Anthropology of Japan in Japan
Annual Meeting: Minpaku, Osaka
May 12th and 13th
Schedule of Events
Saturday, May 12th
1:00 Opening Ceremony, David Slater (MC)
Greetings: Prof. Harumi Befu
Welcome from Minpaku: Prof. Nakamaki Hirochika
Logistical Introduction: Sakamoto Rei
First Session (1:30-4:00)
1A. Identity and Border Crossing, chair: Kuwayama Takami
Kazufumi Manabe: Japanese Value Orientation from a Comparative Perspective: Gender Role and National Identity
David Blake Willis: Borderlands Talk: Cultural Flows and Diasporic Spaces In Japan
Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu: Hybridity in People of Multiple Ancestries
Adam Lebowitz: Ethnology In The Media: Recent Paradigmatic Approaches Suggested by Newspaper Reporting on Archaeology and Multiculturalism
HidekoMitsui: Uses of Ethnographic Encounters
1B. Agents of Socialization, chair: John Clammer
Yoko Suzuki: The Confinement of Vagabonds for Correction: the Mentalities of Japanese Prison Officials, Police Officers and Scholars of Criminal Law at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
Peter Cave: Bukatsudoo: What Do Students Learn in Japanese Extra-Curricular School Clubs?
Debra Jane Occhi: The Nature of Sentiment in Japanese Enka Music
Todd Joseph Miles Holden: Food on Japanese Television: The Entrée and the Discourse
Anka Veronika Badurina: Addressing Gender Construction in Japanese Television Advertising: Tell me about the Hands Drawing the Body
Second Session (Saturday 4:30-6:00)
2A. Cross-Cultural Work-places chair: James Roberson
Kobe Chan: Dilemmas in cross-cultural communication in a Japanese General Trading Company in Hong Kong
Dixon H. W. Wong: Farewell to Foucault: A Self-Critique of “Japanese Bosses, Chinese Workers: Power and Control in a Hong Kong Megastore”
Glenda Roberts: Work/ life policy comes to Japan: The introduction of flexible Work arrangements at an American Multinational Corporation
2B. Cross-Cultural Sexual Cultures, chair: Brian McVeigh
James Farrer: The Chrysanthemum and the Shamrock: transnational sexual Interactions in an Irish Pub in Tokyo
Haeng-ja Chung: Ethnography of Korean Club Hostesses in Japan
Nobue Suzuki: “Filipina Farm Brides, Please Raise Your Hands”
6:30 Bus leaves to Reception
7:00-9:00 Reception: Hotel Sun Palace
Sunday May 13th
Greetings by Dr. Ishige Naomichi, Director-General, Minpaku
9:30-11:00 Keynote Dialogue
Dr. Yoneyama Toshinao and Dr. Harumi Befu
Anthropology of Japan-by Japanese, by Foreigners
11:00-12:00 Business Meeting
Chair: Kuwayama Takami
12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-3:30 Third Session
3A. Communities and Subcultures, chair: David Slater
Steven C. Fedorowicz: Singing Karaoke and Speaking English: The Japanese Deaf in Familiar Places
Andre Sorensen: Citizen Participation in Local Environmental Improvement and the Rebirth of Civil Society in Japan
Carolyn Wright: Unmarried Single Mothers in Japan
Tom Gill: The Japanese Myth of White-collar Homelessness
Rei Sakamoto: Internet Communities
3B. Japan in Imperial and Historical Perspective, chair: James Roberson
Mariko Hara: The creation of a Japanese national identity in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere as portrayed in the Japanese wartime newsreels
Timothy Tsu: For Science, Co-Prosperity, and Love: The Re-Imagination of Taiwanese Folklore and Japan’s Greater East Asian War
Kazuhiko Yamamoto: Study on the Ethical Concepts of the Japanese Writer Yukio Mishima, As Ultra-nationalist
Wakizo Takata: Formation and Change of the Tondenhei Village in Eastern Hokkaido: A Case Study of Ota Village in Akkeshi Town
Ayabe Tsuneo: Globalization and changing Japanese image seen from the outside: an historical analysis
4:00-6:00 Fourth Session
4A. Esthetics and Politics, chair: Harumi Befu
David E. Young: The Yin and Yang of Japanese Aesthetics
Marie-Lusie Legeland: Traditional hot spring cures in Japan
Narihisa Nakashima: The Application of UNESCO’s Idea of Nature/Culture in World Heritage Program: A Case Study of Yakushima
Miyuki Katahira: The Politics of Perspectives: The Management of Cultural Heritage and Art Education in the Japanese Modernization
4B. Japanese Religious Culture, chair: John Clammer
Clark Chilson: Buddhists Under Cover-The Rationale for Secrecy among Contemporary Secretive Shinshu Confraternities
Levi McLaughlin: Faith and Practice: The Music of Soka Gakkai
Tomoe Moriya: Nostalgia of “Japanese Culture” and the Buddhist Churches of America
Closing Remarks
Abstracts
1A. Identity and Border Crossing
Chair: Kuwayama Takami (Soka U.)
