The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 7 | Issue 40 | Number 2 | Article ID 3231 | Oct 05, 2009

1

Off with Their Heads! Resolving the “Garbage Problem” ofAutumn Leaves in Kawagoe, Japan

Joshua Roth

Off with Their Heads! Resolving the"Garbage Problem" of AutumnLeaves in Kawagoe, Japan

Joshua Roth

In the scorching summer of 2007, recordtemperatures were set across Japan andelectrical demand for air conditioningthreatened power outages throughout theTokyo metropolitan area. Despite theoppressive heat, the leafy green canopy alongZelkova Avenue (ケヤキ通り　Keyaki Dōri)extending southwest from the TsurugashimaStation on the Tobu Tojo train line provided ashady passage on my bicycle rides to thestation and nearby supermarket. The tips of thehighest branches of the trees on one side of thestreet touched those on the other. This wassomewhat unusual in Japan, where trees thatline city streets are often closely cropped. Thetrees along Zelkova Avenue had been allowedto grow to relative maturity, so they indeedappeared like giant upside down brooms withsplendid foliage, as described in a plaque nextto a zelkova in a Kawagoe Park.

“Keyaki (Zelkova serrata Makino). This

APJ | JF 7 | 40 | 2

2

tree appears like a giant upside downbroom and has splendid fall foliage.” (treeidentification plaque, Kawagoe Sports Park

(Undō Kōen))

Riding my bicycle on Zelkova Avenue onemorning in late September, I noticed severaltrucks parked along one side of the street as Iapproached Tsurugashima station. Two truckswith hydraulic lifts raised workers high up intothe trees where they were sawing off branches.First, it was on just one short stretch near thestation. In the following days, however, thecrew moved up the street. They were not justpruning. They were cutting vertical trunks ofthe trees, six inches or so in diameter. Entiretops of the trees were being sawed off. Thelarger sections were attached with a rope toanother crane, which gently lowered them ontoa flatbed truck. The crane and

trucks blocked off one lane of the road, and twomen wielding fluorescent red batons directedtraffic around them. I approached a work crewand asked why they were pruning the trees sodrastically. The man who appeared to be incharge replied that the leaves were a problemfor people who lived along the street. Theleaves would fall on rooftops, get stuck in rooftiles and in storm shutters, and then start torot. According to him and several others, theleaves posed a “garbage problem” (ごみ問題,gomi mondai). Each day, the crew movedfarther along the road, leaving a desolatelandscape of bare trunks. In a matter of weeks,the summer landscape was transformed intothat of winter. These trees were decapitated,pruned back so radically, that all that remainedwere rows of leafless trunks.

APJ | JF 7 | 40 | 2

3

Those who supported pruning zelkova drew ona certain understanding of nature and urbanspaces to justify their positions. Others,however, were upset by what was done. Theycontested the notion of a single Japaneseperspective on nature. They could find supportin Japan’s energetic environmental movementsthat have supported pollution control, recyclingefforts, energy efficiency, reforestation, and thegreening of urban areas (Sorenson and Funck2009; Broadbent 2003; Sasaki-Uemura 2001;Peng-Er 1999). Despite these multiplecompeting discourses on nature and theenvironment, the zelkovas were cut to minimalpublic protest. Why did no movement arise tostop the pruning? Before we get to thisquestion, let us take a look at the kind ofideologies that were used to justify the pruning,and explore the range of local reactions to thepruning.

City trees and visions of nature

The Shinto notion that kami (divinity) isimmanent in mountains, rocks, trees, the sunand moon, animals, etc. suggests that Japanesemay have a special reverence for nature. ArneKalland and Pamela Asquith have argued thatJapanese have not drawn a distinct boundarybetween the categories of nature and culture,unlike the obsessive dichotomy between thesetwo categories set by Western anthropologicaltradition (Kalland and Asquith 1997: 1-18).

