AfterAI Weekly Vol.5 📚

Transcriptions 📝
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Vol.5 2025-07-02
AfterAI Weekly
Japan Open-Air Folk House Museum
My wife and I visited the folk house museum last weekend. Its houses and environment were surely awesome, but the unexpected gem was the volunteer people who were enjoyably maintaining the houses and giving short tours.
It’s a Time Machine to the Pre-Smartphone Era
The volunteers were making fire at an irori, a traditional Japanese fireplace, inside one of the folkhouses. The soot produced by the irori kills the bugs in the thatched roof and coats the wooden beams.
I strongly feel the distances among people widened due to smartphones. I highly recommend this place for those who share the same sentiment as mine. While my wife and I were there, kind volunteers invited us to sit down and chat with them surrounding the house’s Irori, a Japanese traditional fireplace. After a lovely chat, we joined a 30-minutes folk house tour. It was a good educational session, but the best part was that the guide person was so nice that he showed us around for 60 minutes. I felt as if I had been transported 20 years into the past.
We found a basket in one of the folk houses. The guide told me people used to use it to cross a valley by hanging it to the rope.
Ownership is not Necessary to feel Connected
I asked the guide about good things that he enjoys as a volunteer there. His answer was that he could enjoy the houses as if they had been his country houses. I used to dream of buying an old Japanese folk house, but I knew it’s an unattainable dream because the maintenance costs a fortune. His words helped me see a new possibility; by serving as a volunteer in the future, I will be able to feel connected not only the wonderful houses but the likeminded people.
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