Monday evening we had a dinner with some special guests from Asia to honor the publication of the new Japanese and Taiwanese translations of the World Café book.

There were five members of the Japanese translation team, including Daisuke Kawaguchi, who had been my main contact throughout the process, and his colleagues Toshimitsu Kanekiyo, Kazuaka Katori, Mikako Yusa and Riichiro Oda; Stephen Meng from the Taiwan translation team was there and Chaiwat Thirapantu from Thailand, along with Alfred Hanner of Saudi Arabia.

We were all tired from a long full day and our various travels, but the energy was wonderful, the stories inspirational and the conversation incredibly rich and heartfelt. Sitting next to Japanese colleagues I learned that there is a new online World Café community being formed in Japan, and that Riichiro had himself hosted seven World Cafés in Japan this year, the most recent being one on Climate Change.

I fell in love with each of these incredibly kind and thoughtful people as I found myself relaxing after the full day, being asked wonderfully gentle and stimulating personal questions like “What is your vision of the future” and “What do you hope for in your own life?”

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To keep reading this harvest chronologically, click here for Tuesday morning’s weaving and the keynote by Boeing.