"Little Kyoto" everywhere
When I first arrived in Kanazawa, the Hokuriku Shinkansen had not yet opened, nor had it yet become a popular tourist spot among foreign tourists, Kanazawa Castle was peaceful and silent in the twilight of the cherry blossom season, and the area around Tea House Street retained the scenery of Edo-era Castle, revealing a more quaint moment than Kyoto, and someone in my company told me: Kanazawa, known as "Kaga Little Kyoto".
"Kaga Little Kyoto" Kanazawa City
It was the first time I heard the word "Little Kyoto" and I just thought it was wonderful, and then when I traveled around Japan, this freshness disappeared: "Little Kyoto" is so much!
Went to Shuzen-ji Temple on the Izu Peninsula, where people say it is "Izu's Little Kyoto";
Image source Unsplash
Went to Takayama City, Gifu Prefecture, where people say it is "Hida's Little Kyoto";
Image source Wikipedia
I went to Hagi City in Yamaguchi Prefecture, and people say that this is "Little Kyoto in San'in"...
YouTube@ Hagi City Tourism Division official channel "Haebi-hagi tabi-"
Even Akita Prefecture, in the tohoku region far from Kyoto, has Kakunodatecho, where cherry blossoms are in full bloom, and is known as "Oku's Little Kyoto." ”
Travel websites also love this gimmick, often launched the "Japan National Small Kyoto XX Selection" special collection, and gradually saw a little doorway: "Little Kyoto" is an excellent tourism marketing signboard, but where the style is a little older, if you want to quickly increase popularity, it is named "Little Kyoto of so-and-so place".
It has a term on Wikipedia, behind which there is a group called the "National Kyoto Conference", which was formed in 1985 by 26 municipalities across the country, including Kyoto, and its office is located in the Kyoto Tourism Association, and after its certification, it can have an official "Little Kyoto" title, and only need to pay 50,000 yen (about 3,000 yuan) a membership fee per year.
According to the latest data released by this organization: in April 2021, there were 40 "little Kyotos" across Japan.
Today's "Little Kyoto" is like this, it seems that it is only borrowed from Kyoto's "ancient capital" intention to use, but in fact, this is not the case in history: during the Muromachi period to the Sengoku period, the local daimyo began to build a capital city imitating Kyoto in their territories out of their desire for Kyoto culture, and the first "Little Kyoto" appeared as "a city imitating Kyoto".
Most of them have been annihilated by the war, but there are still a few representatives: the "Nishi-no-kyo" Shōbō Yamaguchi built by the Ouchi clan, the "Little Kyoto" Nakamura built by the Ichijo clan, the "Little Kyoto of Hokuriku" built by the Asakura clan, and the "Hida Ko-Kyoto" takayama built by the Kanemori clan...
These castle towns, which were built to replicate Kyoto, first chose land with mountains and waters, borrowing from Kyoto's representative landmarks: Higashiyama and Kamogawa;
Secondly, the streets should be planned as checkerboard-shaped, which Kyoto learned from Chang'an; then there are shrines and temples, and Gion Shrines and Kiyomizu-dera Temples have appeared everywhere;
Not to mention, the construction of Kyoto-style houses, place names, customs, and rituals that actively introduce Kyoto-style.
Takayama City, "Hida's Little Kyoto"
The Zhoufeng Yamaguchi on the mountain vagina is a good example, and it is considered to be the representative of "original little Kyoto".
In 1364, Hiroshi Ouchi, who was the daimyō of the Daimyo of nikoku, was captured by the Kyoto-style relics in order to meet the shogun Ashikaga Yoshinori for the first time, and after returning to Japan, he built a new city in a mountain pass with a terrain similar to Kyoto's, and used it as a castle, and the later Ouchi clan continued for 7 generations, and continued to work hard for the "Kyo-weathering" of this castle town.