However, the blurred boundary of Japanesethought does not imply oneness with a pristinenature. Kalland and Asquith argue persuasivelythat Japanese have often assumed that it isactive human cultivation that allows nature toachieve its full potential (ibid.: 15-18). Theywrite that

the nature cherished by mostJapanese is not nature in itsoriginal state but in its idealizedstate. The careful training andgrooming of a pine tree in a gardenis a case in point. ‘[The] pruning …allows a more natural, and at thesame time more ideal beauty toemerge … The gardener merelymakes this beautiful garden morevisible’ (ibid.: 16, quoting Ito 1972:140).

Japanese perspectives of nature, and theaesthetics of a cultivated nature, partiallyexplain what otherwise appears to be a case ofexcessive pruning of zelkovas in Kawagoe.Such views hardly explain it completely, foramong Kawagoe residents, more people thannot felt that the pruning was excessive. Fewsaw beauty in the trees once they wereseverely cut back, contrary to what might beexpected from Asquith and Kalland. Only one ofthe approximately 20 people I spoke to aboutthe zelkova drew on the discourse of acultivated nature to justify the pruning. But iffew Kawagoe residents’ expressed anyaesthetic appreciation for the extreme pruningof their zelkova, why didn’t more people objectto it? Why were they largely indifferent?

Morris-Suzuki’s history of Tokugawa erathought about nature emphasizes kaibutsu, “aterm which means literally ‘the opening up ofthings,’ but might be interpreted either as‘revealing the nature of things’ or as‘developing’ or ‘making use of’ the naturalworld” (Morris-Suzuki 1998: 41, citing Saigusa

APJ | JF 7 | 40 | 2

4

1973: 371-374). Many viewed nature asabundant with resources, and capable ofresponding resiliently and positively to humanaction. City officials in Kawagoe and manyother Japanese municipalities may haveinherited such a perspective. Throughout thelate nineteenth and twentieth centuries, thisline of thinking cleared space for a“dominionistic” stance towards nature todevelop, and for national projects ofindustrialization and subsequent environmentaldegradation little different from experiences ofindustrialization in other cultural contexts.

Ideas about nature have been an importantdimension of modern Japanese politicalideology, but they have served to support awhole range of national projects, few of whichhad anything to do with environmentalsustainability. Julia Thomas notes, in fact, thatJapanese political ideology equated nature withJapanese culture (Thomas 2001). In so doing,the pruning of trees would not be understoodas violating nature, but rather in tandem withculture (Thomas, personal communication). Inan earlier research project in a different city, Idescribed locals who, without the least irony,took advantage of the national holiday GreenDay (緑の日, midori no hi) to cut back manytrees in their neighborhood (Roth 2002).

But aesthetics and visions of nature alonecannot resolve all of our questions. More sothan Japanese gardens, which are meant forcontemplation and respite (see Hendry 1997;Ito 1972; Johnson 1991), city trees are locatedin a more varied social, political, and economiccontext. City trees raise questions about howpeople understand public space, governance,and democratic action.

In the European context, tree-lined boulevardswere introduced into urban settings graduallyover a period of several centuries. Trees werelargely absent along cramped streets ofmedieval walled towns. As historicalgeographer Henry Lawrence has written, “from

the perspective of a medieval city dweller itwould have seemed absurd that someone wouldwant to plant a tree in front of a house alongthe street instead of in a garden behind thehouse” (Lawrence 2006, 3). This mode ofthinking changed as the urban centersexpanded beyond the confining city walls, andvisions of nature as a beneficent force, a sourceof cleanliness and moral order, grew during theEnlightenment and Romantic periods (ibid.,270). State power too began to express itselfthrough the deliberate planting andmanagement of trees in public spaces asopposed to the haphazard planting byindividual homeowners (ibid., 57-59, 87-89).This development was most fully expressed inthe Baron Haussman’s mid 19th centuryredesign of Paris where tree lined boulevardswere “forced through crowded neighborhoodsin almost every part of” the city (ibid. 237).

