Hokkaido: A love-hate relationship with the cold
There is a famous Japanese proverb: “A hometown is something to be longed for from a distance, not to be lived in.” After 15 years away from my birthplace, Asahikawa, I returned to escape the sweltering heat of mainland Japan. But now, after several winters, I find myself fed up with the relentless snow. It is the classic human dilemma—we always want what we don’t have. In Hokkaido, winter isn’t just a season; it’s an endurance test.
The frantic beauty before the “Guillotine”
Because our winters are so brutal, autumn feels like a frantic, beautiful final act. It’s as if every living thing is trying to squeeze out its last drop of energy before the “guillotine” of winter falls.
The mountains turn a burning orange, bears busily fatten up for hibernation, and salmon battle their way upstream. I used to spend this season in mental dread, simply preparing for the cold. But recently, I’ve decided to stop “crying over spilt milk” and actually look at the beauty in my own backyard—specifically, the fields of Coral Grass.
A scenery of serendipity: The moving red carpet
Located in the coastal marshes of eastern Hokkaido, the Coral Grass (Salicornia europaea) turns a brilliant, deep crimson in autumn. But what makes this landscape truly magical is its transience.
Because the seeds are carried by shifting tides, the colonies actually move every year. The “red carpet” you see today will never be in the same place twice. It is the ultimate form of Serendipity. It’s a reminder that nature is never a static postcard; it is a living, breathing, and moving entity.
In this field, you can see Heraclitus’s famous doctrine—”No man ever steps in the same river twice”—or the Buddhist concept of Shogyo Mujo (the impermanence of all things) manifested in vivid red. Every time I encounter such a sight, or watch a film like Dead Poets Society that preaches Carpe Diem, I tell myself: “I must cherish every precious moment of my life!”
And yet, the very next morning on my way to work, I find myself sighing and thinking, “Is it five o’clock yet? I wish this day would just end.” It seems that while all things in the universe are in constant flux, the human heart (or at least mine) remains stubbornly resistant to change.
Our karma: The duty of protection
While these fields look magnificent, they are incredibly fragile. In our modern environment, they can no longer survive without human protection.
This mirrors our work at CondeHouse. When we harvest a tree for furniture, we change the forest’s balance. If we plant a new tree, we must support its growth. This is our Karma. Once we involve ourselves in nature, we are no longer observers. To enjoy the beauty of the shifting red carpets, we must accept the obligation to keep them moving.
I confess that I struggle to live by ‘Carpe Diem’—because while the crimson fields of Hokkaido remind me to cherish every moment, I still find myself wishing for the workday to end. At CondeHouse, however, we accept this human karma. We know that the beauty of a shifting landscape—or a digital legend—can only endure if we take the responsibility to protect it. Our Hatsune Miku Art Chair is our way of ‘freezing’ a fleeting moment of serendipity into a masterpiece of wood. It takes the vibrant, turquoise-green spirit of an icon and anchors it into the solid, enduring reality of our craft, ensuring that this ‘red carpet’ moment lasts a lifetime. It is our duty to turn the transient into the eternal. Now, here is a portal to a beauty that won’t drift away with the tide: the image below is your link to the special site. If you prefer the forgettable, static postcards of the ordinary, do NOT click it. But if you’re ready to own a sanctuary of ‘Shogyo Mujo’ that you can actually touch, go ahead. Seize the masterpiece. —— The Hatsune Miku Art Chair.
Shungo Ijima
Global Connector | Reformed Bureaucrat | Professional Over-Thinker
After years of navigating the rigid hallways of Japan’s Ministry of Finance and surviving an MBA, he made a life-changing realization: spreadsheets are soulless, and wood has much better stories to tell.
Currently an Executive at CondeHouse, he travels the world decoding the “hidden DNA” of Japanese culture—though, in his travels, he’s becoming increasingly more skilled at decoding how to find the cheapest hotels than actual cultural mysteries.
He has a peculiar talent for finding deep philosophical meaning in things most people ignore as meaningless (and to be fair, they are often actually meaningless). He doesn’t just sell furniture; he’s on a mission to explain Japan to the world, one intellectually over-analyzed observation at a time. He writes for the curious, the skeptical, and anyone who suspects that a chair might actually be a manifesto in disguise.
Follow his journey as he bridges the gap between high-finance logic and the chaotic art of living!