How to Read “Better a nap in Kyoto than studying in the countryside”
Inaka no gakumon yori kyō no hirune
Meaning of “Better a nap in Kyoto than studying in the countryside”
This proverb means that broadening your horizons by experiencing real society in a city is more valuable than studying books in a rural area.
It teaches that practical knowledge and personal growth come more from actual experience and diverse interactions than from simply memorizing information.
The saying shows that placing yourself in an excellent environment allows you to naturally absorb many things, even without conscious effort.
People use this proverb when young people choose their educational path or consider their growth environment.
Today, it expresses the importance of placing yourself in stimulating environments, the value of practical experience, and the educational view that environment shapes people.
Origin and Etymology
The exact first appearance of this proverb in literature is unclear, but people likely used it during the Edo period.
At that time in Japan, Kyoto had flourished as the capital for over a thousand years. It was the center of culture, politics, and economics.
Meanwhile, rural areas had limited information and few books. They were not blessed with good educational environments.
The proverb likely arose from the class system and educational gaps of the Edo period.
Even if someone studied books diligently in a rural village, they had limited chances to experience actual world events, latest information, or people’s ways of thinking.
In Kyoto, however, even while taking a nap, information naturally flowed in from surrounding conversations and the town’s atmosphere.
Living knowledge overflowed everywhere. Merchants talked in markets, monks gave sermons at temples, and craftsmen discussed techniques.
The expression “nap” symbolically represents a state without effort. In other words, it contrasts laziness to emphasize the great power of environment.
By contrasting the effort of studying with the idleness of napping, the proverb impressively conveys the difference in educational power between locations.
Usage Examples
- My son is deciding whether to stay at the local university or intern at a Tokyo company. As they say, better a nap in Kyoto than studying in the countryside, so I think he should jump into a stimulating environment while young.
- There’s a limit to just reading reference books. Better a nap in Kyoto than studying in the countryside—I’ll learn more by going to see the actual workplace.
Universal Wisdom
This proverb has been passed down because it understood the power of environment in human growth.
We tend to think we can grow the same way anywhere if we just work hard. But actually, the influence our surroundings have on us is immeasurable.
Humans are social creatures. Knowledge from books is important, but knowledge only becomes part of us when we interact with people, encounter real problems, and access living information.
No matter how hard you work in an isolated environment, your perspective remains limited and your thinking tends to become biased.
This proverb doesn’t deny effort. Rather, it teaches the importance of effort’s direction.
If you make the same effort in a richer environment, the results multiply many times over. This is the reality it shows.
To avoid becoming a frog in a well, you sometimes need courage to leave your familiar place and position yourself in a wider world. Our ancestors knew this.
Choosing your environment is actually a talent. The ability to identify places that will help you grow and the decisiveness to jump into them—this becomes the power that greatly changes your life.
This proverb conveys to us a timeless truth: the educational power of environment.
When AI Hears This
Shannon, the founder of information theory, showed with equations that the amount of information transmitted is inversely proportional to distance.
For example, as information travels from Kyoto to the countryside, the content degrades like in a game of telephone.
Even if Kyoto’s learning has a value of 100, if the travel distance is long, noise (misunderstanding or misinterpretation) gets mixed in. What actually reaches the countryside becomes only 30 or 40.
More interesting is that human information processing capacity has limits. This is called “channel capacity.”
Understanding Kyoto’s advanced learning requires prerequisite knowledge and cultural background—a “bandwidth.” In other words, no matter how high-quality the information, it’s meaningless if it exceeds the receiver’s processing capacity.
On the other hand, the experience of napping in Kyoto is “raw information” where you can directly observe the atmosphere and people’s behavior.
Even though the information quantity is small, noise is almost zero, and you can fully digest it with your own processing capacity.
Calculating this yields interesting results. Information with quality 30 and noise 5 from nearby often has higher effective information acquisition than distant information with quality 100 and noise 70.
This proverb pointed out hundreds of years ago the importance of comprehensive evaluation that includes not just information “quality” but also “transmission efficiency” and “processability.”
Lessons for Today
What this proverb teaches you today is the importance of actively choosing your growth environment.
In this era, environmental choices have expanded infinitely beyond just physical location. They include online communities, projects you participate in, and people you associate with.
What matters is not being satisfied with where you are now, but seeking more stimulating and diverse environments.
If you only spend time with people who think the same way, your perspective won’t broaden. Sometimes you need to deliberately jump into places where you feel uncomfortable.
That discomfort and confusion becomes the nourishment that makes you grow.
Also, this proverb warns against superficial studying. Studying for certification exams and memorizing knowledge are important, but they’re not enough by themselves.
See actual workplaces, talk with people from different industries, join new communities. Such practical experiences breathe life into the knowledge you’ve learned.
Your potential changes greatly depending on the environment you choose. Stop occasionally and think about whether where you are now is optimal.
And if necessary, have the courage to step into a new world.
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