Kazufumi Manabe: Japanese Value Orientation from a Comparative Perspective: Gender Role and National Identity
This paper is a report of a secondary analysis on “Family and Gender Role” and “National Identity”, which were carried out in 1994 and 1995 respectively by the International Social Survey programme (ISSP), a research group for international comparative surveys. From this analysis, we can conclude that Japan is obviously an inconsistent country as follows: (1) An example of inconsistency between general attitude and actual behavior: While Japanese respondents are categorized as liberal or modern with regard to attitudinal questions on work and gender roles, their responses to the question on actual housework behavior place them in the area of conservative or traditional. (2) An example of inconsistency between affective attachment and cognitive evaluation: While Japan is ranked high in regard to its attachment to “residential area” and “one’s ethnic group”, it is also ranked high on “tolerance toward foreigner” and “international consciousness.” One of the interpretations of these results is the former attitude on work and gender role, and the latter phenomenon of rise of “internationalism” are just the conception packed in people’s heads by the mass media. In proof of that, the reality of the society is still in the opposite — gender- inequality, nationalism, and intolerance–direction. We consider that the conception separates from the reality and swells toward the exact opposites –for example, gender-equality, internationalism, and tolerance. This is what is called, the “bubble phenomenon of the conception.”
David Blake Willis (Soai U.): Borderlands Talk: Cultural Flows and Diasporic Spaces In Japan
What are the internal effects of living on the edge, on that borderland of Japan and America, of a culture that is not one or two cultures, but three or four or five? There have always been hybrid peoples, creolized diaspora communities who accept and are proud of their mixed ancestry and heritage, in the spaces between Japan and America, or to put it more accurately, those spaces that are within Japan and America, those spaces deeply embedded in day-to-day lives. Internationally experienced people and international schools like the Columbia Academy of Kobe, Japan, which I have studied as an anthropologist and educator since 1980, are focal points of creole interaction and the site for our extended empirical research (1980-Present), which has included extensive surveys of the alumni population (1913-1988) and over a hundred interviews. Theirs are lives of identities constantly in flux, lives ‘being and becoming’ in the creole spaces and constant creolization of an emergent new JA-merican trans-culture. This research aims at making these relationships, as they are found in the identifiable culture and imagined communities of international school alumni clear through the thick description of their rich multicultural narratives.
Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu (Tokyo U.): Hybridity in People of Multiple Ancestries
Dialogues on cultural identity of mixed ancestry people in Japan have shifted from unfortunate to advantaged, transnational, multilingual, and other ways of describing an existence beyond borders and limitations. The development of these concepts has occurred along with evolving social and political conditions. Some individuals are actively engaged in the process of developing new conceptions of identity which transcend the old categories of race, class and nation, and essentialist discourse of a fixed Japanese ethnic group with innate cultural characteristics. Prevailing conceptions of race and nationality exert a powerful influence on mixed people, but they may challenge these definitions and therefore assume a role in influencing their meanings. Hybridity may therefore fight the authoritarian tendencies to homogenize Japanese culture in the name of the national or ethnic interest. Cultural reconstruction may occur in the perplexity of living and making meaning in this disjunctive, liminal space of the borderland as experienced in the lives of persons of multiple ancestries. Hybridity will be examined through case studies of Korean-Japanese, the largest group, and American-Japanese, the most conspicuous group.
Adam Lebowitz (Nihon U. College of International Relations): Ethnology In The Media: Recent Paradigmatic Approaches Suggested by Newspaper Reporting on Archaeology and Multiculturalism
A social commentator once pointedly critiqued, “You don’t need a weathervane to know which way the wind blows”, but one can actually get a lot just be gleaning the morning or evening papers. Judging from the plethora of news stories devoted to archaeological discovery and transnational relations (particularly with Korea re: the World Cup) over the past few years, there have been accelerated attempts by those concerned with the Japanese ethnology field to accommodate new findings and attitudes with prevailing methodological imperatives. Quite often these new directions of inquiry find substantiation in the popular ideal of “multiculturalism” which consequently comes to be applied to Japan’s material pre-history. Far from being a completed study, this paper should be considered a prospectus of sorts, describing the opening stages of a deeper reading into the underlying theories that inform the fields of Japanese ethnology and cultural anthropology. Therefore, this presentation is meant to encourage open discussion on this subject matter (“Who or what initially inspired these fields? Do Western paradigms change when used in Japan? Do ‘home-grown’ Japanese theories have viability in the West?”) and any and all comments will be appreciated.
HidekoMitsui (Stanford U): Uses of Ethnographic Encounters
How to better use the almost unavoidable tension that is produced when an anthropologist, “native” or otherwise, encounters his or her informants in the field? Having initially been labeled “an Americanized returnee” therefore “not trustworthy” in a supposedly “international” feminist organizational context in Japan, I started reflecting on how to engage this tension in a more productive manner than interpreting it as a manifestation of Japanese national character or the universal ethnographic “rite of passage” experience for anthropologists. I would like to discuss this issue from my particular position as a Japanese who has studied anthropology in America, and experience of doing research on international feminist NGOs in Japan. I propose to engage this politics of encounters between researchers and informants as a useful opportunity to know about the Japanese society and culture, to better situate the field we choose to study, and to learn the ways in which the informants’ personal histories intersect with global politics and history
1B. Agents of Socialization
Chair: John Clammer (Sophia U.)
Yoko Suzuki (University of Wisconsin at Madison): The Confinement of Vagabonds for Correction: the Mentalities of Japanese Prison Officials, Police Officers and Scholars of Criminal Law at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
“Vagabonds should be confined within institutions, and their morals corrected by forced labor, because they are idle, and their existence is a danger to society.” This idea became popular among Japanese prison officials, police officers and scholars of criminal law in the 1900s. This paper will argue that this was a new idea, formulated under profound influence from Europe. At the beginning of the Meiji period, the Government tended to regard vagrants as a danger to social order, because they were difficult to keep track of through registries of the population. The goal of control lay behind attempts to integrate them into a new nationwide household registration system. In the 1900s, however, vagrants were considered dangerous, not because they were unregistered, but because they were seen as idle persons with criminal characteristics. The goal of control was changed to one of reforming idle and undeserved members into diligent and productive members of the society. I will discuss how this transformation took place through the importation of knowledge of European penal reform movements and modern criminology. I hope to show that the changing perception of vagabonds among at the turn of the century was not only a historical product, but also a byproduct of the interaction of knowledge crossing the national boundaries of Europe and Japan.
