Reforming Heritage and Tourism in Occupied Kyoto (1945-1952) : How to Create Peace when Surrounded by the Atmosphere of War

This paper investigates the process of creating Kyoto’s cultural value as heritage during the occupation period (1945-1952). Investigating tourism, the paper reports on the practices of various actors, including SCAP (Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers), the national government, Kyoto’s local government, Kyoto’s tourism industry, and American soldiers, and considers tourism as a contributor to the process of creating the cultural value of “peace.” By focusing on the touristic dynamism of “staging peace” and “gazing peace,” the paper highlights the characteristic of “virtual peace” that acted as a cultural representation of the dichotomy of war and peace in a chaotic post-war space. Previous researches on the occupation period presupposed a one-way relationship between the occupiers and occupied, which makes it impossible to explain how Kyoto remained a famous tourist destination at a time when “Japanese culture” was prohibited by SCAP. This research found that, from a tourism perspective, there was in fact a collaborative process at work. While SCAP expunged the former imperialistic and militaristic concept of heritage, they replaced it with the dominant global heritage discourse where other elements of Japanese heritage were admissible.The paper discusses why people travelled to Kyoto at this time. Occupier personnel selected Kyoto for tourism because they felt it was less ravaged by war than other places in Japan. Kyoto was able to position itself as a tourist location with a thousand years of history because, in fact, the city did suffer less damage from the war. Finally, I conclude that the peace in post-war Kyoto had the characteristics of “virtual peace,” which was staged by the tourism industry and gazed by tourists, while also hiding and allowing an escape from the war