Tree-lined avenues have become morewidespread in Japan somewhat more recentlysince the 1960s. However, there is a history ofroadside trees in Japan. According to theJapanese language Wikipedia entry on roadsidetrees (街路樹, gairoju), mulberry trees wereplanted alongside a street in 6th centuryNaniwa (current day Osaka). Tachibana andwillows were planted along streets in 8thHeian-kyo (current day Kyoto). Later, peach,pear, cherry, plum, pine, and zelkova treeswere introduced over the centuries in differentlocations (link (http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/街路樹)). More often than not, trees appear on theoutskirts of expanding urban areas. Statelypines graced the Tokaido, the coastal routelinking Edo with Kyoto. In earlier times, treeswere much more prevalent in urban settings,but gradually green spaces retreated to parks,gardens, temple grounds, and river banks. Inmany neighborhoods today, the only green isjust that which peeks over concrete wallsseparating narrow private gardens from thestreet. The jumble of narrow winding streetsthat make up many urban neighborhoods allowno room for raised sidewalks let alone for trees.

APJ | JF 7 | 40 | 2

5

Many of the city views on Meiji, Taisho, andearly Showa postcards are devoid of trees (link(http://oldphotosjapan.com/en/)). One notableexception is the Ginza, which was famous fromthe 1880s to 1921 for its willows, until thestreet was widened for vehicular traffic and thetrees were removed. Chiyako Sato’s 1929 hitsong “Tokyo March” lamented the loss of thewillows, which were reintroduced in 1931, butagain mostly removed in 1968 (link(http://oldphotosjapan.com/en/photos/759/ginza-streetcar)).

While the town of Kawagoe has a long historyas a castle town, I lived in a more recentlydeveloped outlying region. Zelkova Avenue wasbuilt in 1976, when the city finances wererelatively prosperous. As the official tree ofSaitama Prefecture, zelkovas were chosen toline the streets of a number of Saitama cities.The narrow, old main street leading fromTsurugashima station ran parallel to ZelkovaAvenue. The old main street was lined withstores but lacked sidewalks and trees. Therelatively broad two lane Zelkova Avenuediverted much of the traffic, including all of thelarger buses, and has ample sidewalk space onboth sides of the street. According to Prof. ofAgriculture Minomo Toshitaro of KumamotoPrefectural University, such avenues were builtin many cities throughout Japan from the mid1960s through the 1980s as the most expedientmeans of reversing the loss of green spacesthat accompanied urbanization (link(http://www.nhk.or.jp/gokinjo/backnumber/041209.html)). One storeowner on Zelkova Avenuein Kawagoe said that the splendid foliage wasan attraction for all the businesses along thestreet.

However, Prof. Minomo notes that thematuration of trees along many of these streetsled to a number of problems. For one, thevolume of leaves falling increased to the pointthat residents were no longer able to managethem as they had in the past, and city clean upservices also lagged behind. In addition, rootsbegan to buckle sidewalks and cause breaks inwater mains (ibid.). City planners in Kawagoeexpressed a similar feeling that what hadseemed a good idea in the 1970s was a cause ofconsiderable expense and headache today. Inprevious years, the branches of the zelkovashad been thinned. Some pruning was doneevery year in the city, although not necessarilyon the same trees. The trees on differentstretches of Zelkova Avenue were of varyingheights, some half the height of others,indicating that more severe pruning, as well asthinning of branches, had been done in thepast. In the fall of 2007, the city contractedgardening services to extend this extremeaction by pruning the entire length of theavenue and several other streets. By so doing,the city could reduce their annual expendituresfor tree maintenance, although at considerablestart up expense.

