From the Judges: “As it is so often with writings set in Kyoto, “Trying to Understand” depicts a journey of inquiry and discovery. Many of us hope our experiences in the city will lead to a deeper and more profound understanding of life. This is something that everyone in a foreign place, looking for answers to life’s conundrums, has felt. This piece shows us how to listen to the subtle music of Kyoto which imparts a message of inspiration. Kyoto is particularly fertile ground, providing so many venues and moments for subtle reflection. Kyoto trains us to read between the lines and reveals metaphors for a more mindful life, a lesson effectively captured within.”
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Trying to Understand
I am trying to understand life but I am failing
In Kyoto I thought I would find answers
I wanted to see how I’ve made my mistakes I wanted to learn how to avoid making more
But in trying to understand the past, the depth of it overwhelmed me
So I walked the gardens and I learned that where the path is precarious, one should slow down
I learned that there are times along the way when one should stop a while to appreciate their surroundings
I partook of the tea ceremony and I learned to take the bitter with the sweet
I stayed in a machiya and I learned that allowing light into the center illuminates the whole
I am beginning to understand
Photo Credit: Kirsty Kawano (at Murin-an)
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Kirsty Kawano is an Australian who has lived in Japan for a couple of decades. She works as a translator, editor and non-fiction writer and joined Writers in Kyoto five years ago, after moving to the city from Tokyo. Although she swore off writing fiction about 15 years ago, being part of the group has nudged her toward it.
THE KIMONO TATTOO by Rebecca Copeland (Brother Mockingbird, 2021)
Review by Rebecca Otowa June 2023
Many themes come together in this complex novel about a famous kimono, the design of which is transformed into a tattoo inscribed on a beautiful woman, the daughter of a famous kimono-designing family in Kyoto. The main character of the story, an American woman with a tragic event in her childhood in Kyoto as the daughter of missionary parents, comes upon the story of this family and how it went off the rails. Earlier, she translated a Japanese novel about a kimono that was seemingly cursed and responsible for several deaths. Suddenly she becomes involved with the story in a much more intense way, and also confronts the tragic event in her past.
The themes include: the lineage of kimono design and creation in Kyoto, along with the problems of traditional family heritage and what happens when it is disrupted; the related theme of gender equality and what happens when it is discounted; the role of woman in Japanese society as supplier of heirs and what happens when a woman who subscribes wholeheartedly to this role is torn away from it. It is evident that the author feels strongly about these themes, and at the center is the question of the continuation of an old and respected family — to what extent are the men, and especially the women, of this family prepared to continue with its traditions?
There is also the motif of the blending of reality and fiction, with the book-within-a-book which has been translated by the protagonist turning out to shed light on the story of the traditional kimono-designing family. There is also plenty of detail about kimono and tattooing, not to mention the city of Kyoto itself, with a wealth of geographical detail especially about the area around Okazaki, Nanzenji and the Philosophers’ Walk. It is easy for anyone familiar with this area to imagine the action. A look at a map of Kyoto will readily be the source of visualization for others. The author makes sure that the reader will see the scenes in the mind’s eye.
The writing is rich in details; from these it is evident that Rebecca Copeland has lived a life in Kyoto very similar to that of her protagonist. Exquisitely described scenes such as an evening walk home through little streets and alleyways — “I could smell the dinner preparations in the houses I passed along the way… Here and there I caught a whiff of mosquito smudge or heard the splash of water being readied for the evening bath.”
This is a book with many characters. There are the “real” characters surrounding the protagonist; the fictional characters within the novel she translated; and even some historical ones from the rich tradition of kimono making in Kyoto. I myself had to stop and make notes to keep them straight, but that is probably not necessary for everyone; the story line carries us along, now dipping into the everyday life of the protagonist as she goes about her work in a translation company, her meals and relaxation, now telling us snippets about such things as traditional tattooing or the breeding of the ferocious Tosa fighting dogs of Shikoku.
The tragedy at the center of the protagonist’s early life is unravelled, taking center stage toward the end and revealing some surprising connections. Some broken relationships are repaired and other new ones blossom, all in the shadow of the central, etherically beautiful kimono and its superbly wrought tattoo.
