‘Kyoto Loves Tourism But Hates Tourists’
So said the guide of my free walking tour one Friday afternoon in Japan’s ex-capital. He delivered this line after we’d barged our way through a crowd of photo-opportunistic tourists - any better collective nouns, reader? Gaggle? Annoyance? Answers sent on a postcard or package (preferably including vegan marshmallows and chocolate bourbons to see me through the summer xoxo) To be fair ‘Murder’ was the noun most on my mind after encountering the third path-block-by-selfie-stick.
Though I came to Japan for cultural exchange, I experienced something more akin to cultural reflection during that trip. Well, reflection and the obvious self-aggrandising sense of moral superiority arseholes like me get when we swan through a city tailing some geezer with a flag. Watch them parade, the free walking tour tourists, in all their backpacked splendour offhandedly announcing:
‘That’s the great thing about walking tours, you really get to know a place from the local perspective!’
‘You know you’re so right. I just couldn’t be in a place and not understand what I’m looking at. Like no judgement, but I just couldn’t be an Instagram sheep’.
So proclaimed my fellow disciples and I, trotting down the paved streets of Gion. Our long-suffering flag-bearer shunted some non-believers out of the road and bade us sit down. There I pondered, sat on a roadside decorative boulder:
God, I thought, the locals must hate us.
And indeed who could blame them? Growing up in a tourist hotspot, I’ve long had it inculcated in me to complain about the hordes of visitors who descend upon unsuspecting idylls. I related to my tour guide’s words, understanding the annoyance of your home being a photo opportunity in someone else’s life. I understand what it is to exist not in a nine-to-five routine, but a six-months-on, six-months-off economy. I understand what it is for your life and community to be completely controlled economically-speaking by the leisure-spending of those from afar.
Japanese people, I would wager, have it far worse than me though. Especially when you consider the pseudo-orientalism many other cultures apply to this country. Last year I had to rather firmly tell off a bunch of tourists who decided to take photos of my students out on a field trip, and since then I’ve found myself wondering back to that moment every time I see a tourist snap a shot of this place, or even when I pull out my camera to capture something striking.
How far down the slippery slope of foreign appreciation do I slide before it becomes objectification? How do I experience a culture that’s not mine without acting like I own the place?
Though perhaps overdramatic, I do wish more people thought along these lines. Japan’s attempts to control the misbehaviour of tourists has been hot-topic news as of late. News of Kyoto banning photos, and possibly in the future tourists, from its ancient streets of Gion. News of a Lawson’s convenience store backdropped against Mount Fuji covered up by mesh to stop tourists blocking the roads. News of Japanese restaurants putting up signs forbidding entry to ‘foreigners’.
I’m not really sure how I feel about the full extent of these measures. There’s a large worrying part of me that foresees Japan becoming a country it’s only possible to skim the surface of as someone culturally or ethnically non-Japanese. What, for example, would the expected course of events be should a Japanese-born Black person enter one of these ‘foreigner-barred’ restaurants? What about if someone who could be racialised as coming from the Middle East rented a house in Gion during tourist-ban season? In both of these cases and many more, I intuit that authority forces would err on the side of questioning them as if they did not belong.
And this isn’t just me making wild accusations - everyday racial profiling has been an issue in Japan for quite a while. Take, for example, this interview with an ex-inspector who states that he and his colleagues were directed to ‘target’ foreigners for stop-and-search activities. In this interview he describes how the force announced a special ‘foreigner crackdown’ month, also mentioning that from training discourse to casual office ‘banter’ those of non-Japanese heritage (specifically non-white people) were depicted as dangerous criminals. Lately, foreigners have been fighting back. In January 2024 three foreign-born Japanese residents filed a lawsuit against the Japanese state for humans rights violations through constant racial profiling and police questioning.
Then again, I can’t say I’ve seen many tourists exactly fighting the ‘foreigner’ corner. Trapped on the crowded last Toyoku-line train home (just after midnight would you believe? TfL, you have my eternal thanks and respect), I recently found myself wincing at a group of what sounded like Americans loudly describing their sex lives back home. Oh how the withering stares of Japanese commuters rained down upon them - and by association, me. It’s not just Americans of course, us Brits may too win the ‘DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH??? most obnoxious tourist award’ if the recent season of Race Across The World is anything to go by. Which is a pity. Because for those who are polite, respectful, and open their hearts to others, there's a whole wonderful world out there to discover. With equally wonderful people.
In Kyoto I met a kindly old wood carver, keeping the memory of his old village alive through tea-tree sculptures and traditional flutes. I made friends with a college student working at my Ryokan who dreamed of moving to Tokyo. And a lovely lady who served me the best crêpe I've ever eaten whilst happily letting me spend a precious half hour learning about their lives. These random moments are what give me true joy when travelling - interactions that cannot be confined to a photo, and instead will rest in my memory as mine and mine alone.
I hope on your next adventure, you may make invisible memories too.
Poem for the Geiko and Maiko of Kyoto
Let us bask in your talent
Your life's work
To create art with your body and hands
Closer to praying than I've ever come.
Women upon women upon
women upon girls yet to be women
Upon a legacy of strong artists
Who bleed and bruise for the dance.
You make notes and noise
Celebration
And welcome in the winter
With a gesture soft as snow.
Through the seasons you grow strong,
Long sleeves trailing behind
Crafting prints that stick
And mark the legacy of this land
Cartographic. Performance.
The painted face of a nation alive.
Poem for curry udon
Eating udon noodles
Reminds me of a time
I found my cat chewing at a tapeworm
The effort of her bite
But
Add a curry sauce,
Dried roots from nature's pantry
A sprinkle of tamanegi
Green onion wedding confetti
Hailing the entrance of
The best lunch I've ever had.
Twenty minutes
And countless stained
Mouth-wipe napkins later
I swallow
And let out
a small contented belch
Teeth still gummy
But very well fed
Much better in than out.
Kyoto Crane
Lightly-stabbing toes
Make minimal ripples
It won’t scare the fish.
Poem for Kosho the Woodsman
It's a very skilled person
Able to get sound out of a shakuhachi
They must be:
Mathematician
Musician
Empath
Open to making more of themselves and the world
Through practice and effort.
Putting out a sound
To charm and delight
And make fine memories in the minds
Of those lucky enough to hear.
They don't have to be wise, rich or well-travelled,
But when they play, by God do they feel.
It is a very skilled person indeed
Able to get sound out of a shakuhachi.
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