Peter Cave (U. of Hong Kong): Bukatsudoo: What Do Students Learn in Japanese Extra-Curricular School Clubs?
Most Japanese children take part in extra-curricular club activities (bukatsudoo) while at junior high or high school or both. Despite this, such activities have been little studied. This paper describes what happens at bukatsudoo and tries to explain why it happens. It outlines the various ways teachers and students see bukatsudoo and elucidates the role of bukatsudoo within the school, as a mechanism for (among other things) learning, socialisation, diversification and control. It argues that bukatsudoo embodies philosophies and practices that are important and pervasive in modern Japanese society, and that a study of bukatsudoo sheds light on one way through which these philosophies and practices are transmitted and maintained. Finally, it looks at how bukatsudoo may be changing and how it may continue to change. The paper is based on intermittent intensive fieldwork (interviews, observation, and participation) in six Kansai schools from 1987 to the present.
Debra Jane Occhi (Miyasaki International C.): The Nature of Sentiment in Japanese Enka Music
What do flowers and ocean waves tell us about Japanese selves and Japanese heartbreak? This paper describes the results of innovative strategies used in examining the language of sentiment in the cultural context of Japanese enka music. Though much is said about enka lyrics in the popular press, they have received little scholarly attention relative to other related poetic genres save keyword analyses (Mita 1978, 1992, Yano 1995). Further inquiries are needed to approach an understanding of the ideology associated with enka which underlies and links this realm of language use to behavior. In this study quantitative (i.e., multiple correspondence) and qualitative (i.e. grammatical and semantic) analyses empirically assess the nature of sentiment in enka, complemented and contextualized by participant observation. In both enka and in talk about enka we find that nature, gendered, is the source for images used to typify and naturalize a nationalized discourse about men, women, and their relationships. This use of imagery supports the ideology which justifies enka and its worldview to its fans, justifying even its rejection by the not-yet-middle-aged. Subsuming selves grammatically into external phenomena, a strategy that enka shares with historical poetic practice, creates for its consumers a sentiment of nature.
Todd Joseph Miles Holden (Tohoku U.): Food on Japanese Television: The Entrée and the Discourse
In 1997, the singing duo, Puffy, followed up their mega hits, Ajia no junshin (Asian purity) and Kore ga watashi no ikiru michi (This is the way I live), with a song whose key lyric concerned the pleasure of chomping crab: Kani tabe (ni) iko, Ha ni kan de iko (Let’s go eat crab, Let’s go bite <crab>), [Nagisa ni Matsuwaru etcetera” (Lingering on the beach)]. On radios, in variety shows, as backing in television commercials, over speakers in elevators and restaurants, heavily trafficked in CD rental stores and karaoke boxes–for weeks Japanese were singing the praises of scarfing shellfish on the beach. This conjunction of food and popular culture is far from quirky anomaly. In fact, in contemporary J-Pop food is everywhere. Most often, though, food is not the main dish. Instead, it is often part of a larger discourse about deeper social themes. Among these: historical practices, preparedness, organization, aesthetics, pleasure, competition, professionalism, intelligence, westernization, Japanese uniqueness, star culture, the inner world of idols, and capitalism. This is no clearer when we consider the greatest transmitter and reproducer of Japanese popular culture: television. In this paper, a content analysis of a systematic sample of food-related television programs reveals that food-connected discourse is not really very much–about food. Instead, discourse-through-food works to tell viewers a great deal about Japan and the Japanese, and importantly, about Japanese cultural values, beliefs and practices. Aided by this data, I wish to build the case that food serves as an important mechanism by which cultural education and social reproduction functions.
Anka Veronika Badurina: Addressing Gender Construction in Japanese Television Advertising: Tell me about the Hands Drawing the Body
The question I address in this paper is how a creative team in a Japanese advertising agency construct culturally gendered images, or more specifically, images of women, for television commercials. Based on fieldwork in a leading Japanese advertising agency, I observed over time a decided tendency to gender women. This tendency is pervasive and consistent. In order to demonstrate this predilection toward gendering I have selected one particular ad campaign. Careful analysis of this campaign, I would argue, illustrates the larger process of gendering women, which is at work throughout Japanese advertising. I have chosen the advertising produced for a railway company, Keihan Densha, operating in the Kansai region. As my paper details, this ad campaign is embodied through a female character who has been given the nickname “Okeihan”. The first portion of the paper will provide an account of how “Okeihan” was systematically “constructed”: first a female body, then the persona attached to it—which, in turn, was developed through a series of mini-dramas pertaining to her “life”. At each turn, these elements were thought through and constructed by the creative and production teams, step by step, until a fully realized female image was reproduced in the ad. As this paper will detail, during the creative process, a number of internal and external agents contributed to, and even in certain cases directed the gender construction process. These agents ranged from the client to the commercial production team as a whole. I refer to these human constructionists as “drawing hands”, precisely because of the manner in which they collaborated into the creation of the female character and body in advertising. Finally, I will discuss the relations of the meanings encoded in the final product -the “Okeihan”- to the general view taken by the creative team on Japanese young women. I argue that this tendency of essentializing women permeates Japanese advertising, in large part, due to the influential role played by these middle-age male “drawing hands”.
