PEOPLE

Living now for the future of Japan: The mission of the Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution is to raise awareness and courage that “Japan can be saved if we make use of the spirit of our predecessors.”

Promptly, practically and pragmatically.

Kato: First of all, thank you for writing an article in the 'Book to Understand Ships', which was published as a guidebook and shipbuilding edition for the Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution. Your commentary, which was given by the director of the department that supervises and operates the facilities at the Nagasaki Shipyard and Machinery of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, gave us an insight into the current state of the shipbuilding industry in Japan. I was also looking forward to hearing from you today, as you are currently teaching at Nagasaki University, where you are also focusing on human resource development.

Hashimoto: I thank you as well.

Kato: To begin with, regarding the road to World Heritage registration, when I first mentioned the idea of registering the Mitsubishi Shipyard facilities as a component part of a World Heritage Site, there was a big hurdle.

Hashimoto: I think everyone felt it was an honour to be inscribed on the World Heritage List. However, the word 'heritage' tends to conjure up images of something that has already been done, and there were fears that the shipyard might have to cease operations. It is true that some people were concerned that the shipyard would have to cease operations.

Kato: I remember that we did not receive a good response even after we informed them that we were going to register it as operational assets.

Hashimoto: Yes, that was right. At that time, you visited us many times and explained everything in detail. However, at that time, I wondered if there would be any restrictions even if we wanted to keep the assets in operation. … Looking back, the honest truth is that no one really understood what was going on before we could say yes or no.

Kato: How did you take it at that time?

Hashimoto: Even for me, I did not have the knowledge or awareness to understand that it was a World Heritage Site with a story to tell. However, gradually, I understood that this new concept of World Heritage registration was possible, and from then on, I began to talk to people within the shipyard about the possibility of positively considering it. After doing so, there were a great many opinions that if the work done by the Nagasaki Shipyard and Machinery was highly valued, they would be in favour of it.

Kato: In the first place, many people wondered whether the three docks - No.1, No. 2, and No. 3 - located within the Nagasaki Shipyard & Machinery were worth that much.

Hashimoto: Actually, I thought so, too, because they were old docks, more than 100 years old, and used almost exclusively for repair work. So, I did my own research and found a paper about the dock that had been presented to the American Society of Civil Engineers. This made me realize again that it was groundbreaking for its time and of a high technical level; in other words, it had sufficient value as an industrial heritage.

Kato: Everyone on site worked extremely hard to welcome Ms. Sarah Jane from Australia, the ICOMOS assessor. When I saw their enthusiasm for perfectly presenting everything in English, I had a gut feeling that Mitsubishi is an international company and is used to international business contracts.

Hashimoto: We make a lot of technical contracts and technical documents in the run-up to doing a deal. In terms of legal matters, I think we covered as many possible situations as we could imagine in such cases and described them in detail.

Kato: Even when producing CPMs, the Mitsubishi way of writing documents is to make the subject matter clear and the responsibility clear, and this was a great learning experience. CPMs produced by the administration are often passive sentences, and there are many cases where it is unclear what they are trying to say. For example, when the administration takes the initiative and prepares a management and conservation plan based on the conventional way of thinking about cultural heritage, the ideological part of the plan is quite strong, and the vital part of where and to what extent conservation should be carried out is not clear. As I expected, overcoming the walls of the Agency for Cultural Affairs would be even more challenging, and it turned out it was.

Hashimoto: Of course, Mitsubishi had ideological intentions, but it is impossible to give form to a contract of the heart.

Kato: The ideology of the Mitsubishi shipyard is well documented in the company history, and I was able to get a good sense of it from there. However, when I first visited the Senshokaku and the archives, I really felt that Japan still had a history to tell. In any case, I think that it was precisely because we had established and organized an unspoken sense of pride that we were able to quickly, practically and pragmatically work out how to protect it in concrete terms.

Hashimoto: I am glad to hear you say so.