Participation from the 8th of May till the 8th of July 2013
“I was unsatisfied about my everyday life, so I decided to join Deshima AIR in order to start over a new leaf in my life.’
Akira Sakai
Akira Sakai is a cram school teacher and a café musician from Hakodate, with the aspiration of starting his own lunchroom in Hakodate. Sakai was the first participant of Deshima AIR and wanted to research the history and culture behind Dutch customs and cuisine.
He did this by visiting several typical Amsterdam cafes and had the experience of trying lots of different apple pies (baked by volunteers of Deshima AIR) with which he fell in love. He was also very intrigued with the differences of greeting customers/guests in restaurants and bars.
Sakai mentioned he wanted to start a lunch-room in his hometown of Hakodate at which he wanted to introduce Hannie’s apple pie (He named this is in to reference to Hannie van den Bergh, co-founder of Deshima AIR) in his home-town of Hakodate. He has not opened his own café yet, but did introduce Hannie’s apple pie to one of the cafés he worked at, where it is currently sold to customers.
“Akira loved to visit bars and cafés to learn about the particular way of Dutch politeness. Dutch apple pie became his favourite recipe.”
Hannie van den Bergh, artist, designer and curator of Deshima AIR