Paku Midin: KYOTO TEMPLE SUFFERING FROM LITTERING TOURISTS CLAIMING NOT TO UNDERSTAND JAPANESE VERBAL WARNING

KYOTO TEMPLE SUFFERING FROM LITTERING TOURISTS CLAIMING NOT TO UNDERSTAND JAPANESE VERBAL WARNING - TOKYO

@Jr_Paku Midin Channel

TOKYO

As Japan continues to see record numbers of inbound foreign travelers, the concept of overtourism has become a hot topic, particularly in Kyoto, which receives an especially large portion of overseas visitors. However, Kyoto has always been one of the most heavily traveled parts of Japan, dating back to the days when it was the political and economic center of the country, and its temples and shrines have been drawing travelers, all of whom also needed places to eat, sleep, and make merry, for centuries.

While some of the issues Kyoto is dealing with, such as bus crowding, stem from the sheer number of tourists, a lot of what gets lumped in with “overtourism” is really a matter of more total tourists exacerbating the problems caused by the proportion of them with bad manners, and the latest example of that is taking place at Kodaiji, a temple in the Higashiyama district on the east side of Kyoto.

Kodaiji was founded in 1606 by Nene, the widow of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, one of the three great samurai lords who brought an end to Japan’s centuries-long Sengoku period civil war. In addition to historically significant architecture and works of art, Kodaiji has a lovely moss garden and bamboo grove walking path, but the beauty of the temple grounds is being increasingly marred by ill-mannered tourists who leave behind cigarette butts, drink containers (some still partially filled with liquid), and sticks from ice cream bars atop stones and behind structures, according to chief priest Koin Aoyama.

“Even if we try to clean up the trash, [the area] never stays clean,” laments Aoyama, who’s clearly frustrated with the litterers as well as people arriving with professional photographers for photo shoots, something the temple now forbids due to damage caused to the grounds and the inconvenience to other guests, and which multilingual written notices are posted about. Aoyama says he’s tried verbally cautioning people as well, only for them to react in a way that conveys they don’t understand Japanese, or at least claim to not understand. He then tries explaining the problem in English, he says, only go get the same reaction, that they can’t understand what he’s saying.

Japan is, generally, aware that there are a number of finer points of Japanese etiquette that may not be readily apparent to overseas tourists, and most locals are willing to overlook non-malicious faux pas and focus on the positive feelings of people from other parts of the world taking an interest in their culture. Littering, though, is a fundamental breach of common courtesy, and the sort of thing that can sour the atmosphere so much that facilities feel forced to adopt less visitor-friendly operational policies, so let’s hope that Kodaiji’s visitors, as a whole, start minding their manners better, and soon.

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