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Rebecca Copeland is a writer of fiction and literary criticism and a translator of Japanese literature. Her stories travel between Japan and the American South and touch on questions of identity, belonging, and self-discovery. Her academic writings have focused almost exclusively on modern Japanese women writers, and she has translated the works of writer Uno Chiyo and novelist Kirino Natsuo. Copeland was born to missionary parents in a Japan still recovering from the aftermath of war. As a junior in college, Copeland had the opportunity to spend a year in Japan, where she studied traditional dance, learned to wear a kimono, and traveled. Afterwards she earned a PhD in Japanese literature at Columbia University, and she is now a professor at Washington University in St. Louis. The present work, The Kimono Tattoo, is her debut work of fiction. More information may be found on her website, rebecca-copeland.com.
Around seven years ago, at a shaonkai (a party held for teachers by students the evening before graduation), Professor Eriko Furukawa, a specialist in Gothic literature, and I were balancing tiny plates of fried shrimp and canapes in a corner of a posh party venue filled with fairy lights, near the Okura Hotel in Kyoto’s Oike Street. “Aren’t you lonely living so far apart?” Eriko teasingly queried when I told her that I was living with my children here in Kyoto, while my husband was in Ibaraki Prefecture, where he works for a large public university. “No”, I found myself saying honestly, “I’m all right. I’m so busy, and he visits occasionally as it’s not far. It’s fine.” Eriko cracked up, eyes sparkling like the champagne in her glass, and I recalled that she was living and working in Kyoto while her husband and grown son were residing in Nagoya. “You’re just like a Japanese woman!” she exclaimed, “we love to have the house to ourselves and relax on our own in total freedom!” I laughed, feeling like my suspicions had been confirmed. I’d known several housewives in my younger housewife days who had expressed a sense of freedom when their husbands were gone on business trips. “The kids and I just eat chips for dinner when he’s gone!” Mrs Yamamoto had told me gleefully. I knew implicitly that Eriko was referring to tanshinfunin 単身赴任 (tan=single; shin=body; funin= taking up a post). Tanshinfunin traditionally means that the wife stays with the children in a house while the husband is sent by his company to different places to work. The custom goes back to the Edo period and the policy of sankin kotai. Each daimyo, or local feudal lord, was required to move periodically between Edo and his fief, usually spending a year in each place. His wife and heir were required to live in Edo as hostages while he was away. Maintaining several stately residences and paying for large processions of retainers, soldiers and assistants to travel was expensive, and was calculated to leave the daimyos too financially strapped to stage armed rebellions against the Shogunate. One more reason the Shogunate implemented sankin kotai was because the thousands of travelers required roads, inns and other facilities which spurred economic activity. Over almost 30 years of living in Japan, in many different places, I’ve known several people who were tanshinfunin. There was the young mother of a baby girl named Kaede-chan living in a small house near ours in Yamaguchi back in 1998, whose husband disappeared for weeks on end, and I guessed from his clothes that he was working on construction projects. But it was in 2002, when we moved to Tsukuba, a relatively new and planned city, that I started to understand tanshinfunin culture more deeply, because it was not uncommon among both male and female professors there. The university provided inexpensive one-room apartments in large high-rises for people who lived alone. It was an easy, and even an expected, choice to make, for it was a place with excellent transportation networks and close to Tokyo. My husband explained to me that tanshinfunin was desirable since kids could stay in the same school or perhaps the spouse already had a job or family connections back home. I didn’t think my husband and I would ever be tanshinfunin, however, but then the huge earthquake and nuclear accident occurred in 2011. Our son was only six years old, and my husband was concerned about the Fukushima reactor exploding. “Why don’t you take him down to Yamaguchi and stay there for a few days?” he suggested. Yamaguchi was an old and traditional place nicknamed “the little Kyoto of the west”, where we’d lived for five years before we moved to Tsukuba, so we had many friends there. Sitting beside the river, I found myself feeling comfortable and happy to be back in Yamaguchi, a town I loved so much, and which, to be honest, I hadn’t wished to leave. A friend let us stay in her house for free, and I began to visualize myself on my own with the kids, tanshinfunin. Besides the radiation, I had another reason to leave Tsukuba, for what I most wanted to do was work on my research into