Chronicles
Of Kyoto
By Renato Redentor Constantino
03 March 2005
Redconstantino.blogspot.com
The Japanese call it the capusoru hoteru;
capsule hotel in English. A modern day lodge offering hives upon hives
of rooms in stacks of twos, each framed by a sickly, square yellow glow
and uniformly measuring three feet and a half in height, three feet
wide and the length of an average Asian man.
The capsule hotel
is a new icon of Japanese urban living, one created mainly for transient
men who missed the last train bound for wherever and Neverwhere. Crawling
inside for the first time can make one wonder whether the sensation
of lying down in such a room is similar to the sweet serenity proffered
by the morgue suite.
"Alone in the
dark with nothing but your thoughts," said Ellis Boyd Redding in
The Shawshank Redemption, "time can draw out like a blade."
You lie there and stare at the strange low ceiling. Over a week of memories
pass you by.
Night of February
12. I ask Yu Jie if she can hold my bottle of beer for a few minutes
while I go inside the temple on Teramachi street. I tell Jie I do not
want to take the bottle inside. She nods and takes my beer. I walk in.
Inside I gently pull a small log suspended horizontally from the ceiling
and let go. The log hits the temple's great bell lightly releasing a
deep and fragile sound. Two more pulls on the log. I whisper a plea
each time for the swift recovery of an ailing friend. I lower my head
a degree and close my eyes; I smile and sigh. I do not know why.
The day of St. Valentine,
February 14. I approach the Koto-in Temple alone. Thick moss covers
both sides of a long stone pathway like matte-green pillars. There is
no noise save for the rustling from groves of bamboo and the rhythmic
clicking of footsteps on the stone trail. I wonder how air can be so
still and yet still make the leaves of the bamboo rustle.
Koto-in was established
in 1601 at the behest of the famed military leader Hosokawa Tadaoki,
a great warrior of his time and one of the few to survive the bloody
wars which culminated in the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate.
At the precincts of Koto-in is the grave of Hosokawa and his wife, Gratia,
a devout believer in the then outlawed Catholic faith. A solitary stone
lantern and serenity adorn the resting place.
Inside the ancient
temple and without my shoes, the wooden floor feels like ice but somehow
it is ok. Space is partitioned by sliding doors and vistas of a small
garden of bamboo, maple, moss, shapely bushes and obedient clusters
of small trees, blades of grass and pebbles. The elegant simplicity
is breathtaking.
The afternoon is
gray. It feels like any other hour of the Japanese winter -- biting
cold -- but the sun has found an improbable small crack in the clouds.
A slender ray penetrates the sky and heats a square meter on the totomi
mats; the rest of the floor is bathed in shadow. I sit down and colonize
the warm space, lean on a wooden pillar and pull out of my bag the books
I brought with me to Japan.
No snowflake ever
falls in the wrong place, a Zen saying goes. In two hours I soak up
chapters one after the other from Eduardo Galeano's Faces and Masks
-- an epic history of the Western hemisphere and the New World in the
making from a Latin American eye-view; Tariq Ali's The Book of Saladin
-- a brilliant historical novel about the Kurdish warrior Yusuf Salah
al-Din ibn Ayyub and the long fateful encounter between Christendom
and the world of Islam; and The Naked Sun, a robot novel of science
fiction maestro Isaac Asimov. And I think: a Filipino in a temple in
Kyoto -- the old capital of Japan -- absorbing unlikely sunlight, feasting
on books about the ancient past, recent history and memories of the
future, bounding from land to land. None of this was planned.
February 16; the
Kyoto Protocol -- the global agreement that aims to prevent the onset
of dangerous climate change -- comes into force. The climate treaty
is a legally-binding accord that obligates the industrialized world
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide, by
an average of five percent globally relative to 1990 emission levels.
Scientists insist emissions reductions of at least 30 percent must take
place by 2020, and over 75 percent by 2050.
Prior to the Protocol,
a UN framework convention on climate change called on divine intervention
to save the planet -- by calling for voluntary cuts in emissions. Since
providence did little to reduce emissions; the world decided legally-enforceable
cuts were required. Indian saying: "Call on God, but row away from
the rocks."
The Protocol was
born in the city of Kyoto in 1997, hence the treaty's name. It is the
only global instrument that gives the children of today a fighting chance
to inherit a livable planet. In the exact same hall where the Protocol
was born, a great conference is being held by the United Nations to
mark the treaty's historic entry into force. The cavernous chamber is
full.
Officials and diplomats
from all over the world are present. The program begins in the evening
to ensure that the rest of the world can participate in the event. Messages
celebrating the triumph of multilateralism are transmitted live to the
assembly. Applause resonates throughout the convention hall. Two countries
are absent from the festivities and refuse to celebrate the day: the
United States and Australia.
The US is the biggest
greenhouse gas polluter in the world, period; Australia is the biggest
emitter per capita. Climate change is considered the greatest threat
facing the planet today, and yet the US continues to inflict fossil
wars on the Middle East for the region's oil, the bloodiest of all fossil
fuels. Australia continues to be the number one exporter in the world
of coal, the dirtiest of fossil fuels, and has also sent fresh troops
to Iraq, the frontline of America's petro-conflagration. During international
negotiations to hammer out details of the Kyoto accord, and even now
with the Protocol in force, the US and Australia continue to play hooligan
roles.
The Kyoto Protocol
is not based on science, said George W. Bush. We will meet the challenge
of climate change with clean coal, said John Howard. "The only
difference between genius and stupidity," said Albert Einstein,
"is that genius has its limits."
At the capsule hotel
hive, almost two weeks of tiring work have finally caught up. I ward
away sleep with a final effort and open my notebook. Hastily scribbled
notes from the Kyoto conference leap out. Words of hope.
"We have no
reason to wait," said Hiroshi Ohki, former environment minister
of Japan and the president of the 3rd UN Conference of the Parties which
gave birth to the climate treaty. "The entry into force of the
Kyoto Protocol is an ideal start to protect the health of the planet.
This is a day to renew our resolve."
"We must believe
in ourselves individually and collectively. Together we form a multitude,"
said the imposing Wangari Maathai, the Deputy Environment Minister of
Kenya and recent recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Maathai exhorted
the representatives gathered in the main hall of Kyoto's International
Conference Center "to apply the precautionary principle and curb
the rising tide. We are members of a generation that can still make
a difference."
I stare at the strange
low ceiling of the capsule room. Over a week of memories and more pass
me by. The world stops turning and descends on my eyelids. I slip down
into a shapeless, nameless void.