Kyoto marks 1,200th year with search for identity
Kyoto marks 1,200th year with search for identity
By Rika Otsuka 10 pts ML
KYOTO, Japan (REUTER): Kyoto celebrates its 1,200th anniversary this year in glittering style, hoping to rediscover a cultural identity lost amid the frenetic bustle of modern, materialistic Japan.
That mission befits an ancient former capital city which, historians say, cradled a truly original, indigenous Japanese culture marking a final break with Chinese and Korean influence.
"People of Kyoto, indeed everywhere else in Japan, have been too busy in the last 100 years chasing money and forgetting important things," said Kenichi Fukui, chairman of Heiankyo Anniversary Memorial Foundation.
"It would be great if the 1,200th anniversary provides an opportunity for all of us Japanese to ask questions like that," said Fukui, a Nobel Prize-winning chemist.
Emperor Kammu founded the city, which he named Heiankyo, in 794 AD on a grassy field in central Japan hemmed in by hills and rivers.
With its easily defensible location, the city was well placed to serve as a road and river transport hub.
Before this, the national capital had shuttled between various sites around Nara, a more remote spot in the hills south of Kyoto.
Heiankyo or "capital of peace" was modeled on Chang-an, the ancient Chinese capital (now Xian), with a neat road grid system preserved to this day along with a wealth of Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines, an imperial palace and gardens.
Heiankyo, later Kyoto, was to be Japan's political, economic and cultural center for 11 centuries until 1868, when the formal seat of government moved east to Tokyo.
Original
Over the centuries, Kyoto people developed original skills, customs and lifestyles -- including the tea ceremony, flower arranging, Buddhist festivals and kimono designs -- which slowly became the standard for the whole country.
Ancient Japanese gods and superstitious practices live still at the heart of modern Kyoto. Inside a typical Kyoto house, a little shrine occupies the northeast corner, the direction from which evil spirits are believed to come.
Along with their superstitious nature, Kyoto people have a reputation for a closed-minded stubbornness that enabled them to hold on to their culture.
Kyoto lost its capital city status in 1868 with the Meiji Restoration, a political revolution which propelled Japan into the modern era. The new government moved to Tokyo which, Kyoto people still say, "kidnapped their emperor".
Aristocrats, merchants and artists moved with the court, creating a cultural vacuum which Kyoto has tried to overcome ever since.
This all coincided with Japan embarking on a crash course in modernization and Westernization, all too willingly neglecting its traditional Kyoto-nurtured culture.
Still today, however, most Japanese think of temple-studded Kyoto as the nation's spiritual heart.
This year's gala birthday events are geared to answering one vital question, foundation officials say: How to preserve the city's cultural heritage while at the same time reviving its economic vitality?
Finding that answer would allow Kyoto to show the rest of Japan how to regain a lost identity.
Potential
"Other countries want Japan to take on a leadership role in the world community," Fukui said, "but it is important for the nation to re-establish its own culture and identity."
Mayor Tomoyuki Watanabe, Fukui's deputy at the anniversary foundation, said Kyoto culture was not limited to a strictly traditional lifestyle and there was much potential here.
"Visitors often come with pre-set ideas that there are only temples here and are surprised to find that many high-tech firms are based in Kyoto," one long-time resident said.
Among others, Kyocera Corp, the world's largest maker of ceramic-based semiconductors and Nintendo Co., the giant video game manufacturer, are headquartered here.
"Most of those companies are not giants," said the resident. "But we are proud that they all have interesting ways of doing business, being unique in their industries."
More than 1,200 concerts, exhibits, symposia and festivals will take place in Kyoto in its anniversary year. Highlights include an historical pageant on June 6 and a solemn ceremony on Nov. 8, the day Emperor Kammu dedicated the city back in 794.
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