Shakespeare and fossil fuels. I had started questioning why people felt it so necessary to build gigantic roads and fill them with cars. Then one evening, about a year before the huge earthquake, I noticed the word “coals” in the first line of Romeo and Juliet. And since that time, I have dedicated myself to sleuthing out why Shakespeare mentioned fossil fuels at the start of his most famous play. When I told my husband of my plan to stay and work in Yamaguchi, he reluctantly accepted my idea, and I’m sure that the concept of tanshinfunin lay behind his acquiescence. As I’d be working a few part-time jobs, my salary was lower, but there were no meetings to attend, and everything was cheaper and more low-key. It was the old, traditional town with its tiny streets which had first inspired my research on fossil fuels. I spent as much time as I could working on my articles, and after three years in Yamaguchi I had published enough articles to apply for academic jobs. That’s how my two children and I ended up moving to Kyoto in March 2015. A couple of years after the shaonkai, I started noticing news articles in western media about a new trend called “Living Alone Together”, abbreviated as L.A.T. It is exactly what it sounds like: the couple remains married, but chooses to live in different homes. I gathered that for the most part artists and professional couples chose L.A.T., so I thought it might be associated with economic privilege. And a number of articles suggested that it was often the wife, not the husband, who initiated the decision, and terms like “independence”, “autonomy”, “identity” and “freedom” were associated with the concept. I also gathered that the rise of L.A.T. was associated with the demise of the patriarchy, and commentators associated with conservative religious groups were opposed to it. In the past, in the West, separate marital living arrangements might have seemed shameful and hinting at marital problems. But really, L.A.T. has tossed all that out the window. Reading about the trend, I couldn’t help but remember Professor Furukawa’s observation that it was the “freedom” of tanshinfunin that appealed to Japanese women. She was in her 60s, and her generation would have had a different view of things than young women now, who might find tanshinfunin lonely or difficult with small children. And that is completely understandable. My point is just that happily married women in Japan have been living on their own for centuries without shame being attached to them or their spouses. Of course, in the West various situations involved couples living separately, such as military personnel, academics employed at different universities, or professionals working far from each other. But in my opinion, until L.A.T. came along, it has been seen as second-best, a poor substitute, something that should be corrected as soon as logistically possible. Tanshinfunin on the other hand seems to have assumed from the start that a woman could manage on her own, that she was capable and independent. In that way, it normalized female autonomy. As a researcher who studies and critiques the patriarchy and knows the value of women’s independence, I’m a fan of tanshinfunin culture because I also have benefited from it.
From the Judges: “Nascent love is the theme of this vignette. In the end we find out where this love took the writer, and the reader can appreciate how the memory is cherished years later in a home away from Japan. Each sense of place blends into the other, creating a whole. Kyoto is a city in which one catches a glimpse of many couples. “A Foreign Visitor” speaks to the romance of the city and its gentle whispers of love and serendipity. Well-envisioned and communicating lovely images, the mood is simple and flowing, with the couple’s budding affection embraced by Kyoto’s atmosphere.”
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A Foreign Visitor
It was the end of September. I wandered with my new friend who was visiting Japan from Ireland, inside the Higashi Honganji – simply because it was the nearest temple to the Kyoto station.
The late-summer light slanted my friend’s shadow across the stone pavement, as he purified his hands with a ladle of water. It was the moment before good-bye; we did not know when we would meet again. We went up the stairs into an open balcony, opposite the main temple, and sat down on a low wooden railing – four feet apart. I took a photo of my friend. An old man, possibly a janitor, shuffled by. “You’ll fall if you are not careful”, he warned. I smiled at him thinking it might mean “fall in love” and pressed the shutter button again, balancing my bottom on the railing. As the warm wind brushed my bare toes, I had a feeling of being watched.
I remember the calm in the air, the people sitting on the tatami praying in silence, my soles touching the wooden floor, my friend’s openness; a visitor in a foreign land. The clock ticked steadily towards the time of the last airport bus. As we reached the exit gate, a couple stopped us. With a lovely smile, the woman said she had taken our photo.
