Mr. Tetsuji Matsubayashi was born in 1960 as a son of a farmer in Awaji Island, Hyogo prefecture. With the exception of electric lights, it was a time when people in the countryside were living in nearly 100% regionally self-sufficient and still spending local life and slow life. He graduated in faculty of economics from Kyoto Sangyo University in 1982. While at university, he was wandering India and Nepal in search of the meaning of “true affluence”. After coming back to Japan, worked at a trading company. His life was on the stage of global economy including India and Asia again. In 2001, he established the export trading company Venture Chemical Ltd. which treats fine chemicals in Osaka and became the president.
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In 2000, he reached to the rank of Shugendo Yamasendatsu (Shugendo is the religion of ascetic. Yamasendatsu is a high-ranking pilgrimage guide in the mountain). At Kinpusen-ji temple of mount Yoshino in Nara, he entered the Buddhist priesthood (tokudo) and received religious precepts (jukai) in 2010. Certified as an associate grand master of The Tozanryu Shakuhachi in 2013. Completed Goma-kegyo (prayoga and culminating in the practice of a ritual of votive fire offerings) at Kinpusen-ji temple in 2016. His business office had moved from the city of Osaka to the mountain village of Fukano in Nara in 2014.
He had learned “culture and tradition play an important role to form humanity” through wandering the world in his early twenties and global business experience in his thirties to forties. Under the philosophy, he started running the rare type of accommodation Private Villa in Japan whose building was repaired traditional Japanese thatched-roof house for the wealthy travellers, while he was managing trading business at the mountain village ahead of telework becoming popular. To advance the branding of the private villa, he opened Sasayuri-Ann “Zao”, followed by “Ozunu” in 2017. He participated in many business meetings for the wealthy customers including VJTM (VISIT JAPAN Travel and MICE Mart) Tokyo, ILTM(International Luxury Travel Market) Cannes in France and Further East at Bali to attract a large number of not only Japanese customers but also foreign travellers. His villas has been introduced by the foreign famous magazines such as Condé Nast Traveller Magazine, Departure, Cartography (Giorgio Armani) and Vogue Italy website. Furthermore, Vanity Fair UK will introduce his villas in the article about how the small private company works on the activity of “Japanese culture and tradition keeping operation” and “appreciate differences and discover oneness” through tourist accomodation management in 2021. Next challenge to be addressed is how to contribute corporate profits to preserve traditional house and hand over Japanese culture to future generations with sociality and public interests in order to spread traditional culture which is essential to form humanity.