Some of the ruins are still preserved today, such as the river called "Ichinoseka River", which still faintly shows the expression of the Kamogawa River; the Garden of Toei-ji Temple, where the landscape painter Snow Boat built, is the "Snow Boat Pavilion" that Kyotoites are proud of; the Yasaka Shrine and the Koma Shrine (Kitano Tenjin), which are recommended from Kyoto, and the five-storied pagoda of Shōryō-ji Temple, which is considered a national treasure by yamaguchi people today.
Even though it is already so similar to Kyoto, the former Ouchi clan would never dare to claim to be "Little Kyoto".
The phrase has only become popular in modern times, and the earliest source of which can be considered is the pre-war popular travel magazine, and after the war, more and more cities were called "Little Kyoto", and their characteristics were very consistent: there was no urban development in the Meiji era, no major natural disasters, and no air raids in World War II.
In the 1970s, after Japan's high economic growth period ended, cities were overexploited, and these places, which had well protected nature and history, were recognized as a new tourist resource in Japan, appearing in magazines every three to five minutes.
Just before "Little Kyoto" was about to become a chaos, three years after the establishment of the "National Kyoto Conference", at the Fourth General Assembly held in 1988, three specific criteria were established for the qualification of "Little Kyoto": having a natural and landscape similar to Kyoto; having a certain historical connection with Kyoto; and having traditional industries and arts.
Perfectly meeting this criterion was Nakamura, the "Little Kyoto" of Tosa, the present-day city of Forty Thousand in Kochi Prefecture.
Originally in the Muromachi period during the "Onhito Rebellion" in Kyoto, a public secretary named "Ichijo Church House" escaped the war and moved to this area, and then built according to the appearance of Kyoto, not only directly named after "Gion", "Kyocho", "Kamogawa", "Higashiyama" and other places, but also copied the fire-sending custom of Ōmunzan, and today on July 16 of the lunar calendar every year, it is still lit with a "big" character on the mountain according to the appearance of Kyoto, and the ancestors are worshipped.
Retrospectively, the reason for the establishment of the "National Kyoto Conference" is also inspired by this "Little Kyoto of Tosa": every November, 40,000 cities hold a "Ichijo Matsuri", and the "sacred fire" used in this festival has always been taken from the oldest shrine in Kyoto, Shimo-ka-ji Shrine. The people of 40,000 cities who came to Kyoto to make a fire paid a special visit to the Kyoto City Tourism Association, and were touched by their continuous efforts to continue their historical ties with Kyoto for hundreds of years, and the Kyoto City Tourism Association invited each "Little Kyoto" and decided to jointly promote tourism promotion and promote traditions and culture throughout the country.
Japan's "Little Kyoto" trend peaked in the 1990s, and in 1999, when there were 56 "Little Kyotos" in the country.
From a positive point of view, they are streets of historical and cultural value that have not been affected by industrialization and urbanization during Japan's advanced economic growth period, and have not been developed in large quantities.
On the other hand, after 2000, there have been franchisees who have withdrawn from "Little Kyoto" from time to time.
When it comes to reasons, the "National Kyoto Conference" is said to either be inconsistent with the image promotion strategy of a certain place, or for financial reasons. Some people speculate, or because of the increasing convenience of transportation, people can go to Kyoto at any time, and there is no longer a need to use "Little Kyoto" to meet the expectations of Kyoto.
Kyoto is a very good sign, but some people don't want it.
After many years of traveling to Kanazawa, no one claims to me that this is "Kaga's Kyoto", and a local told me several "taboos for traveling in Kanazawa", the first of which was: Stop saying that Kanazawa is a small Kyoto! According to the man, "Little Kyoto" is definitely not a positive word for people who grew up in the city, and it is disgusting.
Kanazawa Higashi Tea House Street, full of ancient capital style
It is debatable whether the kanazawa people hated the name "Little Kyoto" from the beginning, after all, the city joined the "National Kyoto Conference" as the first batch of "Little Kyoto" as early as 1985, but the Kanazawa people should really not want to be called that again today, because it has withdrawn from the association in 2008.
The official reason for the withdrawal was that the change in the city's propaganda policy and the foundation of the city's establishment were contrary to each other.
