Chikaraishi san and Soul of Japan Foundation
Mr. Hiroo Chikaraishi is an Ambassador for The Culinary Institute of America in Japan.
CIA team members have worked with Chikaraishi san for many years, most intently from 2007 to 2010, while planning the CIA’s 13th Annual Worlds of Flavor International Conference & Festival, JAPAN: FLAVORS OF CULTURE, From Sushi and Soba to Kaiseki: A Global Celebration of Tradition, Art and Exchange, which took place at the CIA’s Greystone campus in Napa Valley, California, on November 4-6, 2010.
With a focus on food, and with 34 chefs and food industry experts from Japan presenting as an integral part of the 90+ total Japanese cuisine authorities from around the world, the conference provided a great opportunity to promote friendship and international exchange between Japan and the USA.
Due to the participation of distinguished Japanese chefs, who subsequently became The Team of Japan as a result of this conference, it significantly contributed to deepening the understanding of Japanese culinary culture and cooking techniques for US food industry professionals.
Beyond the 2010 conference, the CIA relationship with Chikaraishi san has endured and deepened with his continued support of CIA Japanese educational programming, including additional professional conferences and most especially, our CIA Japanese Cuisine and Culture Concentration, an elective for Bachelor’s students.
Does "hospitality", the origin of service, exist in Japan's service industry? We started from this question.
Hospitality is compassion, consideration, and putting your heart and feelings into action. We believe that when we can share the richness, kindness, enjoyment, and excitement of our hearts with our customers, coworkers, business partners, and local people, we will be able to transcend the service industry and create a new field known as the hospitality industry.
- Hiroo Chikaraishi, president of Soul of Japan Foundation
Hiroo Chikaraishi, Thomas & Chikaraishi Co., Ltd. Representative Director
After graduating from Waseda University, he studied abroad at the School of Hotel and Restaurant Administration at Paul Smith College in the United States. After graduating from the university, he received management training at Mark Thomas Enterprises in California, USA. After returning to Japan, he established Thomas & Chikaraishi Co., Ltd. in 1972 and began consulting services for hotels, restaurants, and leisure companies. Currently, in addition to consulting and planning work (planning and development), he is also focusing on human resource development through holding seminars for the hospitality industry and corporate training.
In recent years, he has received requests to give lectures on hospitality from a wide range of industries, including the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, local governments, the financial industry, insurance companies, the automotive industry, the distribution industry, and the medical industry, and has given numerous lectures around the country.
I went to the United States in 1966 with the dream and ambition of learning true service and studying the service industry as an academic subject. I think my service background was at this hotel school called Paul Smith College, located deep in the mountains of New York State.
At this college, I was thoroughly taught the essence and origins of things, such as greeting people in a pleasant manner, always keeping appointments, and maintaining a clean appearance so as not to offend others. Among these, I was especially impressed by the importance of hospitality, which is to take things with your heart and feelings and then turn them into action.
After graduating from this college, I met Mark Thomas, who was known as the king of hotels and restaurants on the West Coast of the United States at the time and asked him to teach me for three years before returning to Japan in order to back up the knowledge I had learned at university with my own experience.
Immediately after returning to Japan, I founded Thomas & Chika Raishi Co., Ltd. in 1972, named after myself and the respected Mr. Thomas.
45 years ago, our work was called "customer service" or "water service," but it has grown into a service industry and is now known as the "hospitality industry." It has evolved into an industry where the workers and the customers share their hearts. If we can treat people with a hospitable heart, such as consideration, thoughtfulness, and kindness, then we can make ourselves, our customers, and even our society warmer.
- Hiroo Chikaraishi, president of Soul of Japan Foundation
About the Soul of Japan Foundation
To showcase Japan’s food to the world as the Team of Japan, a group of 34 distinguished chefs from a variety of culinary backgrounds and genres traveled from Japan to the California Campus of The Culinary Institute of America located in beautiful Napa Valley. The group traveled there in order to participate in the Worlds of Flavor Conference that was held in November of 2010. During the subsequent 3-day program that attracted numerous top chefs from both within the United States and from around the world, the Team of Japan’s presentations were highly regarded, and it could be said that their efforts further enhanced the worldwide reputation of both Japan’s culinary traditions and the chefs who created and continued them. Additionally, the occasion also gave the participating chefs an opportunity to further develop relationships with one another that exceeded the boundaries of individual culinary genres.
A few months after the event, the Great East Japan Earthquake struck with all its fury in March of 2011. Confronted by the unprecedented scale of the disaster, chefs who had participated just a few months previously in Worlds of Flavor in Napa Valley, arose a choir of voices and showed the desire to “do something.” Those voices reached the ears of Mr. Hiroo Chikaraishi, the Japanese Ambassador to CIA who, had worked tirelessly to assemble the Team of Japan to California. Subsequently, in order to act as a body that was capable of both receiving and acting upon all the kind intentions that had been expressed, the Soul of Japan Foundation was established in April 2011.
Following on from its founding, on an ongoing basis for approximately three years, the foundation undertook activities within Japan including the preparation of meals in support of people who resided in areas of the country impacted by the Great East Japan Earthquake and its aftermath. Since such responsibilities for those activities shifted to a recognized non-profit organization, the Soul of Japan itself evolved to become an advocate “to help realize a platform for Japanese food.” Having done so, to this day, the foundation works to support numerous Japanese chefs and their activities within Japan and abroad, along with a number of food industry-related companies.
If you would like to purchase the book "Soul of Japanese Cuisine" published by the foundation, please contact us here.