2A. Cross-Cultural Work-places
Chair: James Roberson (Musashino U.)
Kobe Chan (U. of Hong Kong): Dilemmas in cross-cultural communication in a Japanese General Trading Company in Hong Kong
The paper is to investigate the intercultural communication patterns in a large Japanese general trading firm in Hong Kong. With a distinctive boundary between Japanese bosses and Chinese workers and the complex nature of trading business that requires both flexibility and close management control, intercultural communication seems to be an important issue in the company. For to communicate effectively is not an easy task even in mono-cultural group, not to mention in a multinational group because communication involves personal elements of educational level, perception, personality, preferences, communicators’ language skills, and the ability to encode and decode message. In managing diversifying work teams, the influence of culture should not be neglected because personal factors are usually shaped by one’s cultural background along his or her upbringing. Likewise, historical and cultural backgrounds of this company are vital in understanding the company’s intercultural communication processes. The company under this study is one of the big five zaibatsu, management of its overseas operation is greatly influenced by its headquarters in Japan. This paper will focus on analyzing how the corporate philosophy and culture of the company’s headquarters in Japan influence the intercultural communication process within the company and what are the intercultural communication issues and problems that have confronted among local and Japanese co-workers.
Dixon H. W. Wong (Minpaku): Farewell to Foucault: A Self-Critique of “Japanese Bosses, Chinese Workers: Power and Control in a Hong Kong Megastore”
This paper is a self-critique of my book “Japanese Bosses, Chinese Workers: Power and Control in a Hong Kong Megastore” (Curzon Press), outlining three major mistakes I committed in the book. They are functional explanation of the social behaviors of the Japanese expatriates and local staff in the company that this book is about, my intention of painting a consistent picture of the everyday life of the company, and overemphasis on the evils of the company’s Japanese expatriates. I shall show how these three mistakes are the result of the synthetic interaction among the hegemonic western academic world, my postgraduate training in both U.S. and UK, my family and school socialization, and my personal upbringing. This self-critique reflects the process of how a non-western anthropologist struggles to survive in the global academic market and how the struggle influences the way this book is written up. This paper however does not stop at criticizing myself but tries to go beyond personal experience and relate such self-critique to the general discussion of the nature of anthropological understanding of the Other, and in the context of Anthropology of Japan in Japan, contemporary Japanese society.
Glenda Roberts (Waseda U.): Work/ life policy comes to Japan: The introduction of flexible work arrangements at an American Multinational Corporation
This paper is on the introduction of “flexible work arrangements” or “work/life policies,” at an American multinational financial services corporation in Japan. In a country where the burden of household reproductive labor falls mainly upon women, and where work hours and the work ethic follow a male “corporate warrior” standard, the introduction of such policies may create the potential for female employees to remain at work throughout marriage and childrearing years, while it could give men the time to participate more fully in the lives of their families. Flexible work arrangements could also encourage unmarried employees to enjoy their lives outside the corporation. In other words, if utilized fully, these policies have the potential to reshape national culture as they reshape local corporate culture toward a work environment free of gender bias. But will they? While investigating the stakes of both the state and the corporation in these flexible work arrangements, this paper also examines the attitudes of workers toward the new policies.
2B. Cross-Cultural Sexual Cultures
Chair: Brian McVeigh (Toyo Gakuen U.)
James Farrer (Sophia U.): The Chrysanthemum and the Shamrock: transnational sexual interactions in an Irish Pub in Tokyo
This paper reports on ongoing fieldwork study of an ‘Irish Pub’ in Tokyo. While previous studies have described transnational sexual cultures in Asia, most have failed to investigate the very short-term, formulaic and game-like quality of most social interactions that occur in entertainment spaces like the Irish Pub. Most social interactions in bars begin and end there. This study investigates a particular site of ‘transnational sexual culture’ or ‘globalized sexual culture’ from a symbolic interactionist perspective, showing how casual or occasional visitors to an Irish pub act out their roles as ‘foreigners’ and ‘Japanese.’ Such sexual interactions with racially and nationally marked ‘others’ are not reflexive tools for primary identity construction, but interactive games pursued for intrinsic rewards, including sexual flirtation and linguistic one-upmanship. The paper also decodes the meanings of ‘Irishness’ as an acceptable disguise for a transnational American culture whose essential elements are the use of the English language and American norms of sociability. This argument is developed through comparisons with a similar ‘Irish pub’ scene in Shanghai.
Haeng-ja Chung (UCLA): Ethnography of Korean Club Hostesses in Japan
I present preliminary findings of fieldwork for my dissertation. My dissertation explores how specific uses of women’s sexuality labor, gender ideology, and ethnicity affect women’s lives using the case study of Korean hostesses. My ethnography is based upon the research of everyday lives of Korean club hostesses in Japan. I have started fieldwork since February 2000. I spent ten months in participant observation at three hostess clubs. The workspace of hostess clubs is a relevant site for ethnographic research as it allows me to observe hostesses from newcomers to Japan-born Koreans. The past research on Koreans in Japan often fails to incorporate both newcomers and oldcomers. Laying out portraits of the hostess club scenes as “contact zone,” I highlight unique and complex ethnic/gender relations played out by the hostesses, customers, waiters, managers, and mamas, One of my findings is that Korean hostesses have attracted various Korean small business such as restaurants, coffee shops, host clubs, boutiques, beauty parlors, and unregistered taxis. They have affected the transformation of the ethnic community significantly.
