ABSTRACT
Sporting a beard and wearing a casual jacket and slacks rather than the usual blue
suit, the guest speaker from Children’s Castle, a national children’s association,
had been basically well received by the audience of 100 or so commissioned
childcare volunteers (seishi) and 15 ward bureaucrats gathered at the ward office
for the evening seminar. In his talk, entitled, “Community Activities: Where
Adults and Children Meet,” he had urged the seishi to raise attendance at local
(chiiki) activities by seeking out children and discovering their interests, even if
it meant finding them at the local convenience store or the video game arcade. It
was a controversial suggestion given that most people thought that children
should not be found in such places. He defined “local activity” (chiiki katsudo¯) as
any interaction that occurs with one’s neighbors. He explained in his lecture:
If you plan to take a family vacation, why go with just your family alone?