Five years later, the photo sits over our fireplace in Dublin, like a foreign visitor; round roof tiles like fish scales, horizontal balcony like a solemn procession, upright wooden pillars, calligraphy framed on the wall and me photographing my husband – both of us captured in that moment of uncertainty.
Photo Credit: Haruka Ota
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Mai Ishikawa is a Japanese theatre translator. She has lived in three different countries; US, Japan and now Ireland. The plays she has translated include “Necessary Targets” by Eve Ensler, “Cyprus Avenue” by David Ireland, “Dublin by Lamplight” by Michael West in collaboration with the Corn Exchange and “Once Upon a Bridge” by Sonya Kelly. She is currently writing her own play with the support of bursaries and the Arts Council.
For the full list of this year’s competition winners, click here. For the original competition notice (with prize details), click here.
‘The Nature of Kyoto: Writers in Kyoto Anthology 5’ was launched in style on the grassy banks of the Kamogawa in Kyoto on Sunday, May 21st. In keeping with the theme, the riverside setting was perfect to celebrate this captivating collection of prose and poetry. Many of the 30 contributors to the Anthology were able to attend, some with family members. The presence of the co-editors, Lisa Twaronite Sone and Robert Weis, based in Tokyo and Luxembourg respectively, and Rick Elizaga, who designed and published the Anthology, created an extra special event.
Above: Photographs tell the story of a stimulating and uplifting meeting of writers, in Kyoto, that continued until after dark. Contributing photographers are Karen Lee Tawarayama, Kirsty Kawano, Alessandro de Bellegarde and myself.
Lisa Twaronite Sone was the mastermind behind the outdoor, picnic-style occasion — the ‘WiKNiK’ as she named it. Her superb organisation ensured a wonderful time was enjoyed by all. Several members were meeting each other for the first time after the lifting of the extended COVID-induced isolation. The creative energy among the group, enhanced by the natural surroundings, was electrifying. The feeling of camaraderie generated by the launch and of a job well done bodes well for Writers in Kyoto.
The Anthology is available through Amazon in a number of countries. The Foreword by Pico Iyer sets the scene for varied interpretations of the nature of Kyoto, several with a contemplative theme. Responses to change, both local (loss of old houses) and global (the changing climate), permeates a number of contributions. The less benign aspects of nature also receive attention. Initial feedback has been highly positive. So if you haven’t done so, place an order now.
It has been a pleasure to be involved in the production of this important literary work.
Edited by Lisa Twaronite Sone & Robert Weis Foreword by Pico Iyer
The city of Kyoto has inspired awe in generations of travelers, writers and poets alike. In this anthology, 30 contributors explore the nature of the old capital: its gardens, mountains, old shrines and temples, but also the inner nature or the soul of the city.
“The minute you step into Japan’s thousand-year capital, it’s hard not to start putting things into words. Yes, the train station where you arrived is a wild 22nd century labyrinth and the streets are dizzy with streaking lights and high-rise ‘pencil buildings.’ Nowhere is more madly in love with the latest and the fashionable. Yet everywhere, it’s not difficult to see, are spirits alive in the hills, and around the sixteen hundred temples, as close to you as the winter chill on your neck.”
Pico iyer
Contents
・Foreword: The Rain upon the Rooftops Pico Iyer
・Kyoto: Different Forms of Hypnosis Stephen Mansfield
・The Pocket Garden Rebecca Otowa
・Lotus 蓮 John Einarsen
・Love on a Low Flame Amanda Huggins
・The Graveyard of Homyo-in Everett Kennedy Brown
・Sudden Tsukimi C. Greenstreet
・For Love of the Octopus God Elaine Lies
・Peeks on Danger Edward J. Taylor
・For the Visitors Felicity Tillack
・Nature is Trying to Kill You Fernando Torres
・Restaurant Boer Hans Brinckmann
・The Nature of Kyoto: 1006 vs 2006Hamish Downie
・The Revived Waterway Iris Reinbacher
・Kyoto: City of Fire and Water Jann Williams
・Vignettes, Interrupted John Dougill
・Food for Thought and for the Thoughtful Julian Holmes
・Recollections of Nature, Neighbors, and Nibbles Karen Lee Tawarayama
・Local News Ken Rodgers
・Nashinoki Shrine Makes Lifestyle Changes Kirsty Kawano
・Summer Rain Lisa Twaronite Sone
・Sudou Shrine Malcolm Ledger
・The Watcher Maria Danuco
・”Keywords” of Kyoto Mayumi Kawaharada
・The Hills of Kyoto Patrick Colgan
・Kyotoyana Preston Keido Houser
・Thinking Kyoto like a Mountain Robert Weis
・Kyoto Time Stephen Benfey
・The Promise Tetiana Korchuk
・Sound Travels Tina deBellegarde
・Kyoto’s Nature versus My Apiphobia Yuki Yamauchi
Please visit this page in the future for related reviews and other coverage. For press-related inquiries concerning The Nature of Kyoto, please contact Writers in Kyoto through our online form.
