On 28 July, I published Founder’s Note 03 after Tanabata Bon Odori. Less than a month later, on 16 August, we met at ABCD Cafe in Sunway Citrine, Iskandar Puteri, Johor for a Japanese Book Exchange. I left that afternoon more grateful than I expected to be.
ABCD Cafe welcomed us with patience and generosity. As an Open State partner, it gave the books a table, the conversations room, and guests an easy way to stay awhile. Thank you to ABCD for opening its doors and for the warm reception.
The turnout exceeded my expectations. Families read together, people showed one another pages and covers, and the room stayed busy with conversations around the tables.
One image stays in my mind. A child held an illustrated Japanese book open while an adult watched nearby. That moment showed what the exchange meant. A book one family had loved was being opened by another.
Children moved slowly through the display of books, deciding what to pick up next. We gave them time to browse without hurrying them.
Close to the table, people paused over the illustrated pages. Readers could follow the illustrations before anyone translated the Japanese text.
I met the Amai family almost by chance through a conversation with a local business. A Malaysian family with Japanese family ties ran Amai Cafe, a Japanese bakery in Bukit Indah, for more than 20 years. Their physical shop has closed, but the books still had somewhere useful to go.
The donated books had been read by the family’s grandchildren. Passing them on meant that other children and families could choose them, hold them, and read them in new homes. The handover kept something useful from disappearing when a long-running local business closed its doors.
The weeks since Founder’s Note 03 have included challenges, and our team has faced them together. During that time, more local businesses across Iskandar Puteri have joined Open State. Locals reached out through social media to volunteer and become part of Open State.
Open State should make useful ties easier to start and continue. I want people of different backgrounds, nationalities and faiths to be able to share the same picture as neighbours without erasing their differences. That can make Johor more open and more beautiful. A local business should be able to meet a community. A volunteer should be able to find a clear next step. A family should be able to discover a place, an event, or a book that makes the neighbourhood feel more open.
If you run a local business, lead a community, have a space to share, or want to volunteer, please talk to us. We are building with care, and we need people who know their neighbourhoods well enough to tell us what would be genuinely useful.
Thank you to everyone who joined and volunteered. Thank you to ABCD Cafe for hosting us, and to the Amai Cafe family for trusting the exchange with books their grandchildren had read. If you want to host, volunteer, donate a collection, or introduce a local business, contact us through Open State. We will make room for the next useful gathering.