Nobue Suzuki (U. of Hawaii): “Filipina Farm Brides, Please Raise Your Hands”
This paper first aims to trace the discourse on Filipina hanayome (brides) as administratively mediated “international marriage” in Japan from the mid-1980s to the present. Based on the observers’ canonical assumptions about the women’s gender, ethnicity/nationality, class and geopolitical location in Japan, and being categorized as “Third World women,” who are also “traded,” Filipina hanayome are commonly located in the positions of subordinates and “victims” in power relationships. Subsequently, drawing on examples from largely neglected written texts in Japanese and from an ethnographic vignette that I collected in 1999, I address the issue of the thus far limited exploration of how Filipina hanayome in rural Japan themselves interpret and interact with the particular local environments in which they find themselves. I focus on subjective sexuality and economic autonomy, two dimensions of the women’s lives in which they struggle to recapture their own ways of imputing meanings to their lives vis-à-vis various social forces and feminist movements. In this, I bring to the fore “misbehaviors” that transgress the normative views of the hanayome as “victims” and that challenge their gender role based behaviors within the rural family and community, and beyond.
3A. Communities and Subcultures
Chair: David Slater (Sophia U.)
Steven C. Fedorowicz (Washington State U.): Singing Karaoke and Speaking English: The Japanese Deaf in Familiar Places
Few anthropological studies have been conducted with the Deaf, especially in non-Euroamerican settings. This paper will discuss two major models of deafness in Japan as identified in academic literature and social welfare policies. The first model treats deafness as a handicap/disability while the second model treats Deaf people as a culture and/or linguistic minority. Neither model is absolute or perfect; in reality there is much overlap between the two as will be illustrated through descriptions of where Japanese Deaf people are, what they do (and can’t do) and the language(s) they use. Specifically, this paper will provide an overview of Japanese Sign Language (JSL) and ethnographic descriptions of the activities of Deaf individuals and groups. It is of no surprise that Deaf people participate in sign language circles, handicap sporting events, Deaf drama groups, etc. But why and how do Deaf people sing karaoke, study English and participate in activities usually seen as domains of hearing people? An examination of the Japanese Deaf in these familiar places will provide challenges to the usual models and perceptions of deafness.
Andre Sorensen (Tokyo U.): Citizen Participation in Local Environmental Improvement and the Rebirth of Civil Society in Japan
For many anthropologists of Japan in Japan, the study of Japanese city planning may seem an arcane and specialist field of interest primarily to contractors and land developers, which breaks into the news only when yet another Minister of Construction is arrested for bribes taking, or yet another trillion yen is pledged to large-scale infrastructure projects. Yet the development of urban planning practices offers a particularly interesting perspective on Japanese social and political development, and particularly on the development of civil society in Japan. For the purposes of this paper, civil society can be defined simply as the set of institutions, organizations and behaviors situated between the state, the business world, and the family. This includes voluntary and non-profit organizations, social and political movements, the public sphere, and professional and advocacy organizations. Although during the early years of the 20th century Japan saw a proliferation of social organizations in Japan and the development of an embryonic civil society, during the 1930s the rise of militarism and an increasingly totalitarian organization of society resulted in its virtual elimination (Eisenstadt 1996, Iokibe 1999, Sorensen 2001 forthcoming). Thus while in most of the other developed countries a range of civil society actors outside the control of governments played important and often decisive roles in shaping both the goals of city planning and the image of the livable city, Japan’s highly centralized government structure allowed little role for actors outside the government to influence urban policy. One result was a particularly narrow conception of urban planning and of the role of state intervention in shaping urban growth that has had profound impacts on Japanese cities, and on the quality of life of their residents. Interestingly, this state of affairs started to change in the 1990s, and urban citizens’ community planning and environmental movements have played a central role in the rebirth of Japanese civil society during the 1990s. While the emergence of civil society has also been supported by the growth of voluntary and advocacy organizations such as in international aid and in social services, local environmental improvement movements have played a central role in the rebirth of civil society (Yamamoto 1999; Yoshida 1999). This paper examines this important moment of the growth of an increasingly vibrant civil society in Japan, and the role of citizen environmental movements in those developments.
Carolyn Wright: Unmarried Single Mothers in Japan
A survey by Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare indicated a 20% increase in the number of female-headed households over the five-year period 1993-1998, attributable primarily to the climbing divorce rate. Surprisingly, the number of unmarried single mothers also jumped 85%, from 37,500 to 69,300 families. This represents a very small proportion of all single parent families, so these women have been either overlooked by researchers, or included in other categories of single mothers. This study will present preliminary findings from interviews with unmarried single mothers, which should help to elucidate reality of their differing circumstances and motivations. Three patterns will be identified in the type of support (housing, childcare and economic) upon which unmarried single mothers can rely at the time of pregnancy and after the birth of their child: Reliance on the woman’s family of origin. These women are older, with well-paid careers. support from a network of (feminist) friends. These women have consciously rejected the traditional marriage system. Social welfare system support. They are mainly women with low educational achievements and no financial resources or specialized job skills. Domestic violence is often a factor in these cases.
Tom Gill (Institute of Social Science, U. of Tokyo): The Japanese Myth of White-collar Homelessness
Recently homelessness has become a recognized social problem in Japan, and books on the theme of homelessness may be found on the shelves of any bookstore. This paper is based on a reading of some of those books – principally works of reportage. (I may also very briefly discuss novels and manga). I find that a popular theme of the popular literature of homelessness is that of the former white-collar salaryman now reduced to living on the street. I compare this with my own experience of meeting homeless people, and with such statistical evidence as I can locate, and suggest that this is largely a myth. Partly it is designed to appeal to the largely middle-class readers of such books, who are more likely to buy books that appear to concern them. At the same time, however, the myth of white-collar homelessness serves to perpetuate a more far-reaching and familiar myth: that of Japan as a classless society. If the high-growth era was marked by a myth of equality of opportunity – everyone has an equal chance of an excellent education and a rewarding job – the post-bubble recession is marked by a myth of equality of danger – everyone has an equal chance of ending up on the streets. In fact, one is far more likely to suffer that fate if one is the son of a poor fisherman or miner than if one is the son of a civil servant – a fact that would appear obvious in almost any other country.