Local Responses

I had been living in the area long enough toview the trees with some affection, and toresent that they were being cut for no apparent

APJ | JF 7 | 40 | 2

6

reason. As the chainsaws started buzzing onthe stretch of Zelkova Avenue with the tallesttrees, I put aside my other activities to try toget more reactions from people in theneighborhood. I posted myself on a walkwaythat paralleled the avenue alongside asupermarket parking lot where the pruningcranes and trucks were situated. For the mostpart, few residents seemed to take notice of thetree cutting operation, which, with the passageof days had become a normal activity. Mostpassers by followed their daily routines withhardly any display of interest. Several four-year-olds, their attention drawn by the buzzingof the chain saws, pointed over to the cranesand trucks and asked their mothers what wasgoing on. The women appeared too busytalking to each other to bother answering. Oneolder man walking toward the supermarketlooked over for a short time, while an elderlycouple walking in the same direction made nonote of the activity. A supermarket employee ina white smock smoked a cigarette in theparking lot and looked at the work for a while.A young person talking on his cell phone as hebiked along the path glanced over at it withslightly raised eyebrows. One mother,responding to her child’s question about howmuch the workers were cutting, said that theywere “cutting everything” (zembu kitteiru).

A couple of my neighbors commented that thetrees were pruned every year, and that thisyear was no different. Many mentioned the bigjob of cleaning up all the fallen leaves in theautumn. One 70-year-old Japanese man who Iknew from the local community center wassurprised by my reaction to the tree cutting. Hesuggested that Japanese aesthetic sensibilities(biteki ishiki) were different from Westernones. He noted the tradition of bonsai, and hecommented that the street appeared refreshed(sukkiri shita) once the trees were cut, like onefeels after getting a haircut. (Umebori-sanalways kept his hair cropped close to his scalp.)

Another man in his mid fifties, whom I

recognized from the local community center,walked by as I was taking notes on a bench. Heasked what I was doing. I described my interestin the trees. They were cut every year, he said,adding that the city had wasted a lot of taxmoney maintaining the trees. He felt that otherkinds of trees should have been planted, oneswithout so many leaves, and that the treescould have been spaced out more. Ginko? Isuggested. No—its leaves didn’t readilydecompose. Pine? No—have you ever seenpines lining streets? The man went on to saythat the trees were a real nuisance for peoplewho lived here, despite the fact that there werefew

private homes along the avenue, and almost allof the work of clearing the leaves was done bycontingents of retirees (“silvers”), who workedfor very low wages, much less than it costs tocontract a pruning company. The man also saidthat outsiders (関係ない人, kankeinai hito) hadno business meddling in this matter, suggestingthat I had no place getting involved. In hisview, an exclusive concern with the aestheticsof the trees failed to properly assess the workthat the leaves caused, or grasp the issue ofhow tax money was spent. For him, only thosewho lived on the street had a balanced sense ofthe relative importance of aesthetics and costsresulting from the trees.

“Locals” (地元, jimoto), however, were not of a

APJ | JF 7 | 40 | 2

7

single opinion on the matter. When the pruningwas just starting, I took a shot of an older manin suit and tan tie, carrying a white paper giftbag, perhaps returning home from a weddingor some other special event. He was walkingtowards me with furrowed brow, the work crewbehind him. Perhaps he did not want his phototaken? As I adjusted the camera to takeanother shot, the man, now at my side, askedwhat I thought of

what I saw. I replied that they were cutting toomuch. This prompted him to express hisindignation at the excessive pruning. Hewondered why the trees were being cut, andwho asked that it be done. He declared that ifpeople around here didn’t like the trees, theyshould move somewhere else. If they didn’t likezelkova why live on Zelkova Avenue?

Critical perspectives arose in dribs and drabswhen I approached people and asked for theirthoughts. After the trees in front of severalapartment buildings along the street were cut,one resident commented that the apartmentswere left completely exposed. The trees hadpartially hidden the laundry that residentshung up to dry on their balconies, but noweverything was in full view from the busystreet.

