Photo/Illutration Swastika Harsh Jajoo, center, is in Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture, on Jan. 11. (Yukiko Sakamoto)

On a recent winter day, an Indian tour guide visited the Hamadori coastal region in Fukushima Prefecture with a group of five students from her homeland.

Swastika Harsh Jajoo, 28, referred the students to a male winery owner who formerly relocated but returned and a farmer striving to establish a new regional specialty.

The students enjoyed their interactions with local residents who have been making diligent efforts to recover from the 2011 accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

Hearing the students admire the remarkable resilience of the region to overcome difficulties, Jajoo witnessed firsthand their contemplation of Fukushima’s future and their commitment to sharing what they learned with the world.

Jajoo arrived in Japan as an international student for her short educational program in the East Asian state. She then continued on to Tohoku University’s graduate school for linguistics research.

She went to Hamadori for the first time in 2021 as part of a sightseeing package to walk through areas affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.

Listening to explanations about residents’ pre-disaster daily lives and traditional culture made Jajoo aware of the harsh reality involving the evacuation order around the crippled nuclear power plant.

She realized that people can be stripped of their most important things in the blink of an eye.

She reflected on whether she had truly cherished personal connections and traditional hometown events on her own.

As Jajoo discovered numerous elements to explore further, she was quick to join a tourism corporation in Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture, that organized the tour.

Jajoo has since attended business meetings overseas to develop packages that cater to travel agencies, media outlets and students in and outside Japan.

She has been involved in the introduction of 50 tours over the course of more than three years. Jajoo has rolled out the red carpet for upward of 100 participants from abroad.

Moving from Sendai into Namie in the neighborhood of Futaba a year and a half ago, Jajoo currently adds her personal tweaks to itineraries at times.

One of her tours features a vegetarian meal worked out by Jajoo’s favorite restaurant at her request. A poetry composition event is part of a tour, because Jajoo takes full advantage of her rich Japanese vocabulary for creating poems with local acquaintances.

Jajoo acknowledged that she sometimes feels that even participants in her tours have prejudices against Fukushima. Her current “mission” is garnering new Hamadori fans from now.

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