Kyoto Report 2025 – 1

This Tuesday report will provide some insights into life for a westerner (me) who is working for an extended period at Kyoto University in Japan but who over the years of working here has increasingly began to understand the language and local cultural traditions.

Well this week I am back in Japan.

For the last several years I have been lucky enough to be a guest Professor at Kyoto University working in one of the research labs here for a few months.

It gives me a really good opportunity to not only interact with first-rate colleagues spread across several academic disciplines but also to delve more deeply into the history and culture of the place and further cement long-term friendships.

We will be running an MMT-type event later in the year – probably in Tokyo (late November) – which will challenge the basic government position on the future of the economy here.

I will be promoting the work on degrowth that I am doing at present.

It is great to be back living by the Kamo and Takano Rivers, just near the delta.

My early morning runs take me for many kms along the rivers and sometimes into the Higashiyama Mountains – all within a short distance of where I live.

It is a fabulous way to start each work day.

It is a very interesting period to be living in Japan.

The long-term ruling elites in the conservative LDP are in chaos and the smaller opposition parties are now making serious leeway.

The LDP dynasty is coming to an end and Japan will be better off for it.

I use the term ‘conservative’ in relation to Japan cautiously because what constitutes conservatism here does not easily translate in the Western context, where the term, these days, is tantamount to neoliberalism and more chaotically to the new anti-migration, anti-LGBTQIA+, anti-science, pro-gun, anti-people groups who are now running places like the US.

Trying to apply those concepts to Japan is fraught and often leads to a totally incorrect inference as to what is actually going on.

The Japan Times published an article a while back (August 31, 2025) – What is a ‘Japanese conservative’ in this day and age? – which provides some information for Western readers.

The point is that some of the ‘conservative’ political forces would be consider ‘liberal’, even progressive, in a Western context.

We read:

Unlike in many Western countries, Japanese conservatism is not about the size of government, gun rights, reproductive rights, access to universal health care and elderly care, income inequality, progressive income and inheritance tax structures, religious fundamentalism or states’ rights vs. central government.

Rather it is about “preserving what has been handed down through the generations” particularly the cultural heritage and traditions and “the willingness to adapt flexibly to protect what must be preserved”.

The article notes that “exceedingly rare carpentry skills are nourished while introducing modern sustainability”.

In this spirit, I am going to embark on a project (in my spare time) of restoring an old Machiya in Kyoto – to be part of those who work to preserve those old buildings while bringing them up to sustainability and energy efficiency standards.

Machiyas are the traditional townhouses that first appeared in the Edo period (1603 to 1867).

These townhouses are under threat from developers and their is a strong resistance movement to protect them.

The developers pull them down and turn them into car parks or awful concrete buildings.

There is pressure on space as more Japanese seek to own and drive their own cars.

Kyoto is still a bike city but the number of cars on the road increases each year – and at nights they have to park somewhere, and the narrow streets are not conducive.

So throughout the neighbourhoods one comes across allotments that used to have a historic townhouse but are now parking spaces for cars.

So I am a ‘conservative’ in the Japanese sense because I am wanting to preserve these beautiful buildings.

In the West, such movements would be considered progressive.

For example, the World Monuments Fund’s – Machiya Townhouses – program is partnering with local groups in Kyoto, such as the – Kyomachiya Revitalization Study Group – and the – Kyoto Center for Community Collaboration (KCCC) – for the restoration of machiya.

We are hoping to gain a lot of knowledge and experience from those who have been invested in this exercise for some years now.

I will document this project as it unfolds in the coming years.

Japan is also in a difficult position with respect to the US now and how that plays out will be very interesting.

I am less confident that the government will be sufficiently assertive against the Trump madness.

Already, it has announced it will not recognise a Palestinian State for fear of angering the US Administration.

My view is that the more nations stand against Trump the more likely the latter’s chaotic policy choices will isolate the US and damage on it.

Anyway, each Tuesday, I will write about daily life working and riding bikes around Kyoto and its surrounds.

Some things that interest me, might just interest others.

That is enough for today!

(c) Copyright 2025 William Mitchell. All Rights Reserved.