The Ikigai in Vagabondism, with Tengyo Kura

Ikigai with Jennifer Shinkai

Welcome to another episode of season three of the Ikigai with Jennifer Shinkai podcast. On the podcast this week I got to sit down with Tengyo Kura, a self professed vagabond. Tengyo has a beautiful outlook on life that has propelled him around the world to connect with many people from different cultures, countries and experiences. Vagabondism is how Tengyo lives his life and is directly connected to his ikigai, and is a way for him to experience true connection to other people. Tengyo has some amazing insights to share with you all that will leave you truly inspired to seek out more true connection in your own life!

If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, we’d love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway.

In this episode you’ll hear:

• How teaching languages to students made Tengyo realise he was a storyteller at heart
• Why we can never truly understand each other completely, but how love and respect lead to true connection
• What vagabondism means to Tengyo & what we can learn from people living a vagabond life
• Tengyo’s advice for those interested in experiencing vagabondism for themselves

About Tengyo Kura:

Tengyo was born in 1972, and studied anthropology at a university in Tokyo.

Since 2001, Tengyo has been living as a vagabond (stranger) in various parts of the world.

Tengyo taught English at a university in Mongolia, was a language teacher at a law school in Sri Lanka and encountered the Tsunami in 2004. He was a lecturer of Contemporary Japanese Culture at a university college in Norway (2005-2009), and organized the Hiroshima A-bomb exhibition in cooperation with the City of Hiroshima and the Nobel Peace Committee in 2008. He was a Japanese language and cultural teacher at a secondary school in Latvia (2011-2012), and was nominated for the Best Teacher Award in the capital city of Riga in 2011.

Tengyo lived in India and other Asian countries and wrote stories for his storytelling work “Chronicle of Vagabondism” in 2013. He collaborated with Latvian artists for the EU Capital of Culture Commemorative Event in Riga, Latvia in 2014. He lived in several countries in South America and wrote stories for his storytelling work “Chronicle of Vagabondism” from 2014 to 2016. Tengyo also created a storytelling artwork "The Tokyo Vagabond x Ueno" in 2017. Tengyo was a storyteller of an exchange program for TURN, a big cultural project initiated by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (2017-2020). He also worked with Cocoroom, an art NPO in the biggest Japanese homelessness community in Osaka City (2020-2022), and was appointed as a chief member of the NPO in 2022.

Tengyo resumed activities in Africa in November 2022, and introduced a Japanese concept of social inclusive programs to countries in the southern part of Africa. Tengyo is now carrying out various activities called African Jamboree 2025 that emphasize cultural exchange between Japan and some African nations until 2025.

Connect with Tengyo:

Website: https://vagabond.link/

Connect with Jennifer:

Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifershinkai/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jennifershinkaicoach

Website: https://jennifershinkai.com/

Instagram Coaching and Podcast: https://www.instagram.com/ikigaiwithjennifershinkai/

Instagram Artist: https://www.instagram.com/jennifershinkai/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ikigaiwithjennifershinkai/