I would like to tell you Ohanasi Kagawa's secrets only to those who have answered the questionnaire. Thank you very much for taking the time to answer Ohanasi Kagawa's limited-time survey. We will continue to improve Ohanasi Kagawa based on your feedback. And as a benefit to those of you who have filled out the questionnaire, I would like to quietly share with you some of Ohanasi Kagawa's secrets. Aki, the founder of Ohanasi Kagawa, writes this blog, and sometimes when I attend events as a participant, people ask me, "How did you create Ohanasi Kagawa? Why did you decide to start Ohanasi Kagawa? I am often asked many questions about Ohanasi Kagawa. So this time, I would like to share the story behind Ohanasi Kagawa, from the creation of Ohanasi Kagawa to what you might think, "Oh, really? I hope you will enjoy this article to the very end. Please do not tell this story to anyone else. Q1: How did Ohanasi Kagawa come to be? First of all, I would like to answer the most frequently asked question, "How did Ohanasi Kagawa come to be? Ohanasi Kagawa is now held online, but it was originally held locally. It started in September 2018 in Kagawa, Japan, where I, Aki, am from. To begin with, what made me decide to create it, I myself quit my job at the age of 23 at the time and was studying English while saving money to enroll in college in the United States. I won't go into details, but while I was learning English, I wanted to speak more English with people from other countries. So I looked for a place in my hometown, Kagawa Prefecture, where I could speak English with people from overseas. However, no matter how much I looked on the Internet, went to international exchange centers, or walked around town, I couldn't find a place where I could speak English with people from overseas. In cities like Tokyo, Osaka, and Fukuoka, there are many opportunities to interact with people from overseas, but in a rural area like Kagawa Prefecture, it is difficult to find a place where you can get to know people from overseas and speak English with them. I was at a loss as to what to do. I gave up on the idea that unless I studied abroad, I would never be able to have an environment where I could use English. I was already feeling frustrated about that. One day, I came to know that an acquaintance of mine was frustrated because, like me, she wanted to speak English with people from other countries but had no such opportunities. There are others who are struggling with the same problem as I am. No matter how hard I look for it, I cannot find the environment I want. If it doesn't exist, let's create it!" With this decision, I launched Ohanasi Kagawa, which brings together people from overseas living in Kagawa Prefecture and enables them to interact with Japanese people in the form of a language exchange. Q2: How did Ohanasi Kagawa spread online? Actually, Ohanasi Kagawa will be held for the 173rd time on May 18, 2024. Ohanasi Kagawa events have been attended by over 3,000 participants from more than 50 countries, but aren't you wondering how Ohanasi Kagawa has spread so widely online? Actually, Ohanasi Kagawa, which was launched in Kagawa Prefecture, was closed once in 2019 because I was enrolling in a college in the United States. However, it was during my study abroad in the U.S. that the COVID-19 pandemic occurred. I, Aki, was living in an apartment in the US at the time, and suddenly all my classes went online because of the COVID-19, and international students were almost kicked out of the US, which was quite hard to deal with. I was forced to stay at home and do my assignments. Aki was into meditation at the time, and while meditating, an idea came to me! The idea! I thought, "Why don't I hold the Ohanasi Kagawa event online? So I held Ohanasi Kagawa online for the first time with only 5 participants, including myself haha. Still, it was new and fun, so I posted the event on the event board to try to get more people to attend. The next day, I was surprised to see that more than 30 people had signed up to participate! I thought, "Maybe there is a huge demand for this? I asked my housemate who was living in the same apartment at the time about it, and the online Ohanasi Kagawa event began to expand. If it weren't for COVID-19, I would have never thought of holding an online event, but I was able to have hope that because it was online, we could connect Japanese people with people around the world who were learning Japanese. Q3 : Ohanasi Kagawa holds its events for free, but how does it cover its running costs? Ohanasi Kagawa has always organized its events for free. We will probably continue to hold events for free in the future. (Of course, we may charge for some optional things, though…) It might sound like fine-sounding talk, but the reason is that I hope to create a society where young people who want to learn English and people like myself in the past who wanted to interact with people from other countries but didn't have the money can interact with people from other countries easily and safely. Of course, Life is not easy. Ohanasi Kagawa's expenses include personnel costs, Remo platform, website, advertising, and so on. At first, we had to make do with our own pocket money, and support from participants, and sponsors, but there was a