Shifting Lenses

Kyoto is hands down my favorite city in Japan. There’s something about it that makes it feel much smaller than it actually is. If Tokyo is the bustling, overwhelming New York, then Kyoto is definitely the charming, more manageable Boston. Honestly, it feels even more compact than Boston.

As a tourist, that smaller scale is a terrific. It’s feels more walkable, and getting an Uber or a cab is easier. The traffic is generally reasonable, a welcome change, except for the inevitable traffic jams around popular tourist hubs. What really strikes me about Kyoto, though, is how its history feels so much more untouched. And that feeling is accurate. While I was there, I learned about how Kyoto was spared from the devastating bombing campaigns of World War II. I read that it was largely due to the efforts of U.S. Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, who tirelessly fought to have it removed from the list of potential A-bomb targets.

The preservation of Kyoto was no accident. It’s a testament to the immense difficulty of safeguarding culture. It wasn’t just protected by the Japanese, but also by those who were their wartime enemies. It really drives home the point that without the collective effort of all human civilization, working together to preserve cultural history, so much of it will simply be lost to time.