May 25th, 2019
Kyoto
I wake up early, catching a window of fresh air before the heat blankets the city. But soon enough I’m walking through an oven, navigating concrete that emanates absorbed sunshine. It is oppressive.
It’s hot. I’m cranky. I want to go home.
The thermometer has recently been creeping up towards 40 degrees Celsius and is now in record setting territory. To say it has been wearing on a winter-tuned body such as mine would be an understatement. Irritated and exhausted, I suspect my mood is tainting my view of Kyoto. The streets are broiling under relentless sun.
It’s not just me though. News of many people being hospitalized and even dying from this heat wave has been making headlines across the country. Throughout the past two weeks, baristas in megacities and farmers in fields have murmured concerns to me about the escalating problems of wind, heat, drought, and flood. Any single one on their own could just be written off as an individual whine, but together they add up to something notable. It would seem that the weather’s intensity and unpredictability has escalated to a perturbing level for those who’ve lived long enough to remember that it didn’t used to be this way.
Soaking my handkerchief in the Takase River, I tie it around my neck to try and cool my boiling blood. Its riverbed is concrete now, funnelled and cared for by the hands of humans.
The concept of harmony in Japan is an all encompassing one, so much so that it even makes it into the tourist brochure that I snagged at the Nakatsugawa visitor centre a few days ago:
Geographic environment brings about the climate. Terrain and geology bring out the blessings of nature. And it is the respect for these things and the practical use of them that cultivate an inheritance of culture and lifestyle that is the origin and life of a community.
The idea is this: in order to exist sustainably, a community works with the terrain and climate in which they live. This harmony with the natural world is how we survive and, hopefully, thrive. Following in the wake of all the worried murmurs I’ve been hearing, it begs the question: how can we dynamically apply this concept to a climate that is changing?
I don’t have anything but small answers to this open-ended / multi-layered / thorny question. It is interesting though, that among the few distant places I’ve had the privilege to visit, the concerns are remarkably similar. What I do know is this: we are all in this together.
I walk through Kyoto University’s grounds, watching the next generation sow seeds for their futures. Beyond its edge, a temple’s ornate garden marks a transition from concrete to forest on the mountainsides above. A street vendor outside the gate hands me a chilled orange with a straw poked through the skin; its juice is a sweet relief. Continuing slowly along a quiet canal, I find an artisan’s show and carefully choose two tiny tea cups to take home. A few steps away from an overcrowded shrine, I get lost in a beautiful bamboo grove, listening to the wind rustle above.
The sun is down and dusk finds me in an unnamed park, hidden between Destination X and Destination Z. A heron sits poised on a rock, centred in a small pond. A pagoda peeks out from behind, its structure seamlessly blending in with the trees. I’m not alone - eight of us sit quietly watching together; holding our breath and silently bearing witness.
D