One woman in her forties prefaced her remarkswith the disclosure that she was married to a

British citizen, lived in England, in contrast toher sister, a local who was slightly older, withwhom she was walking. The older sister hadjust given me the familiar explanation about thetrouble caused by fallen leaves. The youngerone thought the trees were being overly cut,that the work crew was shaving the poor treesbald (maru bōzu ni shiteiru). The older sisterexplained that the branches became tangledwith the electrical wires, and that pruning hadto be done every year. The younger argued,however, that the trees were not being pruned;they were being cut in half. The older said thatonce cut, there would be more light. Theyounger countered by saying that Japanese putpeople first, nature second, and wonderedsomewhat sarcastically why they did not justchop the trees down entirely. The kind ofcutting that was being done would beunimaginable in Britain, she said. Theconversation continued in this fashion untilthey eventually took leave of me.

Shortly afterwards, I spoke to a man in hisfifties who was walking by with a large plasticcontainer filled with purified water. Accordingto him, the problem of the trees was a productof bad city planning. The trees were gettingtangled up with the electrical wires he said.Still he did not think the extreme cutting couldbe good for the trees, and he pitied them (ki gakawaisō). He noted that there were other kindsof trees, smaller and easier to manage, thatwould have been better choices. He thoughtthat local politicians were giving contracts tovarious pruning services in exchange for votes.In another country, such politicians might getvoted out of office, he said, but in Japan, thesedeals were necessary to get elected in the firstplace. He professed that in Japan,powerbrokers defined the mainstream, andthose who opposed them were labeledcommunists.

People responded in a variety of ways,sometimes invoking nature and aesthetics aspart of a critique of the pruning of the zelkova

APJ | JF 7 | 40 | 2

8

(shaving them bald, pity the trees), sometimesas a justification (more light, refreshed feeling).Perhaps it is significant that my olderacquaintance from the community center hadargued that pruning involved a peculiarlyJapanese aesthetic sensibility. While he sawthis in a positive light, the Japanese womanwho had returned from England saw this in anegative light. Nevertheless, she agreed that itwas a Japanese sensibility, one that wascompletely different from that of the English.Comparisons between Japan and the West interms of modernization in the past havespurred Japanese to catch up. However, thecountervailing nativist valorization of thingsJapanese seems to be at least as strong. Andwhile the woman’s comparison betweenJapanese and English attitudes towards treesmay have been meant to suggest Japanesebackwardness, others consider trees onlyincidental to modern urban landscapes. In acontext where modernity and progress aresymbolized by shiny glass and concretecityscapes, trees are tolerated in neuteredform, one that is free of a luxurious canopywhich produces “garbage” in the form of fallenleaves. In such a context, claims of the“backwardness” of Japanese pruning practiceswill not get much traction.

Aesthetics, economics, and environmentalconsciousness

When it comes to managing their roadsidetrees, Kawagoe city officials and residents wereinclined to think either in terms of aesthetics,or economics. No one I spoke to in relation tothe pruning of the zelkova mentioned climatechange, despite the fact that we had justexperienced Tokyo’s hottest summer on record,and despite the fact that Japan had hosted theinternational convention on climate change thatled to the 1997 Kyoto Climate Treaty. Whywere Kawagoe planners so ruthless in cuttingthe zelkova when planners in cities around theworld have been making efforts to plant moretrees, and even green rooftops, in order to

reduce a build up of heat in urban centers? Infact, many Japanese residents, in Kawagoe aswell as other cities, compensate for the lack oftrees by placing numerous potted plantsalongside their homes and shops. People arediligent about recycling, conservation, andvarious forms of environmental advocacy. Whythen did the city authorize cutting the zelkova,and why did not residents oppose itthe zelkova?

