“That’s what it was all about.”

This was my first impression when I finished reading “The Camphorwood Custodian” written by Keigo Higashino.

If you are planning to read this book, please come back to this blog after you finish reading it.

Brief summary of the book

“If you pray to the camphor tree, your wish will come true.” This is the story of a young man appointed as a guardian of camphor trees and people who pray to the camphor tree.

Reito is fired from his job for a reason, and is arrested for committing a crime to vent his anger. Suddenly a lawyer appeared while he was in the police station. He offers to let him go if he obeys his client’s order. Although he has no idea who his client is, he chooses to obey the order.

When he went to the place where the client was waiting, an elderly woman was waiting for him. Her name was Chifune. Surprisingly, she said she is his aunt. The order she told him was “What I want you to do is to be the guardian of the camphor tree.”

The camphor tree stands at the Tsukisato Shrine. On the day of the new moon, people visit the camphor tree and pray to it for their “feelings” that they want to leave behind in this world. This is called “Yonen”. On the other hand, only biological family members are allowed to receive the “wish” or “feelings” on the night of the full moon, when the camphor tree’s power is at its greatest. This is called “Jyunen”. The receiver receives not only the images and sounds that he or she wants to convey, but also all the complex emotions of the prayer.

What are complex emotions? Guess why I just mentioned about “biological” family? It means “blood-related family members”. One of the important keys in this story is the business succession of a family in law.

The camphor tree sometimes unintentionally conveys to his family the deepest thoughts and feelings of the prayer, such as multi-layered and intricately intertwined relationships, his own past mistakes, and his feelings about his/her illness. For this reason, many people use this mysterious camphor tree as a will when they realize their own death and are ready to reveal everything about themselves. The testator, as well as the receiver, must be prepared for the possibility of being confronted with facts that they have never known before.

(Photo: A camphor tree at Oyamazumi Shrine, Imabari City, Ehime Prefecture)

(Reference: Hiroshima official tourism website)

Now, you may be wondering how this relates to our social contribution projects.

If such a camphor tree as mentioned above existed in reality, I would like to visit it, but unfortunately, it seems to be a story of a fantasy world. However, if a similar “transmission of feelings” were possible in the real world, it would be interesting, wouldn’t it? This is where artificial intelligence (AI) comes in.

In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) technology has been used to manualize companies and create Chatbots that use vast amounts of data. In other words, it is possible to store “thoughts” one wishes to leave for a particular community. In this case, unlike the camphor tree, there is no need to worry about the deepest feelings being unintentionally transmitted to the receiver. Only the “information” that we want to preserve for future generations can be extracted and delivered. Another advantage of this method is that it is easy to understand to the recipient, since the “feelings” are stored in a clear state for all to see as textual data.

　When I finished reading this book, I wondered what my parents would think if they had to leave me a bequest. If I had children, I would think seriously about what I wanted to leave them. Each of you who are reading this blog now is both a “prayer” and a “receiver”. In the story, the camphor tree with mysterious power exists only in Tsukisato Shrine, but anyone can learn and acquire the technology of artificial intelligence (AI) in this real world, and we, IISIA has the knowledge.

In 2025, all of Japan’s “baby boomers” will be late-stage seniors. As a result, I feel that it is becoming increasingly important that their “wisdom” and “craftsmanship” be passed on to future generations. In other words, Japan is facing a major social issue of “passing on the spirit” as we enter a super-aged society where one in five of the population is 75 years old. We believe that the transmission of these ideas to future generations is the very essence of the transmission of Japanese wisdom and technology, and that this will promote the realization of the vision of our institute, “Pax Japonica”. We have decided to make this our core social contribution project for FY2025, and to launch the “Camphor Tree Project (Kusunoki Project)” inspired by Keigo Higashino’s book.

Based on the results of our recent research on Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Large Language Models (LLM), we’re planning to travel all over Japan to provide our services to the members of the Takeo Harada Gemeinschaft, our membership service, as well as to the general public. The main role will be played by the participants, and we intend to make full use of the wisdom we have accumulated over the past 17 years since the establishment of our institute in order to solve the problems of “business succession” that each of them is facing. We would like to further shape the project by receiving feedback from you.

※The statements in this blog are not the official views of the Institute, but rather the personal views of the author.

Chancellery Unit, Group for Project Pax Japonica, Maria Tanaka