Rei Sakamoto (SOAS): Internet On-line Communities
This paper attempts to look at (1) the Internet, its exponential growth and the resulting emergence of ‘communities’ on the Internet – these communities are often among other names referred to as ‘online communities’ or ‘virtual communities’; (2) how the Internet with its almost unlimited reach and western ancestry (in terms of content as well as technology) influences and the local culture of societies – in particular Japanese society.
3B. Japan in Imperial and Historical Perspective
Chair: James Roberson (Musashino U.)
Mariko Hara (Keio U.): The creation of a Japanese national identity in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere as portrayed in the Japanese wartime newsreels
The Japanese wartime government, through newsreels called ‘Nihon Nyusu’ (1940-45), tried to convince the public that the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was a real entity. This paper examines how Japanese symbols, rituals and rites were used to create such an imagined community. The newsreels tried to show that people in the Sphere had changed their rituals, rites and languages, and thus had become Japanese. In two colonies of Korea and Taiwan, the two colonies, people were ‘imperialised’ at all levels of society. On the other hand, in the territories which Japan occupied after the outbreak of the war, people at certain levels of society were shown as respectful and loyal to kokutai, and the Emperor. In order to portray the Japanese influence over the rest of the society, however, the newsreels had to resort to various symbols. Japanese hegemony was symbolized and imagined before it was conceived. The indoctrination of Japanese imperial values and the Japanese spirit was, therefore, very superficial. Thus a study of the representations of Japanese symbols, and the portrayals of Japanese rituals and rites is the key to differentiating Japanese policies and practices, and the extent of Japan’s influence in the Sphere.
Timothy Tsu (National U. of Singapore): For Science, Co-Prosperity, and Love: The Re-Imagination of Taiwanese Folklore and Japan’s Greater East Asian War
This paper examines how a group of amateur folklorists in Japanese-ruled Taiwan (1895-1945) justified their interest in and practice of folkloric research during the war from 1941 to 1945 in the magazine Minzoku Taiwan (Taiwanese Folklore). It will demonstrate that they advanced two kinds of arguments to defend their cause. The first kind consisted of appeals to the principle that the pursuit of knowledge in general and folkloric knowledge in particular is a good in and of itself. More specifically, they argued that studying Taiwanese folklore would contribute to such related fields as research on mainland China and Southeast Asia, two regions of vital strategic interest to Japan. The second kind of argument stressed the practical value of folkloric information with regard to the delicate political and racial situation inside and outside Taiwan. A good knowledge of the island’s folklore, they contended, would not just promote the assimilation of the Taiwanese but also facilitate “cooperation” between Japanese and the peoples of the incipient Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere (DaiTôa Kyôeiken). In other words, folkloric knowledge gained in Taiwan would serve the expansionist goals of Japan. However, in spite of their conviction in and enthusiasm for folkloric research, the same individuals were reticent about their personal – existential – relationship with that which they studied. Most of them steered clear of the issue, and the few who spoke on record typically admitted to admiring and cherishing Taiwan’s culture only with serious qualifications. To better appreciate the extent to which the study of Taiwanese folklore was “re-imagined” in anticipation of and during the Greater East Asian War, this paper contrasts Minzoku Taiwan with an earlier folkloric journal Taiwan kanshû kiji in terms of their purpose of research, subject matter, and methodology. It argues that unlike its predecessor Minzoku Taiwan was not concerned with choosing between competing models of colonial rule, searching for the best approach to govern a newly conquered people. Its authors took it for granted that Japan’s rule of Taiwan was not just an indisputable fact but a brilliant success that qualified Japan as a civilized nation. Instead they were prompted to action by the very success of colonial rule, which seemed to be quickly approaching the goal of assimilation and so causing native customs to vanish at an alarming rate. As a salvage project, Minzoku Taiwan did not focus on any particular category of customs but was decidedly inclusive in coverage. However, this salvage project was not without serious ambiguities. This is because the practitioners claimed that folkloric research would help assimilation. In terms of science, therefore, Minzoku Taiwan was to remedy the excesses of assimilation, but in terms of politics, it was to facilitate the very policy whose damage to science it aimed to ameliorate. In other words, it was simultaneously committed to the preservation and erasure of Taiwanese culture. Another ambiguity can be discerned in the collaborative relationship between the Taiwanese and Japanese involved in the Minzoku Taiwan project. In sharp contrast to the absence of Taiwanese contributors from Taiwan kanshû kiji, Minzoku Taiwan was jointly launched by Japanese and Taiwanese and regularly featured articles by the latter. In this sense the Taiwanese were on an equal footing with their fellow Japanese folklorists as producers of knowledge. This was a far cry from the lopsided relationship between Japanese and Taiwanese in the production of Taiwan kanshû kiji. However, it must be pointed out that even in Minzoku Taiwan the partnership was not entirely equal. The Taiwanese were required to write about their culture in Japanese, and the most frequently cited model of research, Yanagita and Seki’s handbook, was of Japanese origin. Moreover, the regular Taiwanese contributors were not only products of Japanese higher education but eventually dropped their Chinese names for Japanese ones at the height of the assimilation campaign. In other words, these Taiwanese were writing in Minzoku Taiwan as Japanese. A project dedicated to understanding and preserving colonial customs was thus realizable only through the affirmation of the hegemony of the metropolitan culture.