For the latter reason, as the Kanazawa people often emphasize: Kyoto and Kanazawa are not at all the same.
As the capital of Japan, Kyoto is the representative of the imperial court's public culture, and the roads are as neat and orderly as a chessboard; the Kanazawa Castle Shimomachi built by the Maeda toshitoshi family is a representative of samurai society, and the intricate roads make up the city.
In terms of personality traits, Kyoto is the elegance of the nobility, and Kanazawa is the style of the common people.
Kyoto has a history of 1200 years, while Kanazawa is only 400 years old, Kyoto has 17 World Heritage Sites, and the number of World Heritage Sites in Kanazawa is 0, from a historical point of view, the label "Little Kyoto" must be Kanazawa dipped in the light of Kyoto.
But the Kanazawa people are proud of their culture, unwilling to live under the aura of Kyoto forever, and want to create a unique sightseeing city - this ambition has long been in the foreshadowing, as early as 1995, in a "Kanazawa World City Vision", the words "Kanazawa World City" appeared.
What underpinned this ambition of the Kanazawa people was the enactment of Japan's "Law on the General Construction of Historic Districts" the following year, and Kanazawa became the first city to be legally recognized, a full 10 months before Kyoto. After the opening of the Hokuriku Shinkansen in 2015, kanazawa is mentioned again, and the first thing that comes to mind is not "Little Kyoto", but a unique city that combines traditional art and modern art museums, and has the only "world's most beautiful station" in Japan.
Kanazawa Castle is full of cherry blossoms
In Japan, as often as "Little Kyoto", there are also "Koedo" in various places: Kawagoe City in Saitama Prefecture, Katori City in Chiba Prefecture, and Tochigi City in Tochigi Prefecture are the most famous, but there have never been cities that resist the label "Little Edo", probably because "the original Kyoto is still there, but Edo has disappeared."
Similarly, there is "Little Fuji", which the Japanese also call "Local Fuji", with a total of more than 400, which is the product of mountain belief.
The product of modern times is "Mini Ginza", and I once saw a dilapidated shopping street on the southernmost island of Kagoshima, but there is a bustling name called "Ginza Pass", and it is said that more than 500 such "XX Ginzas" can be found in the whole country.
The object of imitation is not limited to the country - Japan during the bubble economy built many imitation European towns, and everywhere you can see the "Deutsche Village", and now you will see the "Shima Mediterranean Village", "Shima Spain Village", "European Porto" and so on, still awkwardly surviving in various local cities.
"Satsuma Fuji" in Kagoshima
Between Gifu and Aichi prefectures is the Kiso River, which has been called the "Rhine river of Japan" for more than a hundred years, named after shigeo Shigeo Shigeo, a geographer who wrote "Japanese Landscapes", after returning to Japan after traveling to Europe, claiming that it has the scenery of the Rhine River banks and the lakes and mountains of Switzerland.
He compares all parts of Japan with Europe, the rest are Kagoshima and Naples, the Izu Peninsula and the Italian Peninsula, the Edo River and the Lemmes River...
This analogy was later criticized by the historical anthropologist Kano Omauro as the result of the distortion of two feelings of national nationalism and worship of Europe and the United States.
There is a saying in the room that is very pertinent:
"The so-called sightseeing is something that does not exist elsewhere, that is, something that relies on specificity and novelty to establish, and comparing the tourism resources of one place to other places is a way to dwarf and humble the place, which is very likely to erase the rare specificity of this place."
Unfortunately, it was not listened to by posterity.
※ This content is the independent opinion of the author and does not represent the position of Nippon Pass.
This article is from the WeChat public account: Overview of Fuso (ID: sjcff2016), author: Kuso (author in Japan, nibbling Japanese drama Japanese shadow for a living, now living in Kyoto, irregularly wandering around the island country) Japan is authorized to publish. Unless otherwise noted, the pictures in this article were taken by Cusso.
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Autumn in northeastern Japan
Seasonally limited views
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