愛媛県の中村知事と市民とが対話する、掲題のイベントに参加してきました。毎年おこなわれる行事で、東予、中予、南予の地区ごとに開催されるそうです。中村さんが知事になってからは2年目、南予地区からの参加者として、西予市に推薦してもらいました。
推薦してもらい、出席することにはなったものの、実は何を話したらいいか、当日までなかなかイメージが沸きませんでした。国や市町村と違って、県の行政や政策を身近に感じることが、これまでなかったのです。
イベント本番中に知事と直接対話できるのは15分程度。十分な時間があったのですが、生産的な議論につながる共通言語は、結局見出せないままでした。その後の懇親会には県職員も何人か参加していましたが、酒が入っても同じような状況でした。
これがかえって新鮮で、僕としてはいい経験をさせてもらいました。推薦してもらった期待には沿えなかったと思いますが、南予からの他の参加者との新たな出会いもあり、楽しかったです。知事の中村時広さんも闊達で元気もよく、とても好印象でした。
（ゆ）
"Friendly dialogue"
I was invited to an event called as titled, which gave an opportunity to citizens and Mr. Nakamura, prefectural governor of Ehime prefecture, to have casual dialogues. This is held annually in each of the three districts. Seiyo city put me in as one of the participants from Nanyo-district.
Though I got the rare opportunity with an offer recommendation from Seiyo-city, I couldn't have any idea of what I was supposed to talk about over there, because till then I'd been familiar with issues and discussions at the national and municipality levels, but not at the prefectural level. Prefecture matters had somehow been too far away from me.
During the event, I'd got about 15 minutes to talk to the governor directly, which was quite enough to talk about something, but I couldn't find any "common languages" that allowed us to have a productive discussion. A casual get-together was organized after the event, and some of the staff from the prefectural government office joined. Many of the participants took alcohol, but even with the help of beer and Sake, the situation was the same: no such productive discussion was held.
However, this was really fresh to me and I'm happy with having had an such opportunity. Though I don't think I performed as expected, but I enjoyed the gathering, specially because I met some other unique participants. The governor, Mr. Nakamura, is indeed a free-wheeling man, and I had a good impression of him.
Yuki
