A Journey Between Worlds

 Whenever I mounted the bicycle, a journey began.

The previous sentence popped into my head during my second day in Kyoto. I didn’t stop to write it down because my inner editor said, “too precious, too self-consciously Literary (with a capital L).” Perhaps it is, but I have not been able to let go of it.

I had just arrived at Okazaki, the park adjacent to the  Heian-jingu Shrine. It wasn’t very far from the Shimogamo Shrine, where I’d spent the morning and early afternoon. In fact, as I would soon learn, nothing in Kyoto is very far from anything else in the city, especially if you’re going by bicycle. 

But even though Shimogamo and the Heian Shrine at Okazaki are only a few kilometers apart, and represent early periods of Japanese history, I felt as if I were traveling between worlds as much as I did when I set out from my hotel in a modern section of the city.

Shimogamo is a shrine to Tamayori-hine, “the spirit-inviting maiden” and her father, Kamo Taketsunomi. Experts think it dates to the 6th Century C.E., or more than two centuries before Kyoto began its millennium (794-1868 C.E.) as Japan’s capital.  To put that into context, Shimogamo was built a century or so after the Roman Empire fell and Europe was cast into an era of stagnation. In fact, only a few decades before Kyoto became the imperial capital, Europe nearly became a Muslim monolith.

Anyway, as I pedaled from Shimogamo—where I took a ritual bath—I realized that I couldn’t describe the architecture or other aesthetics, history or purpose in the Eurocentric terms through which I’ve learned whatever I know (which, I admit, isn’t much) and I’ve narrated my experience. That, as it turned out, was an important realization when I arrived at Okazaki. The Heian Shrine there is probably just as important to the Japanese and adherents of Shintoism, even if the buildings are replicas of the ones that originally stood there. What matters about the site is that Emperors Kanmu Ana Kōmei, the first and last of the era when Kyoto was capital, are enshrined there. 

I cannot pretend that I understand Japanese people’s attitudes toward their emperors or their history, except to say that it’s different from how I, as an American, see our history and leaders. Something Soh, the guide for my Tokyo bike tour, made sense, however. At Akusaka Imperial Gardens, he remarked that while fewer and fewer people adhere to Shintoism, ands Japanese people in general have become less religious, learning about the faith and its relationship to Japanese history and culture is still considered an important part of young people’s education.

Again, I can’t claim to understand how the people see their history. But another clue became clearer to me as I left the Heian Shrine: I hadn’t seen a Japanese flag anywhere in Kyoto since arriving the day before, and I saw a few in Tokyo and maybe a couple in Osaka.  In fact, of the other twenty-six countries I’ve visited and the two in which I’ve lived, I can’t think of one in which I saw so few of its national flags. In fact, I have seen more Stars and Stripes fluttering along a single block in New York than I saw Rising Sun flags during my two weeks in Japan.

That, in itself is a kind of journey. While the some of the sites  I visited display depictions of battles and descriptions of fights between clans, none of them seemed to portray those events as steps toward Japan fulfilling some sort of Manifest Destiny. Perhaps I missed it because I don’t understand Japanese and know so little about the culture and history, but I didn’t detect the jingoism that affects so much of how Americans are (mis) educated about our history.

Whenever I mount my bicycle, I am on a journey, whether through geography, history, culture. And as long as I am on a journey, I believe that I am in the middle of my life.

It Isn’t “Another Asian Country “

 I have never done a “whirlwind “ tour of any country or area I’ve visited. Instead, before taking a trip, I decide on a few places I want to see or experiences I want to have. And I wander, in part to see what most tourists won’t and to experience the “feel” of a place.

Perhaps my philosophy has been shaped by some of my trips being bike tours and by exploring places on rented bikes—as I did during my Japan trip—during other journeys.

So, before heading to the Land of the Rising Sun, I’d planned to go to Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto. I kept to that itinerary, landing in Tokyo on the 16th of July, taking the Shinkansen to Osaka on the 20th, Kyoto on the 23rd and back to Tokyo on the 29th before flying back to JFK on the 30th.

In each city I had planned to take a guided bike tour shortly after arriving and let my choice of sites to visit and places to explore be guided by it.

I followed that plan in Tokyo: I wrote a post about the ride with Sho. I didn’t take such a tour in Osaka because no one seemed to know about them. I also didn’t look for a rental bike because I didn’t want to spend too much of my limited time pursuing it. As it turned out, Osaka was a more compact city than I’d expected. Finally, I didn’t take a guided bike tour in Kyoto because I felt strangely confident about getting around from the moment I rented my bike, shortly after arriving.

