On the Mark: Japan offers insight on practical urban living

A kinder, gentler community life. That's how I'd describe Kyoto, Japan.

I'm here for probably the sixth or seventh visit, including the fall I taught at Ritsumeikan University. Probably community life in Tokyo and Osaka is denser, faster and more impersonal than in Kyoto, but not as fast and furious as New York City or Los Angeles.

For the past five days, Rod and I have walked many of the narrow streets around our guesthouse. Traffic is gentle, for many reasons, even on four-lane arterials. There are few big trucks here. Even construction projects are small-scale. Few buildings are over five stories. People of all ages walk. Many ride bikes, including elders. Others move quietly around on small scooters. Some mothers ride with two kids in separate belted seats on bicycles. People politely make space for you, generously, as if there are no "right of ways." No one honks horns. I could even call the street scenes, lively as they are, "gentle."

Except in the glitziest shopping district, there are no department stores. Retail is small-scale, single-story. Even the 7-11s and Lawsons (British competitor to 7-11) are tiny, with just enough street apron to park a bike or scooter. Few of the houses in our neighborhood - mostly constructed wall-to-wall and rarely more than three stories - have garages. People park perfectly in small spaces in front of their entryways, an inch or so from the wall.

Sidewalks aren't wide. Some, alongside major arterials, include bike lanes that are half the size of ours. You have to be watchful, but everyone defers to everyone else. It's as graceful as a dance.

We don't cook much at our guesthouse, which is equipped with stove, fridge and washing machine. I don't feel comfortable using them. The instructions are inscribed in beautiful Japanese characters unintelligible to me! Our landlady has given us rapid instructions, also in Japanese, but hard to recall. She is very kind, always bringing us tangerines, vegetables, coffee, and tiny chewy sweets. I just wash my clothes in the sink.

Luckily, we have friends here. Two economists, Atsushi Fujioka, who lives here, and Junko Nishikawa, who journeyed from Tokyo to join us for a few days. The first evening, I gave a lecture at the University, which was supposed to be on "the Economics of Happiness." I had no idea what that meant, so I talked about both good working conditions and the potential for arts and culture to transform place. It turns out that Atsushi had in mind a European movement for localism. I'm not opposed to localism - I enjoy it myself and think we've got lots of it in Carlton County. But we also need to watchdog our county, state and federal leaders, foreign leaders who are tyrants, and giant corporations and ideological movements.

The following day, Atsushi led us by train up to a mountain village of perhaps 30 homes whose livelihoods involve growing delectable tangerines and serving pilgrims to the burial grounds of an ancient emperor. We hiked the modest steps up to the gravesite and then spent a slow food afternoon sitting on tatami mats, gazing out at a misty mountainside pockmarked with oranges, and cooking an array of meats, vegetables, mushrooms and noodles. With chopsticks, we'd transfer each morsel to the hot pot, wait a bit, and pull them out with chopsticks to deposit on our plates. One floor down, there were hot tubs for us to relax in afterwards. A lovely way to live and visit.

The Japanese have a long and eventful history, pockmarked as ours is by war and inequality. Our friend Atsushi, an economics professor, spearheaded the construction of the Kyoto Museum for World Peace at Ritsumeikan University. I love going there, even though you have to face the cruelties and horrors of war that few areas of our world have escaped. The museum is candid about Japanese imperialism during the 20th century. How Japan occupied Korea, forcing them to speak Japanese and adapt their customs. Japan's cruelties in Manchuria, southeast Asia, the Philippines. The exhibits begin by showing how college men were conscripted into the Japanese army, indoctrinated about Japanese superiority, and taught to kill themselves rather than surrender. College women students were converted into uniform seamstresses working on campus.

The museum probes the complicity of the largest, most powerful countries in 20th Century wars and killing. It forces you to view the devastation and deformities caused by the American bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But it also offers several rooms documenting ongoing international peace movements following World War II. Atsushi especially loved showing me a photo of myself at the Hague Peace Conference in 1999.

I always learn something powerful from visiting other cultures and communities. Ideas about how to live better as well as appreciation for our own ways of life. I'm studying traffic calming. Stay tuned.

Ann Markusen is an economist and professor emerita at University of Minnesota. A Pine Knot board member, she lives in Red Clover Township north of Cromwell with her husband, Rod Walli.