From the Judges: “This is a masterly collection of artful vignettes concerning food and the relationship between an aging mother and her daughter, which also harmonizes life with nature. An iconic structure provides a loose backdrop for a warm, emotional glimpse at the closest of relationships. A central image is oyakodon (literally “parent and child”) — a rice bowl meal made with chicken and eggs. The shadows of aging and dementia are simultaneously woven as dark threads, contrasting the silver and golden threads of moon and eggs. The relationship is multi-layered and bittersweet, spanning years and the bridging of cultures, and finally coming full circle.”
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Togetsukyo Bridge in the Rain
We met at a restaurant by the Katsura River, ordered hot yudofu served in donabe pots, and spoke in hushed tones, spilling breath. It was late afternoon. The air pulsed, soaked and running over with light flakes of snow, slipping in the feeble sun. This was rain in its entirety—trees, flowers, sifting air. I watched my mother spoon matcha into a porcelain tea bowl.
She stopped recognizing me months ago, and yet, I couldn’t let go.
I sat across from her, browsing through dishes of wagashi. Sometimes she called my name, her voice a taut thread, as though the word musume would snap it in half. But it held firm—an anchor.
Moments passed. A waiter brought oyakodon on bamboo trays. My mother nodded—you-me bowl, she used to call it, meaning mother and daughter, or yummy, but always pronouncing yumi, my name.
We lingered in the restaurant, watching the falling rain hit the river in gleams. I asked my mother to write something in Japanese, a language I had let wash away during my years abroad, a language that sounded like water hitting the belly of a barque.
I watched her pen as it stirred, a dark shape, and her fingers, shading the page. I watched the picture letters turn silver, carrying the weight of snowflakes whisked wayward, the window of pure falling—words made from meaning: yuki, she wrote. Snow. Happiness.
Months later my mother slept alone on a bed as white as snow or fresh-cooked rice. I sat beside her. Our hearts throbbed, our eyes closed. Words rose like loaves of bread, growing lighter with every passing breath—aging.
Seasons gathered back up into the calendar. I thought of the moon crossing bridge: the full moon of a gold egg yolk, intensely flooding us—
Mother and daughter as Oyakodon.
Photo Credit: Ryutaro Tsukata
＊ ＊ ＊ Isabelle Wei is a writer and literary editor. She loves poetry, pastries, and painting, although not necessarily in that order. In her spare time, she enjoys writing and reading stories that reflect her love for the natural world.
For the full list of this year’s competition winners, click here. For the original competition notice (with prize details), click here.
From the Judges: “In this atmospheric piece, the seemingly unseen is made palpable. Evocative prose and supernatural implications draw the reader in, perhaps causing the heart to beat faster. One also gets a hint of Kyoto’s eerie qualities in the snow. Kyoto is, after all, a city of ghost stories. With an air of mystery, “The Knife Salesman” seems to straddle time, as does the city itself. The judges were reminded of Tanizaki Junichiro’s work.”
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The Knife Salesman
When Yumi wakes, the inn is mute beneath winter’s first snowfall and the light is heavy with the peculiar stillness it brings. She thinks of the knife salesman from Kochi, always noticing his absence more keenly when the snow arrives, still steadfast in her belief he will return to Kyoto.
