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Three years gone
Jun. 11th, 2011 19:53People have asked me what's changed, to my knowledge, in the three years between my departure from and return to Kyoto. It depends. There are more Starbucks, and quite a few shops, cafes, and chain stores that I used to go to have closed or moved. The sidewalks are nicer in a lot of the city. There's more Korean language information, more bike parking, and stricter enforcement of bike parking rules. The police have started handing out flyers about rising bike theft, urging us to buy C-locks for our precious contraptions. The Keihan Nakanoshima line is in operation, and the city finished relandscaping the canal along Horikawa-doori, both projects that weren't finished when I left. The train schedules, and stops on the express services, are slightly different. People seem more willing to cross against lights, but that might just be my imagination. And of course, I've changed too.
But in large measures the city seems more or less as I left it, and aside from being back in a place that will forever have a chunk of my heart, it's good to look around Japan and to realize anew that all the doom & gloom coverage about Japanese society, the economy, you name it, is only part of the story. I look around Kyoto and I see parents and children playing catch by the side of the river, old couples taking evening strolls hand in hand, people of all ages taking up running (often in street clothes!), a women's pro baseball league getting off the ground, couples on dates at the movie theater and on the banks of the Kamogawa. I see a city that has endured for 1200 years going about its business in much the same way that it has for the past several centuries, through good times and bad, people shopping at hyaku-en shops and luxury stores and every venue in between, restaurateurs spreading water on the sidewalks in front of their establishments because that's how it's done in Kyoto, no matter the decade, and Japan is still the world's third-largest economy. I know a lot of people have been getting a lot of mileage out of predicting decline for Japan for the past twenty years, and to them I say: the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.
And, above all, I see everywhere signs saying Ganbarou, Japan! and Sasaeyou, Japan! and We know we will get through this and Let's build a new and stronger Japan and Never give up. I think every temple and shrine and almost every store I've been to has been collecting money for the victims of the Touhoku earthquake and tsunami; the sakaya all have signs pointing to the Miyagi and Fukushima sake, urging people to buy all of it, because the brewers were devastated just like everyone else and after what's on the shelves now is gone there will be no more.
It was three months today since the earthquake, and a few hundred people in Kyoto marked it by holding an anti-nuclear protest march past the city hall and into downtown. I caught the tail end of it, and it seemed to me that in comparison with other protesters the police were giving them a pretty respectful time. Left-wing protests are very much a part of Kyoto life, and I was glad to see them even as the cause for the renewed vigor of the anti-nuclear movement is frankly too cruel. The NY Times reports that, since so much of what we know about long-term effects of radiation poisoning comes from studying hibakusha after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in which victims received one catastrophically high dose of radiation, no one can quite say with certainty what the limits for long-term low-dose exposure are or should be in the area around Fukushima Daiichi.
I'm not sure where else I was going with this. I had a lovely day today, karaoke downtown with some people from my program and then wandering around on my own--I had shincha, the new tea crop from Uji, at Ippou-dou and as I was walking out of the shop I ran into one of my Kyoto friends and her son; we recognized each other immediately, which was pretty awesome. I've spent too much money on manga, as usual, but so it goes. I should probably do some homework, since I am technically here for a class.
But in large measures the city seems more or less as I left it, and aside from being back in a place that will forever have a chunk of my heart, it's good to look around Japan and to realize anew that all the doom & gloom coverage about Japanese society, the economy, you name it, is only part of the story. I look around Kyoto and I see parents and children playing catch by the side of the river, old couples taking evening strolls hand in hand, people of all ages taking up running (often in street clothes!), a women's pro baseball league getting off the ground, couples on dates at the movie theater and on the banks of the Kamogawa. I see a city that has endured for 1200 years going about its business in much the same way that it has for the past several centuries, through good times and bad, people shopping at hyaku-en shops and luxury stores and every venue in between, restaurateurs spreading water on the sidewalks in front of their establishments because that's how it's done in Kyoto, no matter the decade, and Japan is still the world's third-largest economy. I know a lot of people have been getting a lot of mileage out of predicting decline for Japan for the past twenty years, and to them I say: the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.
And, above all, I see everywhere signs saying Ganbarou, Japan! and Sasaeyou, Japan! and We know we will get through this and Let's build a new and stronger Japan and Never give up. I think every temple and shrine and almost every store I've been to has been collecting money for the victims of the Touhoku earthquake and tsunami; the sakaya all have signs pointing to the Miyagi and Fukushima sake, urging people to buy all of it, because the brewers were devastated just like everyone else and after what's on the shelves now is gone there will be no more.
It was three months today since the earthquake, and a few hundred people in Kyoto marked it by holding an anti-nuclear protest march past the city hall and into downtown. I caught the tail end of it, and it seemed to me that in comparison with other protesters the police were giving them a pretty respectful time. Left-wing protests are very much a part of Kyoto life, and I was glad to see them even as the cause for the renewed vigor of the anti-nuclear movement is frankly too cruel. The NY Times reports that, since so much of what we know about long-term effects of radiation poisoning comes from studying hibakusha after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in which victims received one catastrophically high dose of radiation, no one can quite say with certainty what the limits for long-term low-dose exposure are or should be in the area around Fukushima Daiichi.
I'm not sure where else I was going with this. I had a lovely day today, karaoke downtown with some people from my program and then wandering around on my own--I had shincha, the new tea crop from Uji, at Ippou-dou and as I was walking out of the shop I ran into one of my Kyoto friends and her son; we recognized each other immediately, which was pretty awesome. I've spent too much money on manga, as usual, but so it goes. I should probably do some homework, since I am technically here for a class.