Five Years in Kyoto

Reflecting upon my fifth anniversary of living in Japan's ancient capital.

Kiyomizudera, 2021. You should’ve been here when there were hardly any tourists.

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Out of all the places I wanted to live in Japan, Kyoto wasn’t my first choice. Even before the post-pandemic rush of crowds and congested streets, I always associated the city with being a tourist trap. In many ways, that image is very true and there are certain areas I try my best to avoid if I can help it. At the same time, I’ve learned to appreciate the finer things this city has to offer.

This week marks five years since I got off the plane and made Japan my home for the second time. The first was in 2017 when I came to this country for an internship and study abroad program sponsored by my university back in the United States. That period lasted 15 months, far longer than the average period an American student typically spends in Japan, but it instilled a resolve within me to want to return. And here I am now, having a little over six years of cumulative experience spent living in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Kiyomizudera at night, 2021.

Most of that time has been in Kyoto, a city which has gone through some significant changes in the last five years. I arrived in 2019 having been awarded the MEXT scholarship, a full ride to do a master’s degree in international relations at Ritsumeikan University from the Japanese government. I completed my MA in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic and was later able to extend my scholarship to fund three years of a doctoral program, also in IR. My MEXT funding has come to an end and I’m still doing my PhD reaching Japan-North Korea relations with a long academic road ahead, but that’s a story for another day.

As I continue my studies, hopefully find another scholarship, work a part-time job, get whatever freelance journalism gigs I can land, and maintain this lovely Substack which you are currently reading, I’ll be in Kyoto for the foreseeable future. I’ve always been reminded of one of my inspirations, the great Japanologist Donald Keene, who also made this city his home. In an unpublished manuscript that has only recently been unearthed, he reminisced about his life here in the 1950s which contrasts greatly to how it is now.

Having been spared from most of the Allied bombings that burned down the rest of the country’s major cities, Kyoto represented traditional culture as other parts of Japan were being rebuilt with modern Western standards in mind. Keene writes of the distinct sound of geta sandals hitting the ground and taxis charging additional fees to take the more luxurious paved streets. He also mentions how foreigners were a rarity and how he regularly attracted attention as an American.

Donald Keene in 1950s Kyoto. Those sand gardens at Ryoanji Temple are still around.

Needless to say, Kyoto in the 2020s is no longer the same city Keene lived in. No one bats an eye at foreigners anymore because tons of them regularly flood into the city’s hundreds of restaurants, shrines, temples, and other popular sites. While it would have been common for practically everyone to wear traditional dress like kimono and geta back in Keene’s day, doing so now is considered more of a novelty and something ironically done more by foreign and domestic tourists than most Kyotoites who actually live here. Apart from the Gion district and a few areas with backstreets intentionally designed to preserve traditional aesthetics, Kyoto is a modern city with modern infrastructure.

Tokyo is what most foreigners immediately think of whenever Japan is brought up, but I’ve come to enjoy the overall pace of life in Kyoto far more. Don’t get me wrong, Tokyo is obviously comparable to New York and London by being an economic and cultural powerhouse. You will never run out of things to do in Japan’s capital and it’s the most populated metropolitan area in the world for a reason. But see, that’s the thing. In an unimaginably huge space comprising of over 13 million people, there’s inevitably an impersonal, cold feel to being in a fast-paced urban hub. I’ve been on enough depressing midnight trains surrounded by drunk salarymen and lonely women to decide that the unending corporate rat race of a city like Tokyo isn’t for me. Kyoto, on the other hand? Kyoto has personality. And to quote Jules from Pulp Fiction, personality goes a long way.