René Seifert - Entrepreneur & Global Citizen

There would be a novel to write as the days, and especially the nights, had been so intense; I couldn’t keep up with the writing as I had intended. So the essence of the essence, and the highlights of the highlights in hindsight now.

First and foremost, the “EO University” was amazing, no regular conference does remotely match the experience and bonding factor like a “club” of like minded people who are thirsty for learning, sharing and bonding. And our guests from the EO Chapter Japan played a vital role in this, likewise the professional EO staff who applied their profound event-marketing experience to make it all happen. A big, big “thank you” to all all involved.

Two things will certainly forever remain in my memory as “once in a lifetime experiences”, the first was the “purification ritual” in a Shinto shrine in Japan. Our profoundly knowledgable guide from the west, who used to live almost his whole life in Japan and had written several books on religion and culture, explained to us that never in Japanese history before, foreigners were allowed to take part in this ceremony. A ceremony which usually is reserved only for the priests of a shrine. The concept behind that a person, pure from birth, as pure as a mirror, becomes tainted with dust and imperfections which have to be cleansed away through a ceremony.

The priest for the ritual then went through one rehearsal with us, before we started the “hot action”. Around 35 men, only dressed in a sort of diaper and headband went outside, formed a circle and started moving and chanting as the priest was doing before us. For the actual purification, we ran back into a hall where we poured damn-cold water over our bodies, after which the ceremony was solemnly closed.

The other event was our last evening in Tokyo, informally organized by some members where we headed out for our “last supper”. It could have been taken litterally, because we went to one of the 35 restaurants from our fellow EO member from Japan, Daichi Sakamoto, who runs the chain of Torafugu. Only dish and speciality, the blowfish/Fugu. If the cook does not know how to prepare it, his guests are dead. Hence, it takes seven years (!) to train how to avoid hitting the poisonous entrails. And here is how it goes, as I had recorded with my small photo camera on video mode:

The dinner turned to a party, when Daichi and his wife surprisingly showed up, too, with a branch of cherry blossoms under their arm and several bottles of premium sake.

The best message: All alive. (Well, to be fair, in professional Japanese cuisine, no incident with the Fugu has happened in the last decades. But still, wenn pushing the first piece into your mouth, it does give you some kind of thrill … :-)

Once again, I feel humbled about fantastic experience how our friends in Japan were welcoming us. Next encounter, EO University in Berlin August 2007, looking very much forward.