As we have discussed, part of the answer has todo with the way some Japanese conceive of therelationship between nature and culture,especially in urban settings. On Japan’s urbanstreets, nature is managed even more rigidlythan in garden settings, as it is subordinated tothe practical needs of street signage, telephonewires, and sewer pipes. It is this subordinationof nature to culture in the urban context thatallows some to imagine autumn leaves as a“garbage problem.” For them, the value of thetrees no longer justified their costs. Others, ofcourse, for many years had appreciated thezelkova and regretted what was done to them.Mayor Funabashi Kō’ichi, who had been inoffice for fourteen years at the time, as well asthe LDP-dominated city assembly, hadthemselves spent resources maintaining thezelkova in their more luxurious conditionbefore deciding that the costs associated withthe zelkova outweighed the benefits. Theireventual decision to cut the trees cannot buthave been facilitated by the kind of diminishedunderstanding of trees’ benefits that we find inthe Japanese wikipedia site on roadside trees(街路樹, gairoju). This site provides only abrief outline of some of their benefits, whilegoing on at considerable length about all theirevils. This section starts as follows:

Roadside trees are artificially (人為的に, jin’i teki ni) planted into anenvironment that is completelydifferent from that of forests orparks, causing a variety ofproblems for urban life… Although

APJ | JF 7 | 40 | 2

9

meant to relieve residentssuffering from pollution along theroads, trees have ended up hurtingthem more, and have added to thealready numerous dangers of theroads, leading to increasedaccidents, and the calamity of anincreased tax burden.

In Japan, the government does notconsider future impacts, and forcesthe planting of roadside trees thatis the source of great suffering forresidents… When disaster strikes,these trees may take people’s lives.Japan has a distinct climate withmany typhoons and earthquakes,so if we plant trees like Paris orNew York, there is a much greaterdanger that numerous problemswill arise.

For these reasons, we should notplant trees in a haphazard fashion.As we decide on what trees toplant, or whether to plant at all, wemust consider the climate,topography, the appearance of thetown (町並み, machinami), trafficsafety, living conditions, crime,dangers during disasters, and thelives and opinions of thoseresidents who come in directcontact with the evils (弊害,heigai) of roadside trees. Thegovernment must not neglect toproperly manage the trees thathave been planted, regularly andcomprehensively carrying outinspection, pruning, and cleaningoperations, taking swift action incases where problems arise,treating, transplanting, or cuttingdown as necessary… (source(http://ja.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=街路樹&oldid=26395128),accessed Sept. 24, 2009).

We should note that the Japanese Wikipediaentry for roadside trees only recently added onthis discussion of their “evils.” The entry forroadside trees was initiated on April 8, 2004with a one-line definition: “trees planted incities” (町に生えている木の事). This entrygradually expanded, with the addition of newsections were added under the followingheadings:

- May 10, 2004: “selection of treetype” (樹種の選択 jushu nosentaku)

- Sept. 7, 2004: “commonly seenroadside trees in Japan” (日本でよく見られる街路樹 nihon de yokumirareru gairoju).

- May 14, 2006: “history” (歴史rekishi) section.

- Sept. 15, 2008: “evils of roadsidetrees” (街路樹の弊害 gairoju noheigai).

- Oct. 21, 2008: “benefits ofroadside trees” (街路樹の効果gairoju no koka).

As we see, it was not until Sept. 2008 that anentry posted by someone using the handleKokka Ankō (国家安康, a name referring toTokugawa Ieyasu, taken from an inscription onan Osaka temple bell that incited conflictbetween Tokugawa Ieyasu and ToyotomiHideyoshi) initiated a section on the evils ofroadside trees. This same Kokka Ankō added onthe section on the benefits of roadside trees amonth later, but it was clearly an afterthought,and more than a year later it remained askeletal outline compared to the detailedsection on the evils of roadside trees.

In the history of the wiki entry, we see arecapitulation of the fate of Kawagoe’s

APJ | JF 7 | 40 | 2

10

zelkovas. For many years, a more positiveappreciation of the trees had prevailed. Morerecently, a minority with the power to imposeits will cut Kawagoe’s zelkova in half, and onthe wiki emphasized the evils of roadside treesmore generally. Following both cases, therewas little protest or attempt to find anotherbalance between costs and benefits, evenwithin the context of the wiki where a debatecould proceed without restraint.

