Kimitsu is a slow city.
I live in a neighborhood of Kimitsu that seems to be composed solely of old people. They are old people mostly tending rice farms and vegetable plots. Growing vegetables, I imagine, is something that cannot be rushed.
Even the local river that flows through the city seems to be taking its time flowing westward into the Tokyo Bay. You will not find any rushing torrents or furiously swirling eddies in the river, though on a clear day you may see some koi fish lounging beneath the surface. On the jogging path running parallel to the river, elderly couples take morning strolls. Old men in baseball hats walk around with unleashed dogs trotting beside their feet.
This is not only a city for old people, but a city for families with young children. When I am not surrounded by old people, I am surrounded by mothers chasing after their kids. This is the sort of city where children's drawings from local schools are proudly displayed in the hallway of the train station. On the opposite wall, photographs with family-friendly subject matter (nature, children, local festivals) taken by local citizens are proudly displayed as well.
Kimitsu is also a quiet city.
Unlike Tokyo, I don't hear the dull roar of a massive crowd crossing a major crosswalk. I don't hear store patrons blaring out bargain sales on megaphones, or music videos playing on a giant outdoor screen. Instead, I hear a lot of birds singing, wind rustling and children shouting. The most jarring noise I probably hear within this city on any given day is the occasional clang-clang of bars being lowered to block cars from driving into an oncoming train.
At nine o' clock, the city goes to sleep. Stores are closed, and with the exception of the occasional raucous laughter of drunk businessmen, the city is exceptionally quiet. I bike home to the sound of frogs croaking in the rice fields. Nine o'clock seems to be the official bedtime of the city, because by the time I get home around ten-thirty after work, my entire family is asleep.
A slow and quiet city is the antithesis of what this modern world is supposed to entail. I always associated living in a slow and quiet city with a passive-aggressive admission that you couldn't handle the thrilling masochism of living in a big and loud city. But living in a slow and quiet city, like tending a vegetable garden, demands a certain degree of inner strength as well.
Living in a big and loud city is for people living in the future. Everyone is furiously hoping for that next big encounter that will finally transform their humble and ordinary lives into something better.
My relatives whom I am living with are exceptionally good at living in a slow, quiet city. They are also exceptionally happy people.
My grandmother is 76 years old, and her tiny body and stooped back doesn't stop her from waking up at five in the morning every day to work in the farms. Every now and then she asks me to stop what I am doing to step outside and see something she wants to show me. One day, she might point out the bamboo shoots poking from the earth that would later be dug up, chopped into pieces and steamed in a big cooker. Other times, it might be the shiitake mushrooms sprouting from a log, or a vine heavy with kiwi fruit that will be picked later in the year.
Living happily in a slow, quiet city means living fully in the present. People who fail to succumb to this idea are doomed to sporadic fits of anxiety, boredom and existential despair.
It took me more than half a year to fully realize this. I still remember with shame the time my aunt picked me up from work and instead of driving us straight home, drove along the local river lined with cherry trees in full bloom. Instead of fully admiring the fragile petals magnified beneath the street lamp glow, I was too anxious thinking about the things that I needed to get done that night.
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