- {You} “Then why don’t you tell us all about it, Akira?

- [Akira] “Hehehe, leave it to me!”

“The fact is, there was already a temple here in the 13 th century.

But the noble who commissioned it was put to death for conspiring

Against the Emperor, and it fell into ruin.”

“Then, around the end of the 14 th century, the shogun Ashikaga

Yoshimitsu fixed it up and built a new temple, which he called the

Rokuon-ji.”

- [You] “Wow... is that really what happened?”

- [Makoto] “Yes, she’s exactly right.”

- [Akira] “Wait a minute! Why are you asking Onee-chan for confirmation?”

- [You] “N-no reason… just wanted to be sure…”

- [Akira] “Hmph!! Let me tell you, this isn’t all I know.”

“I also know that when the temple was completed, the grounds around it were larger, and that it
completely burned downed once.”

- [You] “Burned down? The temple? Was it in a war, or what?”

- [Akira] “Bzzt! Sorry… it burned down just 60 years ago. It was arson!”

- [You] “Arson!? You mean someone set fire to it!?”

- [Akira] “Yeah, In 1950… by a young monk still in training.”

- [You] “A monk committed arson!?”

- [Akira] “That’s right. The temple was already a famous national treasure at that time, so it caused
a huge stir.”

- [You] “I-I see… that makes sense…”

- [Akira] “Then, a world-famous author named Mishima Yukio wrote a novel about it.”

“The name of the novel is, of course, ‘Kinkaku’!!”

- [You] “Wow! Akira, you really know a lot about the Kinkaku-ji!”

- [Akira] “I told you I knew a lot about it!”

- [Makoto] “So, have you read the novel”

- [Akira] “N… no..”

- [You] “Oh, dear……”

- [Makoto] “Mishima Yukio’s Kinkaku-ji has been translated into many other languages, so you
should read it if you get a chance.”

- [You] “Sure, I will.”

“He probably wrote it after visiting the place for himself, so it’ll probably be more interesting now
than if I’d read it before”

“I’ll be sure to look around for it when I get home.”

- [Akira] “I-I think I might try to read it when I get home, too…”

- [Makoto] “Hehehe, I see… I think you would get a lot out of it, Akira.”

- [You] (…… The Kinkaku-ji, huh…)

(The walls are stuck with gold leaf, so it’s as gold as the name suggests…)

(I’d heard that ancient Europe referred to Japan as Jipang, the Land of Gold…)

(But looking at this, I can see why Marco Polo would have felt that way…)

- [Makoto] “What do you think of Kyoto so far?”

- [You] “Let’s see… at first I wasn’t really seeing the town’s history and culture at all…”

“But the more we walk around, the more I feel the traditional atmosphere seeping in all over…”

- [Akira] “That’s right.”

“Kyoto has a lot of temples and shrines, so you can walk from temple to temple and shrine to
shrine…”

“Just walking around can give you a deep impression of the town.”

- [You] “Yeah. That’s really true.”

“But, how do I say this… it’s more than that, there’s…”

“Like, even among the smallest shops in town, so many of them sell traditional craft goods…”
“So that also gives me the impression of a town that values its history…”

- [Makoto] “That’s true. While Kyoto continues to expand, the city as a whole does protect its
traditions… I think that’s what makes it amazing.”

- [You] (Preserving tis history while taking in the new, eh…)

(But now that I think about it, I think Tokyo has a similar sort of atmosphere…)

(With Kyoto, it just feels a whole lot sharper…)

(When I think about it that way, Kyoto really is like a representation of Japan itself…)

“Ah, that’s it!! There’s one thing that surprised me in coming to Kyoto…”

- [Akira] “Surprised you? What is it?”

- [You] “You know, the language!”

- [Akira] “Language… ah, I see, because it’s not like Tokyo Japanese…”

- [You] “That’s right. It’s a… dialect, right? The accent and the words people here use, it’s nothing
like the Japanese I know.”

-[Makoto] “That’s true. People in Kyoto and nearby Osaka and Kobe speak what’s called Kansai-
ben.”

- [You] “Kansai-ben…”

- [Makoto] “Yes, Specifically, Kobe and Osaka and Kyoto all have their own dialects, but the
general term for it is Kansai-ben.”

- [You] “Kansai-ben, I see…”

- [Makoto] “It’s hard for even native Japanese to imitate Kansai-ben. It’s a unique way of
speaking.”

- [You] “I see. But how should I say… if feels like it has nuances that I don’t hear in the Japanese of
Tokyo…”