Kazuhiko Yamamoto (Kyushu Institute of Design) Study on the Ethical Concepts of the Japanese Writer Yukio Mishima, As Ultra-nationalist
After WWII, ultra-nationalism, which was the leading ideology of wartime Japan, seemed to have lost its power to inspire the Japanese. In the 1960s, when the Japanese began to enjoy economic prosperity, Yukio Mishima, deploring that the Japanese were losing the traditional spirit and morality of the nation, was one of those citizens who felt a strong nostalgia for wartime Japan. In an attempt to revive the spiritual exaltation of wartime Japan, Mishima took radical action as an ultra-nationalist, and killed himself by Hara-kiri. Mishima’s ethical concepts, which center on the ethos of warriors who dedicate themselves to the defense of their commune, have structural similarities to the ethical structure of the Kanun, which may be called the ethics of “blood”. Mishima’ss theory of ultra-nationalism has a paradoxical logic, which seems to be related to the ethical concepts of a society without state power.
Wakizo Takata (Kushiro Public University of Economics): Formation and Change of the Tondenhei Village in Eastern Hokkaido: A Case Study of Ota Village in Akkeshi Town
The Japanese word, “Tonden,” means to settle the soldiers in the frontier to engage in agriculture during peacetime and to engage in war when necessary. “Hei” literally means the soldier. Tondenhei is usually translated into English as “farmer-soldier or “colonial militia.” Generally speaking, it means the soldiers who had been stationed on the frontier after 1875 in Hokkaido for defensive purposes and engaged in agriculture at the same time. The formation of the Tondenhei village was unique and it’s regarded as the pioneering model of farming villages in Hokkaido. The Tondenhei were called the pioneers of immigration to Hokkaido and of agricultural development. Therefore, research on the Tondenhei and the villages established by them is important in understanding its agricultural development and farming villages.
Ayabe Tsuneo (Josai International U.): Globalization and changing Japanese image seen from the outside a historical analysis
The word ‘nihonkan’ refers to the outsiders’ images of Japan regarding the people, culture and the country. Naturally there can be many different versions of images of Japan, and they do not necessarily have to reflect the reality. Therefore, it is essential that the study of Japanese images seen from the outside start from the recognition that different images do exist as a fact. At the same time it is not necessary to examine whether different images can be academically substantiated in relation to the reality of the referents. Outsiders’ images of Japan often have an aspect of fiction. However, fictitious as they may be, it is vitally important to ask from what background the different images of Japan have emerged. This is particularly so in this age of globalization when considering cultural phases of Japan. In this paper, a historical review of Japanese images will be attempted, starting from the 3rd century when Japan was ‘discovered’ by the ‘center of civilization.’ Focus will be given to the gradual shift of the Japanese position from a perpetual cultural receiver to a sender of culture, particularly from the latter half of the 20th century.
4A. Esthetics and Politics
Chair: Harumi Befu (Stanford U.)
David E. Young (Kasai Gaidai U.): The Yin and Yang of Japanese Aesthetics
This paper is based upon a recently completed book manuscript, The Yin and Yang of Japanese Aesthetics. The title of the book is derived from the striking contrast between aesthetic restraint and aesthetic exuberance in Japanese culture. Aesthetic restraint involves valuing simple forms, subdued colors, and understatement, whereas aesthetic exuberance is characterized by a love of bright colors and bold designs. Some scholars have argued that aesthetic restraint is more typical of Japanese culture, whereas others have argued that aesthetic exuberance predominates. In this paper I argue that this debate is fruitless. The Japanese have been able to weave both traditions into a dynamic cultural whole in which restraint and exuberance are the opposite ends of the same continuum. Individuals move back and forth on this continuum in accordance with cultural rules pertaining to context, age, and gender, and in a way that meets basic psychological and social needs. This theme will be illustrated with colors slides based upon the author’s fieldwork over a number of years in Japan.
Marie-Lusie Legeland: Traditional hot spring cures in Japan
In this paper I would like to introduce my field work on traditional hot spring resorts in Japan, focusing mainly on Hijiori-Onsen in Yamagata Prefecture, a small spa at the foot of Gassan-mountain, whose hot springs have been known for their curative effects for several hundred years. At present the village, which depends completely on the tourist trade, has 27 inns, hosting about 160.000 visitors per year. In contrast to the majority of Japanese hot spring resorts, Hijiori-Onsen does not seem to have taken part in the extensive touristic development since World War II. It has instead maintained the traditional structures of a cure resort, catering mainly for long-term guests. In 1989 it was designated a “National Hot Spring Health Resort” by the Japanese government and received subsidies to build new public facilities. In my paper I would like to describe the structures of the traditional spa and common forms of hot spring cures, but also to comment on the recent changes of the clientele and the new village development. Finally I would like to discuss Hijiori-Onsen’s future chances as a hot spring cure resort.
