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From Zen to Karaoke | RTÉ Radio 1 Extra

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Wednesday 2nd September 2015 at 5pm – From Zen to Karaoke

Seamus Hosey, accompanied By Marita Harve, visits the ancient Japanese city of Kyoto. A city located in the central part of the island of Honshu, Japan, it has a population close to 1.5 million. It was formerly the imperial capital of Japan for more than one thousand years.

They start their journey on a ‘Bullet Train’ which travels at 270 Klms per hour. Famed for it’s many Buddhist Temples, Zen Shrines and rock gardens. There’s plenty of sight seeing on offer in Kyoto – and lots of Karaoke bars to sing in.

But Kyoto is also an ancient city – founded on or before 6th century AD, it suffered extensive destruction in the Onin War in the 15th century and did not really recover until the mid-16th century. The city began to grow in population throughout the centuries and exceeded one million in 1932.

There was some consideration by the United States of targeting Kyoto with an atomic bomb at the end of World War II because, as an intellectual centre of Japan, it had a population “better able to appreciate the significance of the weapon.” In the end, at the insistence of Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War in the Roosevelt and Truman administrations, the city was removed from the list of targets and replaced by Nagasaki. The city was largely spared from conventional bombing as well, although small-scale air raids did result in casualties.

In 1997, Kyoto hosted the conference that resulted in the protocol on greenhouse gas emissions that bears the city’s name.

Produced By Seamus Hosey.

First Broadcast: December 14th 1994