In Japan, the summit has been held in various prefectures across the islands of Honshū, Kyūshū, and Shikoku, but never in its twenty-five year history has the summit been held in the islands of Hokkaido or Okinawa. Okinawa was annexed by the Meiji government in 1879 and Hokkaido was officially incorporated in the Japanese state in 1869 when it first became a prefecture. Both of these areas have indigenous populations that have historically been treated poorly by ethnic Japanese (Morris-Suzuki, 1997). According to the CIE’s secretary general, the CIE selects sites to hold the summit at least a year in advance and preferably two years in
advance in order to promote the next summit location at the closing ceremony. Sites are selected based on the board’s decision, but finding a site relies on a mixture of existing relations between board members and prefectural government authorities as well as the secretary general building rapport with local businesspersons, NPOS, and cultural associations at potential summit
locations. The CIE begins the site selection process in Japan by first considering locations where the summit has not been held before. The CIE also considers other criteria in the site selection process. These criteria include a variety of urban and rural areas for the local sessions, potential
number of volunteers and host families, and venues large enough to conduct the opening and closing ceremonies.
Even when meeting the CIE’s criteria, not all potential sites are willing to host a Grassroots Summit. The city of Yokohama rejected the idea of hosting a summit due to the area’s existing cosmopolitan atmosphere. That is, Yokohama, with its sizeable and visible foreign populations (home of the largest China town in Asia), did not view the summit as a worthwhile endeavor as it considered itself a multicultural hub. In 2015, the CIE faced difficulty in finding a venue and was rejected by multiple potential sites. Despite this, one of their board members originally from Ōita prefecture knew Katsusada Hirose, the governor of Ōita
prefecture. Already a domestic tourist attraction for Japanese due to its onsen (hot springs) and local products (Knight, 1994; McMorran, 2008), Ōita had a well-established tourist infrastructure to accommodate summit participants and Governor Hirose was very interested in hosting the 2015 Summit.
Surprisingly, the CIE’s role in organizing and executing the Grassroots Summit is minimal. The bulk of the work of planning the summit’s structure, its cost, and finding host families is deferred to an executive committee and what the CIE calls key persons. Various representatives from the prefecture where the summit is held constitute the executive committee. The 2015 summit in Ōita consisted of fifteen executive committee members from prominent government positions, banking and commerce, and organizations that work closely with international businesses. These members included the Governor of Ōita prefecture, Mayor of Ōita city, Mayor of Beppu, Chair of Ōita Prefecture Chamber of Commerce, two Chairs from the Ōita Association of Corporate Executives, Chair of Beppu City Chamber of Commerce, Chair of the Ōita Prefecture Government Assembly, the Governor of the Ōita Rotary Club, the Region
Chair of the Lions Club, President of Ōita Bank, and the Chair of Tourism Ōita (Formerly known as the Ōita Prefectural Tourism Association). The purpose of the executive committee is to raise funds for the opening and closing ceremony, work on developing where local sessions will take place, what activities and entertainment will be provided for participants, and finding key persons (local coordinators) and host families. The executive committee also engages in fund raising efforts to pay for tours, catering, rental vehicles, audio-visual equipment, performances, and advertising to find host families. In addition to the money received from corporate sponsors, the cost and organization of the actual summit largely falls on the executive committee. The executive committee assigns a key person to each of the local sessions to act as local session coordinators. Key persons work with the executive committee in coordinating and selecting tours, entertainment, and various activities for participants. These activities can range from castle tours and visiting aquariums to calligraphy writing at local high schools. Key persons are
responsible for finding someone to accompany participants during the local session activities as well as provide transportation between the various sites of the local session. Each local session is different based on the key person involved in its planning and what they believe their particular locality can offer participants based on the short length of the summit and available funding.
The use of key persons is the reason why the CIE does not consider potential summit locations based on criteria such as cultural value or local history. The key persons are primarily responsible for the local session programs and organization. Given that key persons reside where the local sessions take place, the CIE presumes they possess knowledge about the areas local culture, history, and sites of interest (meisho). The individual experiences each local session provides, these are subsumed by the broader prefectural advertising that occurs in the Grassroots Summit brochure and associated promotional materials. Indeed, this year’s promotional brochure
focused heavily on the prefecture’s current tourist campaign Onsen Ōita by making direct references to Ōita’s hot springs accompanied by pictures. This is not surprising given the composition of the 2015 executive committee.
The Summit Volunteer Committee (SVC) is not officially part of the CIE, but they work closely to coordinate participants and run the summit when it begins. Thereof, volunteers are tasked with most of the actual work the summit entails. Volunteers make sure all participants arrive at the airport, distribute hotel room keys, direct participants to their correct buses, ride with participants on buses or trains to make sure they arrive at the correct destination, inform participants when to check out of their hotel rooms, and serve as interpreters. The Summit Volunteer Committee also helps in organizing the post summit programs that I describe below.
Applications to attend the summit are due by May or June. The CIE staff initially handles applicant submissions but turns them over to local session key persons in order to match
participants with host families. Individuals that are interested in attending the summit may fill out and submit their application online or by mail. I asked the secretary general if anyone had been turned down from attending the summit given the use of the word application. According to her, in only one instance has an applicant been turned down due to unethical behavior during a previous summit.
The CIE mails applications and brochures out to previous participants, previous American host families, and volunteers. The CIE also works with the National Association of Japan America Societies (NAJAS) to promote the summit. While there are currently around 37 Japan America Societies located across the United States, the summit does not always attract members from these societies. In fact, I was the only member of the Japan America Society of Georgia to attend the entire summit. Despite attempts at using social media to promote the
summit, the CIE states that word of mouth and the previous year’s summit location in the United States are the most common ways that participants find out about the summit. Given the
responses from my informants, only three that I interviewed had ever heard of the CIE or Grassroots Summit prior to the year they attended the summit. Those that were unfamiliar with the CIE and summit were also surprised to find out that the program had been around for twenty- five years. For informants that were also first-time summit participants, the most common responses were that either they found out about the summit from a friend that had attended the summit in Japan or they, themselves, had hosted a Japanese citizen during the American summit. Some informants were not associated with local Japan-America societies but heard about the summit from individuals that were.