Shoes(the travelogue I will discuss later) mentions that the companions used a temple to meet local writers and exchange ideas. It might be worth considering, on another occasion, how the spaces in which knowledge is exchanged have evolved over time.
At the same time, because this was an international exchange event, I had to think carefully about how to communicate with people from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds.
When it comes to multilingual communication, simply switching to English is not always enough. Ideally, participants should be able to become familiar with one another’s languages and understand each other through them as well.
In this event, I heard several participants from Korea speak Japanese fluently. This made me realize once again that although English is a useful lingua franca, there is something important about communicating in one’s own language when possible. Although sometimes we communicated in English, and I am writing this article in English for the purpose of efficient information dissemination, moving beyond the assumption that everyone should communicate through a single shared language can create a different kind of closeness.
There was another issue that required even more care: history.
As Japan has a history of invading Korea, we had to think carefully about how we should describe historical events and what kinds of words we should use. Despite the familiarity of Korean culture among contemporary Japanese and experiences of interacting with Korean students and professors at schools, we had to spend time to think about these issues together with the participants. However, I believe that taking the time to communicate carefully, align our understanding, and clarify what each of us needed to do was what allowed us to complete the field trip without any major problems.
I do not think I could handle everything perfectly. Nevertheless, I was very happy to see that the participants ultimately enjoyed the trip. If I have the opportunity to organize events in Japan or abroad in the future, I hope to carry what I learned from this experience with me.
Final Note: Reflecting Tours
During this event, I edited the Wikipedia article about Gosoku no Kutsu(Five Pairs of Shoes), a travelogue written by five young literary figures who traveled through Kyushu, including Karatsu.
To briefly summarize what I wrote in the article, their journey had consequences in several different ways. It not only influenced their own literary expression, but also created connections with people and media outlets in the places they visited, and became something that later generations would continue to look back on and remember through monuments scattered across places they visited. Their journey was, in other words, affected themselves, along with their surroundings at that time and afterwards, through knowledge.
This made me think about our own field trip.
Journeys undertaken for the purpose of learning have taken many forms throughout history, sometimes under names such as the Grand Tour. In Japan, Wikimedia communities have also organized Wikipedia Town events in many different places. The participants in these activities are not necessarily local residents: some people travel considerable distances precisely because they want to research and write about a particular place.
I do not think that there is a single framework that can explain every such journey. However, summarizing the information on five companions’ travelogue, I found myself thinking about two axes through which we might use to reflect on these experiences: self and surroundings, and past and future.
The first axis concerns the relationship between ourselves and the people and places around us. What did I learn or feel during the trip? What did I learn from the people I traveled with, or from the people who live in the places we visited?
The second concerns time. What happened in these places in the past, how might our experiences and data become part of local culture and society, and what are the consequence of our contributions?
These two axes are certainly not a universal framework. But I hope they can offer one possible way for the other participants of this event—and perhaps others reflecting on their own Wikimedia activities—to think about what their journeys meant.
The poetry monuments at Dazaifu suggest how people have remembered the city—as a place of nostalgia, or as a dream of somewhere they wished to visit. I hope that this field trip will likewise live on in the memories of its participants, in whatever form those memories may take.
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