The kind of vigilance in the management ofroadside trees promoted by the wiki entryabove seems to be standard in many of Japan’surban neighborhoods, where trees are neverallowed to extend their branches. The twistedbranches of the trees in a Tokyo neighborhoodbelow have a certain gnarled beauty from anaesthetic of a cultivated nature. But even if weadmit that there is some Japanese aestheticbehind this pruning of street trees, the pruningof Kawagoe’s zelkova seems uncharacteristic.Clearly, these other trees had been prunedmore regularly over the years and neverallowed to grow as much as those in Kawagoe.It is the abrupt cutting of trees that had longbeen allowed to grow more fully which madethat landscape in Kawagoe so bleak.

APJ | JF 7 | 40 | 2

11

If the pruning of trees in Kawagoe violatedsome norms of Japanese aesthetics, why thenwas there so little public reaction to it? A fewpeople apparently did call in complaints to cityhall but they had little time to organize. Thework was completed in a matter of weeks, ineffect presenting them with a fait accompli.Even if there were not ample time to organize aprotest, I would have expected more discussionabout the matter. As I mentioned before, thevast majority of residents did not seem to takemuch interest, going about their business withbarely a glance at the work going on despitethe daily buzz of chainsaws.

The limited public response raises questionsabout how people understand the relationshipbetween state and society. Many people justmay not have thought to voice their opinions onthe matter, understanding the management ofthe city trees to be the purview of the citygovernment. In that sense, locals exhibit littlesense of collective ownership of public space.

While similar cases of drastic pruning occur inthe U.S., these often lead to loud publiccriticism (link(http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/chi-0831edit2aug31,0,2449246.story)).

But Japanese have objected to public projects,as was the case when locals opposed the use ofeminent domain to remove homes in theexpansion of Narita airport in the 1970s and‘80s (Apter and Sawa 1984). And officials in theplanning department in Kawagoe City Hallexplained that the construction of newer widerroads were seriously constrained preciselybecause people very strongly defend theirprivate property rights. The city could notreally act on any right of eminent domainbecause of the public outcry that might beprovoked, so the city’s basic street plan has notchanged since the military government’stransportation projects in the 1930s.

Japanese have not limited their protests only tothose instances when public projects impingeon individual property rights. Although that ishow the Narita airport protests began, itexpanded far beyond that narrow focus. In1960, the millions-strong demonstrationsagainst the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty (AMPO)showed that many Japanese participants ingrassroots organizations were prepared tooppose what they felt were undemocraticpolicies that undermined the larger nationalinterest (Sasaki-Uemura 2001). More recently,Apichai Shipper argues that a kind of“associative activism” has grown even morenoticeable in the context of support for foreignworkers’ rights in Japan (Shipper 2008). On theother hand, Mark Driscoll has pointed to thewidespread and virulent public denunciation ofthe three Japanese human rights andenvironmental activists who were takenhostage in Iraq in April 2004 as indication thatthe interests of the nation often takeprecedence over those of idealistic individuals(Driscoll 2007).

APJ | JF 7 | 40 | 2

12

While some Kawagoe residents may miss themore luxurious state of the zelkovas, fewbothered to make their feelings known. Whatare the consequences of a citizenship that lacksa sense of ownership of public spaces and otherpublic amenities? In the case of Kawagoe’strees, it may mean the ascendance of a politicaleconomy of pruning that gives priority to anexus of local politicians and gardeningservices, and which is justified by references totraditional aesthetic sensibilities and theconstruction of nature as Japanese culture. Asthe author of the section of the JapaneseWikipedia site on the “evils” of roadside treeswrites, planners need to carefully considerlocal climate and topography, rather thanblindly emulating Paris or New York. These arelegitimate points. After a large tree branch fellon my neighbor’s driveway in Holyoke,Massachusetts, I realized that city plannerscould be overly lax as well as overly vigilant.Nevertheless, Kawagoe residents who wereunhappy with what was done to their zelkovasshould not accept justifications based on“traditional” Japanese aesthetics and visions ofnature. Indeed, the aesthetics of bonsai, whichare trained by gradual pruning over years,provide a critique of the kind of pruning thatwas performed on the zelkovas, which wereallowed to grow so large only to be cut all atonce. Residents could draw on the legacy ofenvironmental activism in Japan to opposeunilateral actions by the city administration.They could counter arguments, based on thenotion of some Japanese idealization of acultivated nature, by showing how sucharguments could be used in opportunistic waysto justify almost any attack on the environment.Surely residents could push for a morethoughtful management of city trees, one thatdoes not too easily discount the beauty of theirexpansive form and the shade that theyprovide, and which does not exaggerate their“evils.”