limit to what we could do, and many times we were driven to the point where we could not continue Ohanasi Kagawa events due to lack of money. It was also getting hard to spend days just asking for support money from the participants. With a desire to get out of that situation, we decided to start a crowdfunding campaign, reached our goal of 2 million yen, and used the funds to start our own business. Now we run an online Japanese language school and an English language school, and we are able to run Ohanasi Kagawa with the profits generated from these schools. I am keenly aware that money is necessary to do what I want to do, and we are working hard to create a good service. Q4 : The idea of Ohanasi Kagawa was actually born from ・・・ Ohanasi Kagawa events are mainly one-on-one, with people taking turns speaking in Japanese and English to exchange languages, right? The service was actually modeled after a particular service. I haven't said much about it, so this is a bit of a backstory, but the concept of "Machicon" Local matchmaking meetup was used as a model. For those of you who have never been to a "Machicon", let me briefly explain. Men and women who are looking for love and marriage gather at a single venue or restaurant, and with their profile cards, they have a short one-on-one conversation. Then, when they have talked with everyone, they have free time to talk with the person they are looking for. Yes, you may realize. This is just like Ohanasi Kagawa, isn't it? When I was in my early twenties, I was into "Machicon", and I loved it. I have tried not to say too much about it because people are often surprised or laugh when I say this, but I believe that new ideas are born when existing things are combined with existing things like this. Unfortunately, Aki was once scolded by his girlfriend when she found out that he went to a "Machicon" haha. Did you feel a little bit closer to me? (^-^;) Q5: Why "Ohanasi" in Ohanasi Kagawa is " si" and not "Ohanashi"? I get asked this question a lot. Why Ohanasi and not Ohanashi? Is it just a mistake or is it a design choice? Of course, I know the alphabet, and I know that "shi" is correct. But when I first started thinking about whether to use Ohanasi or Ohanashi, I thought to myself, "Isn't shi kind of bad looking? I also thought that the Apple logo of Steve Jobs, whom I admire and respect, is not a perfect apple, but has a hole in it, right? It seems that people have a habit of looking at imperfect things rather than perfect things. I'll leave it up to you to decide whether this is by design or by accident, but I really feel satisfied with myself that I'm actually getting people's questions, and that I'm getting their attention haha. I want Ohanasi Kagawa to be a place where anyone can feel free to make mistakes. Don't you think that the name of Ohanasi Kagawa is a good representation of that desire? Q6: What can you see in the Ohanasi Kagawa logo? You must be a big fan of Ohanasi Kagawa if you have taken notice of the Ohanasi Kagawa logo! I like the Ohanasi Kagawa logo a lot myself, but first of all, can you tell which temple or shrine you see? The answer is Konpira-san, Konpira Shrine, which is the representative shrine of Kagawa Prefecture! It is a shrine with a very long staircase of 1,368 steps. There are many stores along the stairs, and it is a fun and festive place to visit when you are in Kagawa Prefecture. And the moon-like thing on top of the Kompira-san looks like the moon or a speech mark. You can clearly see the image of a place to talk. The logo also includes cherry blossoms, which represent Japan well. It is also green, the main color of Ohanasi Kagawa, and isn't it cute? If you want, we will make original T-shirts again! haha Q7 : What future vision does Ohanasi Kagawa have? I would like to talk about the future that Ohanasi Kagawa envisions. Ohanasi Kagawa's final goal is to become a platform where people can practice the language they are learning comfortably and easily whenever they want to practice English or Japanese. It will also be a place where Japanese people and people around the world who love Japan can easily and safely connect and support each other. I am not going to go into specifics, so this is a bit abstract. However, I feel that there are many people in the world who are studying Japanese, who love Japan, and who want to build relationships with Japanese people, and it is a waste that there is no place where these people and Japanese people can easily and safely connect with each other. To use an example, Hikoboshi, the Herdsman, and Orihime, the Weaver, are in search of each other, but they are not connected because there is no bridge for them to come closer to each other. Ohanasi Kagawa wants to be a bridge that brings people in Japan and around the world closer together. We believe that this will make Japan and the world a better place. We hope that you will think that we are working to make such a society a reality every day. Summary What did you think? We hope that you have learned some unexpected secrets about Ohanasi Kagawa and have come to love Ohanasi Kagawa even more. Ohanasi Kagawa will continue to improve its services to better serve you, so please let us know if there is anything that concerns you! Thank you for your continued support.