It was the year her parents died when he first stayed at the inn; she’d struggled to get everything running smoothly at first, but he was patient with her clumsy mistakes. He reappeared for the Jidai Matsuri and asked her to accompany him, then for a piano recital and the spring blossom. Yumi began to hope he would propose marriage, yet the staff sounded puzzled whenever she talked excitedly about him. ‘Mr Omote? No, I don’t think I’ve actually met him.’ Each time he left, they found his allocated room untouched, but they remained discreet. The final time he stayed, Yumi was woken early by the rattle of the front door. Snow swirled softly, and a lantern across the street illuminated a line of fresh footprints leading away from the inn towards Kawaramachi station. They came to an abrupt halt at the FamilyMart, as though their creator had disappeared into thin air. Yumi went outside and stepped inside each footprint as far as the store. At the crossroads, an unmarked ribbon of white stretched in every direction. She never heard from the knife salesman again.
Yet this morning, there are footprints leading to the inn door. They start in the centre of the street, as if their maker has fallen straight from the sky. As Yumi stares at them from the window, the air stirs, then stills itself. Someone has crossed the room and stopped at her side. A finger strokes the nape of her neck. ‘You’re back,’ she whispers.
Photo Credit: Moollyem (Sourced from Unsplash)
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Amanda Huggins is the author of the award-winning novellas All Our Squandered Beauty and Crossing the Lines and seven collections of short stories and poetry. She has won numerous prizes for her work, including the Colm Tóibín Short Story Award, the H E Bates Short Story Prize and the BGTW New Travel Writer of the Year. She has also been a runner-up in the Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Competition, the Costa Short Story Award and the Fish Short Story Prize and shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and others. Her fiction has been broadcast several times on BBC Radio.
For the full list of this year’s competition winners, click here. For the original competition notice (with prize details), click here.
A yellow caterpillar inspires poetry, a heart is opened, elusive scents are pursued, the sense of touch is playfully explored, a TikTok video is born, lives are changed.
These instinctive and creative responses were evoked by an invitation to discover the beauty and wonder of nature, amidst the verdant forest foliage of Takaragaike Park in northern Kyoto. Skillfully guided by Milena Guziak, a Shinrin Yoku (forest bathing) expert, the wellbeing benefits of deeply connecting to the natural world came to the fore in a special Writers in Kyoto (WiK) event held on May 14, 2023. As a member of the group it was a pleasure to take part.
Seven of us met in the morning at Kokusaikaikan Station on the Karasuma Subway line, followed by a short walk to a park bench surrounded by forest. The station was opened in 1997, just prior to the Kyoto Protocol meeting convened in the nearby International Conference Centre. Running the forest bathing experience close to where global leaders first debated the reduction of greenhouse gases seemed apt. It reinforces the continuing urgent need to tackle climate change, even more so now, and the importance of thinking globally and acting locally.
Our forest bathing activities were extremely local. Each of us selected a place or places in the forest that best matched the guidance we had received in our invitations from Milena. Other participants had specific subjects to focus their attention on – wind, smell, touch, colour and heaven – while my invitation was an experience of presence, a moment to cherish the intricacies of the world around me. Our different encounters were revealed and shared after we had spent time in the forest. The illuminating exchange illustrated how even a short time spent in nature (40 minutes in this case) can enrich the appreciation of its beauty and intricacy.
Shinrin Yoku is designed to reconnect people with nature through being mindful of one’s senses, help them bring the practice into their daily lives, and ultimately encourage pro-conservation behaviour. The term was coined by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries in 1982. Forest bathing was and is prescribed in Japan as an antidote for people living in stressful environments as well as a potential tool to inspire people to protect the countries forests.
Slowing down and being mindful of nature can be an immense source of inspiration for people to create works of art. Bathing in the forest and observing what was around him energised one participant to compose the following poem.