Joshua Hotaka Roth is Associate Professor ofAnthropology at Mount Holyoke College and

the author of Brokered Homeland: JapaneseBrazilian Migrants in Japan(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0801488087/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20).

He wrote this article for The Asia-PacificJournal.

Recommended citation: Joshua Hotaka Roth,"Off with Their Heads! Resolving the 'GarbageProblem' of Autumn Leaves in Kawagoe,Japan," The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 40-2-09,October 5, 2009.

Sources

Apter, David E. and Nagayo Sawa. 1984.Against the State: Politics and Social Protest inJapan. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UniversityPress.

Broadbent, Jeffrey. 2003. “Movement inContext: Thick Networks and JapaneseEnvironmental Protest,” Pp. 204-231, in SocialMovements and Networks: RelationalApproaches to Collective Action. New York:Oxford University Press.

Driscoll, Mark. 2007. “Debt and Denunciationin Post-Bubble Japan: On the Two Freeters.”Cultural Critique 65 (Winter): 164-187.

Kalland, Arne and Pamela J. Asquith. 1997.“Japanese Perspectives of Nature: Ideals andIllusions.” Pp. 1-35, in Japanese Images ofNature: Cultural Perspectives, ed. by Pamela J.Asquith and Arne Kalland. Surrey, UK: Curzon.

Hendry, Joy. 1996. “Nature Tames: Gardens asa Microcosm of Japan’s View of the World.” Pp.83-105, in Japanese Images of Nature: CulturalPerspectives, ed. by Pamela J. Asquith and ArneKalland. Surrey, UK: Curzon.

Ito, Teiji. 1972. The Japanese Garden: AnApproach to Nature. New Haven: YaleUniversity Press.

Johnson, Norris Brock. 1991. “Zuisen Temple

APJ | JF 7 | 40 | 2

13

and Garden, Kamakura, Japan: Design Formand Phylogenetic Meaning." Journal of GardenHistory 10: 214-236.

Lam, Peng-Er. 1999. Green Politics in Japan.London: Routledge.

Lawrence, Henry. 2008. City Trees: AHistorical Geography from the Renaissancethrough the Nineteenth Century.Charlottesville, VA: University of VirginiaPress.

Morris-Suzuki, Tessa. 1998. Re-InventingJapan. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

Roth, Joshua. 2002. Brokered Homeland:Japanese Brazilian Migrants in Japan. Ithaca,NY: Cornell University Press.

Saigusa, Hiroto. 1973. “Nihon no chisei to

gijutsu” (1939). Reprinted in Saigusa HirotoChosaku Shu, vol. 10. Tokyo: Chuo Koronsha.

Sasaki-Uemura. 2001. Organizing theSpontaneous: Citizen Protest in Postwar Japan.Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

Shipper, Apichai. 2008. Fighting forForeigners: Immigration and Its Impact onJapanese Democracy. Ithaca, NY: CornellUniversity Press.

Sorenson, Andre, and Carolin Funck, eds. 2009.Living Cities in Japan: Citizens’ Movements,Machizukuri, and Local Environments. London:Routledge.

Thomas, Julia Adeney. 2001. ReconfiguringModernity: Concepts of Nature in JapanesePolitical Ideology. Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press.

(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0801488087/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20)

Click on the cover to order.