Okazaki nishitennocho Shrine

Turns out, my confidence was justified. First of all, mountains border Kyoto on three sides and the Kamo River bisects the city. So, even without Google maps, it’s fairly easy to navigate, especially if you like to use landmarks, as I do.

Without trying, I managed to visit most of the “important “ sites: the Imperial Palace, Nijo Caske, Shimogoyo Shrine and Kinkakujicho (“Golden Palace”), among others, in Kyoto; the Castle and Dotonbori (less than a block from my hotel) in Osaka and the Imperial Palace, Shibuya and Shinjuku Gardens (again, among others) in Tokyo. But the best thing about my trip was feeling the pace, the light and even the sounds of a language I don’t understand. It was also interesting to see how people don’t so much negotiate or navigate close spaces as much as they seem to simply move among each other, as if they’ve been doing it for centuries.

Japan, at least what I experienced of it, is about as different from any other place I’ve visited or lived as any place could be. I can’t even say, after being in Cambodia, Laos and Anatolia, that I was in “another Asian country” as I could say I was in another European country when I was in Greece or the Czech Republic after having lived in France and visited Italy, Spain or Belgium. 

Some of that feeling has to do with cycling and even in the bikes I rode and saw Japanese people riding. I will try to describe more in future posts.

Crossing From The Castle

 So what does Nijo Castle have to do with Japanese road etiquette, specifically between drivers and cyclists?

About the castle: Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate, ordered its construction in 1601. Conceived as a testament to his, and his clan’s power, it served as a stage to many key events in Japanese history, including the transfer of power from the shogunate back to the emperor in 1867, and as an incubator for the codes of honor that governed, not only the samurai, but also Japanese society.

I wasn’t thinking about any of that—indeed, I knew, and still know little about any of it—as I rode my rental bike from the hotel to the castle. But I was still marveling at how drivers making the turn around Omiya Station stopped—and didn’t honk their horns or stare aggressively—as I, two other cyclists and three pedestrians crossed. 

Granted, I have seen such deference in France and other European countries. I have attributed it to the fact (or, at least, my theory) that many of those motorists are also cyclists, or at least have ridden in their recent pasts. The same is probably true for at least some Kyoto drivers:  Indeed, I saw people riding utilitarian bikes like the one I rented who were parking their cars—sometimes BMWs or other luxury or near-luxury vehicles—the day before. I suspect that they use their bikes for errands and other short trips and perhaps take rides with their kids in nearby parks. But the kind of courtesy I experienced there, and even in Tokyo, felt older and thus more ingrained than one conditioned by modes of transportation.

When I left the Castle and found my rental bike exactly where I left it—next to a shop across the street from the Castle’s main entrance—the proverbial light bulb went off in my head. And it grew brighter when I crossed the intersection—again, with drivers stopping to let me go by—it grew brighter.

I don’t know a thing about Kyoto statutes or Japanese laws, but I suspect they include the same prohibitions against stealing from and endangering other people. Such regulations, however, don’t stop people from theft, assault or murder in the United States. Now, some have said that it’s because the US is so diverse and Japan is so orderly because it’s 98 percent Japanese. Frankly, I find that explanation offensive because it’s essentially racist.

In learning about the arrangement of rooms within the Ninomaru Palace and the ceremonies and rituals involved in everything from negotiations between the shoguns and emperors to meals, I realized that there was an even greater degree of shame in violating those rules and morés than in transgressing the unwritten rules, or breaking the laws, of most other societies. It seems that the samurai codes of honor—and the fear of violating them—has become part of the DNA of people whose great-grandparents weren’t born when the last samauri died.

One thing I have learned—and that James Baldwin and others have expressed in ways I never could—is that every person, and every group of people, who has a language and culture that is their own has paid a price for it. (As Caliban tells Prospero in The Tempest: “You have given me language/ And the profit on’t is, I can curse.”) The shoguns were military rulers which means, of course, that their codes had the threat of violence behind them.  So, I believe, it’s fair to ask whether the fact that I could ride without the fear of being victimized by a driver’s “road rage” or that I could leave a bike secured by nothing more than the “Chinese” lock is hereditary, learned or a result of intergenerational trauma. (Nobody is better at inflicting trauma than any military.)

Whatever the answer, I’ll say that I enjoyed the peace of mind I felt while cycling in Japan, even on its busiest roads.