‘Colours’ Brown, brown the forest floor Green, green the new leaf growth The tree before me dappled grey And there amongst the fallen leaves Busy black ants foraging
But wait– Bright yellow on this overcast day Ungainly movement, back arched upwards Concertina caterpillar Tasty morsel for birds on high You too are part of nature You too are part of me
(With thanks to Alan Watts)
Since the early 80s multiple studies around the world have demonstrated the physical and mental health benefits of spending time in a forest or other natural setting, or even looking at greenery such as in a hospital setting. The related practice of forest therapy (Shinrin Ryoho), also developed in Japan, is designed to address the health of both people and forests. Working in the forest to improve its health has been shown to be therapeutic on many levels. There is an urban variant of Shinrin Yoku as well. Designing different programs for different places and different people is a hallmark of this mindfulness practice.
The approach to Shinrin Yoku taken by Milena through her company ‘The Mindful Tourist’ is firmly based on the latest research. She has a PhD in Engineering and an MSc in psychology and is in contact with many of the key researchers in the nature therapy/mindfulness field. Milena spoke of the Nature Connectedness Research Group at the University of Derby she has links with, and the smartphone app they have designed. The group also runs an online course intended to help improve people’s wellbeing through establishing a new relationship with nature and tackle larger issues such as climate change.
Milena‘s greatest love though is to be one with the forest. The training she provides to new Shinrin Yoku guides is permeated with the deep emotional connection to nature she has developed over recent years. Her life has been transformed since I last saw her in Kyoto over 4 years ago. Our interests have converged over the intervening period. The animated group discussion she led covered topics such as nature contact versus nature connections, the strengths and weaknesses of virtual reality and plantation-based nature experiences, phytocites and other beneficial compounds, biophilia, the pros and cons of smart phones for forest bathing, and the importance of ‘being’ rather than ‘doing’.
The timing of this members-only event was perfectly aligned with the publication of ‘The Nature of Kyoto’, the fifth WiK Anthology. John Dougill, Mark Hovane, Ted Taylor, Marianne Kimura, Mayumi Kawaharada and myself were grateful for the opportunity to experience forest bathing in the ancient capital prior to the Anthology launch on May 21st. A big thank-you to Milena (centre, photo below) for so generously giving her time and expertise and for sharing her sense of wonder.
REPORT FOR WIK ON ALEX KERR’S TALK May 10, 2023 Sponsored by KUAS (Kyoto University of Advanced Science) by Rebecca Otowa
Alex talks to members of WiK, Rebecca Otowa, Karen Lee Tawarayama and Mayumi Kawaharada
A capacity audience was on hand for a talk by Alex Kerr (in Japanese) entitled “Kankou ha Rikkoku ka?” (Will Tourism Lift Up the Country?) at Kyoto Hotel Granvia on May 10. At least three members of WiK were present.
One of our most prestigious members, Alex Kerr wears many hats — expert on things Japanese, promoter of using old buildings, writer of many books in English and Japanese particularly about changes he has seen in the country and its fast-disappearing traditions, and now (from April) professor at KUAS. He was on the panel of the WiK Symposium on Heritage and Tourism in November 2019, at which he made several similar points to the ones he made in this talk. His ideas about the management of tourism in Japan are known from his Japanese-language book Kankou Boukokuron (The Destruction of the Country by Tourism, ). The title is a play on words of the Ministry of Tourism’s 2015 slogan, Kankou Rikkoku (The Uplifting of the Country by Tourism) and the subsequent drastic increase in tourists in the years leading up to 2020.
We all know how that turned out — COVID-19 struck and there was a (blessed) respite during 2020-2022. You could visit Fushimi Inari Shrine and actually see down the empty vermilion corridors of torii gates! Other sections of Kyoto had a dreamlike quality in their emptiness. But no longer. As of 2023, the numbers are right back up where they were before — around the 31 million mark — and during the quiet time, when policies could have been put in train to prepare for the inevitable influx, little was done. Thus Alex’s book, even post-COVID, still has a great deal of relevance, as his talk on this occasion and also his on-stage conversation with Yoshinori Sato, head of the Jinbun Gakubu (humanities department) of KUAS and supervisor of the newly instituted “Tourism course” at the University, attested.
First off, it is important to know that sheer numbers of tourists are not really the issue (many countries have a higher head count) and also PR is not the issue — it is well-known that Japan is at the top of the list for travelers worldwide, with a number of PR-related sites, YouTube videos, etc. What is key now is how to manage the activities of the people who come to Japan, and Kyoto, as tourists.
