The Hearts of Nara City

The country of Japan is a country of contradiction. Wooden temples shrouded in the early morning mist border metal Goliaths, office complexes of sprawling webworks of steel and glass. Down the dim alleyways of the bustling city sprouts the idyllic garden, blossoming straight out of a Ghibli feature. A culture that embraces the traditions and roots of its past with as much fervor as it reaches up for the flourishing of the future is that of the verdant landscape, the towering volcano, and the titantic megacity.

But where does this contradiction, this dichotomic spirit come from? Whence comes the birthplace of both the flaxen yukata and the silver robotics?

I found a hint of an answer on the streets of Nara city.

Nara: The Old

The morning sun dawns. As the fog of the early morning settles, melting away under the rays of glowing orange, the air glistens.

Getting off at the bus station in front of the World Heritage Museum, tourists find themselves surrounded by the famous mascots of the Nara Park, the roaming white and brown colored shika deer. Indigenous and friendly, these deer are the longtime tenants of the Todai-ji, Kofuku-ji, and Kasuga Shrines, buildings dating back to the seventh century. Inquisitive toddlers waddle down the streets in pursuit of the approaching fauna. One girl giggles as a shika nuzzles her cheek.

As sightseeing flocks of Americans and other migratory groups enter the temple, the bustle turns to hush under the grand shadow of the fifteen-meter-tall Buddha statue. Kokuzo Bosatsu and Nyoirin Kannon, two serene bodhisattvas flank the statue, an honorary guard of dignity. The orange glow, the flickering shadows, and the red hues are transformative; like a brush of tranquility, they paint over the entrants to the temple and leave them indelibly touched by a beauty hundreds of years in the making.

Nara: The New

After sinking in the gravitas of the temple, the spell breaks upon exiting a couple streets east of the park. Rolling hills evolve into cement sidewalks, and the blossoming sakura morph into neon signs of flashing purple. Down the famous Higashimuki street is the life of the city, a packed street where the smell of okonomiyaki wafts, mixed in with the scent of raw wagyu and fresh seafood. Cyclists on gleaning motorbikes part the street, splitting the ocean of bodies as traffic control in their green and orange uniforms autonomously wave pedestrians through in rehearsed fashion.

The shopping mall is kaleidoscopic, pulsating with an undercurrent of energy, a throbbing of groove and vibrance. The display cases are tall things, a window into a world of manga, merchandising, and technology. Inside the stores await marketing specialists, ready to advertise the newest gadgets, the trendiest, the most novel, the most glamorous. A man in a suit speaks, chattering rapid-fire into his cell. His wife bobs and ducks through aisles, an island amidst two rivers of consumers that twist and flow. Here is where, in a single moment, ten thousand people meet, leave, and silently agree never to meet again.

They leave the store, weighed down by bags of discounted Versace, weary shoppers returning to the solitude of their hotels, smiling upon attaining peace at long last.

Everything in Between

A month of vacation passes in a flash. The airplane lifts off, and a tiny city on a small island shrinks from memory.

Back in my flat in New York City, life goes on. The scent of home gives rise to nostalgia, where the trusty alarm clock on the nightstand desk stands guard as it has for the past month, unattended. A few weeks pass, and soon routine and work pine for attention, dampening those ephemeral memories of the land of the rising sun.

Yet one day, when I passed by Columbus Circle, I glanced up from my thoughts to see Central Park. A thought bloomed. This is grass, and these are trees, and those are people enjoying this manicured oasis of greenery in a fortress of red brick. Yet there is no nature here. There are no deer, only obese pigeons gorged on the waste that litters the lawn. There are no statues of millennia past, only hot dog vendors and blaring radios and shopping carts piled with the last possessions of the lepers of society. The garden is merely a garden and not a forest and suddenly tears streak down my face as I remembered that timeless, magical city where man and nature were connected, where shrines and skyscrapers meet.

In the end, the city of Nara is the future, the past, and everything in between. Most importantly, it is the edge between peace and war, between silence and sound, between death and life. This razor edge which we all cross, back and forth and back again, is the nature of humanity. Humans are a contradiction. We are each so different, yet we each hold in our chest a heart. The heart is an engine which pumps blood, rhythmic and constant, but it is also alive and organic. And in it, lies the parks and landscapes of indescribable solitude, and the noise and rumble and color that come from that city which lights up the night.

In this way, the Japanese are perhaps the most honest people, and the most honest culture. They embrace themselves and show it with heart.