{"id":63465,"date":"2026-11-03T19:19:37","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T08:19:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/?p=63465"},"modified":"2026-11-03T19:19:37","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T08:19:37","slug":"kyoto-report-2026-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/?p=63465","title":{"rendered":"Kyoto Report 2026 \u2013 6"},"content":{"rendered":"

This weekly 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.
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This is my last report from Kyoto, Japan for 2026.<\/p>\n

My time here this year was a little shorter than it has been in the last several years due to a number of commitments back in Australia that I have to attend to in person.<\/p>\n

So until 2027, I am signing off.<\/p>\n

Japanese version of Reclaim the State now available<\/h2>\n

I received a copy from Pluto Press of the Japanese translation of our 2017 book – Reclaiming the State: A Progressive Vision of Sovereignty for a Post-Neoliberal World<\/a> (Pluto Books, September 2017).<\/p>\n

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This was a painstaking effort from Professor Chikako Nakayama and Masanori-san and I really appreciate all the work and care that they put into the project.<\/p>\n

They tell me that the translated version is selling well in Japan, which is good news.<\/p>\n

It is a pity that Covid interrupted our plans to write the sequel and ultimately derailed them.<\/p>\n

Shugakuin Imperial Villa<\/h2>\n

The other day, we finally won a place in the ballot to visit the – Shugakuin Imperial Villa<\/a> – which is situated out in the far North East of the Kyoto City area and a long way from the tourist areas.<\/p>\n

To get access to the Villa and the sprawling estate, which is nestled into the mountain range to the East of the Kamo and Tanaka rivers, one has to put one’s name in a ballot and answer a heap of questions.<\/p>\n

The estate runs into the south-western foot of Mount Hiei<\/p>\n

We have been trying for years to get selected and out of the blue we were successful this year.<\/p>\n

The wait was worth it.<\/p>\n

The tour is compulsory and one cannot roam alone through the grounds.<\/p>\n

The tour is free of charge and expertly conducted by a member of the Imperial Household Agency, which oversees all the Imperial properties in Kyoto.<\/p>\n

Our guide was really interesting and had a great sense of humour.<\/p>\n

The whole tour (and you cannot do a partial tour) takes about 80 minutes and involves walking up and down steep hills etc for a total of about 3.5 kms.<\/p>\n

There are three main buildings on the estate – the Upper, Middle and Lower Villas – that run up the slope of the mountain.<\/p>\n

In between, there are rice fields which are worked by local farmers as a gesture from the emperors.<\/p>\n

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The estate was conceived in 1629 by the Emperor Emeritus Gomizuno-o and become the place retired Emperors could live and write poetry etc.<\/p>\n

The construction began in 1655 and was completed in 1659.<\/p>\n

IF you visit their WWW page (linked above) you will find out the interesting history of the buildings etc, which are really interesting.<\/p>\n

They involved an Imperial Princess who abandoned her role to become a Bbuddhist nun, a demise of an Emperor, and various other intrigues.<\/p>\n

Subsequently, various Emperors Emeritus “enjoyed tours of the garden, poetry recitals, mushroom picking” among their activities on the estate.<\/p>\n

At the top is the huge Yukuryuchi Pond, which demonstrated the skills of engineering that the developers had back then.<\/p>\n

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Here I am by the water’s edge facing to the West (with the slope in front on me).<\/p>\n

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They dammed up a mountain river to create a beautiful water garden which the various emperors could enjoy boating around.<\/p>\n

As the tour guide explained their is deep meaning in the water surface (mirroring the sky) and connecting the sky and the earth.<\/p>\n

The garden up the top is spectacular.<\/p>\n

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Another garden view of the Middle Villa approach.<\/p>\n

If you love Japanese gardens as much as we do then these scenes were breathtaking.<\/p>\n

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All the views over the city below and across the fields are magnificent.<\/p>\n

This has been one of the best places I have ever visited and I usually hate organised tours – but this was worth it.<\/p>\n

And interestingly, the 20 or so people allowed in the tour were mostly Japanese people who had travelled from around the country to do the visit.<\/p>\n

Energy Efficiency in Japanese Homes<\/h2>\n

I gave a talk in Tokyo last Thursday evening about the need for degrowth etc.<\/p>\n

Part of my argument was the need to dramatically improve the efficiency of Japanese housing and reduce the reliance on fossil fuels.<\/p>\n

At my local hardware store in Kyoto, you can still buy kerosene heaters.<\/p>\n

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These were also common in Australia but were phased out mostly because of the introduction of strict Australian Standards (such as AS 2510-1981) in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

But Japan still hangs onto them.<\/p>\n

That has to change.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

Anyway, that is it for 2026 and we are really sad to be leaving – as always.<\/p>\n

That is enough for today!<\/p>\n

(c) Copyright 2026 William Mitchell. All Rights Reserved. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This weekly 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry","no-media"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}