Alex made the following points. * Is “convenience” important? If a large parking lot for cars and buses is built right next to an important tourist site, it deprives tourists of the chance to see the traditional road leading up to the site, with its shops and amenities. It seems certain that pedestrians spend more and have a more intimate experience with a place than people in cars or buses. Why not close, say, Shijo Street to traffic once in a while and have a pedestrian-only experience? That was one suggestion. “Convenience” in the form of proximity of parking to sites is not always best.
* Utilizing technology — especially in the form of an online reservation system, such as is practiced in many parts of Europe, to ensure that sites do not become overcrowded and thus provide a less than optimal experience.
* Rethinking the value of the tourist experience (as opposed to the present completely egalitarian method of allowing anyone, in any number, to visit if they have paid a nominal fee). Some sites are worth more, and those who really wish to visit those sites, not necessarily those who just want to take a selfie in front of it, then move on to the next, will pay a more realistic amount to do so. The example given was climbing Mt. Fuji, which presently costs only \1000, and the path is fatally overcrowded. (Alex said that an estimated 90% of people climb this most sacred mountain of Japan without thinking of the sacred aspect at all, but simply because it is the highest mountain in the country. I personally found this appalling.)
Now the tourist market is full of ideas for making things more comfortable, cheaper, and more convenient for the tourist; but what if the opposite was the case? What if people who manage sites think, do we want and need this many tourists? What about the ambiance or atmosphere, which is ruined when too many people are milling around? Perhaps it’s time to think of the content of culture itself. And to revisit the notion of Quality (of the experience) being valued over Quantity (of people coming through the gates).
A corollary to this is the rather unusual viewpoint, put forward by Alex, that as a tourist, one should consider whether the site actually needs one’s visit. To this end, one method would be to have tourists visit comparable sites that perhaps are not featured on every website and YouTube video about Japan, but still offer a great experience and which monetarily need the visit more. (I think everyone who lives in Japan, and especially Kyoto, has their secret “best sites” list, which they share only with good friends.) It isn’t necessary for every temple, shrine, view, etc. to be appropriated by crowds of tourists, but a few more visits to some of them might help these sites immeasurably.
* Problem of zero-dollar tourism, in which tourists pay for tours, hotels, meals etc. to people from their own country, not Japan, who run these establishments. No money is transferred to the economy of Japan with this system.
* Various actual examples of issues that Alex feels need to be considered with boots-on-the-ground tourism include:
*Bad signage, including multiple signs that say the same thing (e.g. “Please take off your shoes”) cluttering up the view. Also ugly signage, which is simply not necessary. There are many less intrusive options available.
*How to alert people to the manners appropriate to a site. (I remember in Rome back in the day, women were stopped on the steps of St. Peter’s if their clothing was deemed inappropriate by the monitoring nuns.) Signs that just say “No this, no that” are not effective, even in pictorial form.
*Trees that are pruned and lopped in an ugly manner. This gives a negative impression of the famed Japanese love of nature. (I myself have lobbied for years in local government for better treatment of trees, hedges, etc. which were planted by the government and then mistreated in these ways.)
After a break, Alex was joined on the stage by Yoshinori Sato, to have a conversation about these issues. There was also a Q&A, which was curtailed due to time pressure.
Thanks very much to KUAS for hosting such an important event. I hope very much that ideas coming from such a forward-thinking institution will make a difference to the handling of tourism in Kyoto in the coming months and years. At present, as Prof. Sato said, there is no actual Tourism Department in the University, but he pointed out the necessity of such a department in the future, and Alex agreed. Also, today’s seminar could be extended into a whole series which would provide more of an education on these matters.
Thanks also to Alex Kerr for taking up and making visible some things that probably many more sensitive foreign tourists notice during their visit, and may, if not considered and changed, end up having a deleterious effect on tourism in Japan. There was rueful laughter among the audience members when some of the Powerpoint photos, particularly those of signage and trees, came up on the screen.
This is a matter of national pride in perhaps a manner not always thought of — the real value of these sites and their preservation into the future, not for people who think of Japan as a large version of Disneyland, but for those, including Japanese people, who love and value this country and culture and their place in the world.
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