Narihisa Nakashima: The Application of UNESCO’s Idea of Nature/Culture in World Heritage Program: A Case Study of Yakushima
In 1993 one fifth of Yakushima was designated as a World Heritage site (Nature Division). Several years before that Kagoshima Prefecture had already begun planning a Kankyo-Bunka Mura which was to showcase Yakushima. According to the plan Yakushima was divided into three zones (in my words ‘Pure Nature,’ ‘Semi Nature,’ ‘Human/Culture’ Zones.) The World Heritage program in Yakushima basically followed this idea. Despite the purported aim of the plan, the concept of Nature/Culture dichotomy has been used to legitimize the development policies in the third zone, while almost no steps have been taken to preserve the first and second zones. Before the 17th century, when the Satsuma clan had utilized Yakusugi as an important resource, the idea of Maedake/Okudake used to differentiate between the areas of human activities, natural resources and the gods and spirits. This classification assumed continuity of sea, villages and mountains, which was manifested in many rituals and beliefs. I will argue that UNESCO’s idea of Nature/Culture is not only unfamiliar to the people of Yakushima, but also that this idea is not so helpful for them to preserve Yakushima because it lacks the idea of continuity. It is important to analyze what they themselves have been thinking about the environment.
Miyuki Katahira (International Research Center for Japanese Studies): The Politics of Perspectives: The Management of Cultural Heritage and Art Education in the Japanese Modernization
The essay will scrutinize how the perspectives and the ways of art appreciation were given a framework in the Japanese modernization, by looking into the two cultural political acts in the Meiji period. It deals with the management of the cultural heritage in relation to the birth of museums, and the establishment of art education in reference to censoring perspectives in the official texts. In the Meiji period, cultural properties, originally belonged to temples and shrines, became ‘public heritage’ under the establishment of the Cultural Assets Law. This was to protect the objects with high quality and historical value from the illegal export and the rejection of Buddhism (Hibutukishaku). According to this, a great number of goods were researched and guaranteed their identities under the control of the regime. Eventually they were removed from their own contexts and collected for newly built Museums and world expositions. The museums and world expositions were, in other words, the places that private pleasure was compel to shift into public interests. For the audience, the collected objects were classified and exhibited in the manner that only fills visual desire of the public eyes. Parallel with this, the art education was also in the process of being systematized. The government tried to define what was appropriate to teach as ‘art’ at school, and how ‘appreciating art’ could be taught. This reflected the philosophical argument on ‘aesthetics’ of the time. As a result, some Japanese drawings were selected for official texts as visual supplements, but censored their ‘wrong perspectives’. By looking into the politics on cultural heritage and art education, I will illustrate how the perspectives and the ways of art appreciation were given shapes to in relation to the Japanese modernization.
4B. Japanese Religious Culture
Chair: John Clammer (Sophia U.)
Clark Chilson (Nanzan U.): Buddhists Under Cover-The Rationale for Secrecy among Contemporary Secretive Shinshu Confraternities
Today in inconspicuous buildings in Tokyo, in homes in rural Gifu, and in rooms closed to the public in Kyoto, Osaka, and Hiroshima, men and women meet in secret to teach or learn what they claim to be the ultimate teachings of Shinran, who is regarded as the founder of True Pure Land Buddhism (Shinshð). Similar to so-called secret societies studied by anthropologists in Africa and Melanesia, secretive Shinshð confraternities in Japan today only allow those who have undergone their secretive initiation rite to hear the ultimate Shinshð teachings. The existence, much less the activities, of these secretive Shinshð confraternities is almost completely unknown except to a few Japanese ethnologists and to members of the Shinshð clergy who regard their secretive teachings as heretical. In my presentation I will describe my fortuitous encounter with a secretive Shinshð confraternity in the Chðbu region, introduce its history and present-day activities, and then present an analysis of the rationale the leaders give for their secrecy.
Levi McLaughlin (Tokyo U.): Faith and Practice: The Music of Soka Gakkai
Members of Soka Gakkai, Japan’s largest and most active new religious movement, participate in a multitude of activities in the interest of promoting the organization and enriching their own spiritual development. Among the most dynamic of these are the activities of Soka Gakkai’s many musical groups. The importance of cultural activities to propagation and fostering world peace is constantly emphasized in the literature of the movement, and Soka Gakkai members who have achieved success in musical pursuits are celebrated by the organization’s leaders. The purpose of my research is to determine the manner in which the cultural activities of Soka Gakkai are interpreted by the members who participate in them and how this informs their faith. I wish to illuminate the performative aspect of religious practice; how faith is “explained” through music and how religious doctrine is realized in a musical setting. In order to do this, I am engaging in participant observation of one of Soka Gakkai’s most active musical groups, practicing and performing with the Tokyo Orchestra (Tokyo Kangen Gakudan). I am gathering data about the members of this group and three other Soka Gakkai musical groups in Tokyo through surveys and interviews, while simultaneously gaining valuable ethnographic experience through direct participation. In order to contrast music-oriented endeavors with more general activities, I am involved with Soka Gakkai at the local level, gathering data on individual members and participating in a variety of local meetings. By contrasting “regular” religious activity with a specialized sub-group, I am creating a context within which interpretation and analysis can be undertaken.
Tomoe Moriya (Hannan University): Nostalgia of “Japanese Culture” and the Buddhist Churches of America
In this paper I would like to report my findings from a survey on a Japanese Buddhist organization, the Buddhist Churches of America, during April through October 2000. The BCA has been conducting religious rituals and chants in Japanese for over 100 years although present-day members cannot comprehend the meaning as the younger generation has recently superseded the older one as both board and church members. This shift in membership indicates the need for a more relevant way of transmitting the teachings in America. The BCA churches have been playing an important role for Japanese American community as cultural centers, but it is also true that some ministers and members are more concerned about social ethics based upon Buddhist teachings in a Judeo-Christian society. We can see from the transition of the BCA the dilemma of this new trend and tendency towards the tradition of ‘imagined’ Japanese culture.