Kyoto: Where the Cuckoo Calls

By Suzanne Kamata
"even in Kyoto
I long for Kyoto—
cuckoo!"
--Matsuo Basho (1644-94)*
My story begins at Kyoto Station, where I alight after a three-hour bus ride. It is evening, and Kyoto Tower is bright orange against the black sky. I dodge between foreign visitors posing against this backdrop, and the photographers aiming phone cameras at them. A trio of young women in hijab stroll by, pulling their wheeled suitcases. A man in a wheelchair takes a selfie. I am briefly annoyed by the throngs, but I know that I don’t have a right to be; I am a tourist, too. Although I was first lured to Japan...