The Japanese Housewife Overseas

THE JAPANESE HOUSEWIFE OVERSEAS ADAPTING TO CHANGE OF CULTURE AND STATUS THE JAPANESE HOUSEWIFE OVERSEAS • ADAPTING T...

Author: Oxford Brookes University Ruth Martin

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THE JAPANESE HOUSEWIFE OVERSEAS ADAPTING TO CHANGE OF CULTURE AND STATUS

THE JAPANESE HOUSEWIFE OVERSEAS • ADAPTING TO CHANGE OF CULTURE AND STATUS •

RUTH MARTIN Oxford Brookes University

THE JAPANESE HOUSEWIFE OVERSEAS ADAPTING TO CHANGE OF CUTLURE AND STATUS by Ruth Martin First published in 2007 by GLOBAL ORIENTAL LTD PO Box 219 Folkestone Kent CT20 2WP UK www.globaloriental.co.uk © Global Oriental 2007 ISBN 978-1-905246-43-4 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library

Set in Stone Serif 9.5/12pt by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Manchester Printed and bound in England by TJ International, Padstow, Cornwall

Contents

Plate section faces page 86 Acknowledgements

viii

1.

Introduction • Participants and methodology • Structure of the book

1 3 7

2.

Salarymen, their wives and overseas transfer • The changing role of the wife within the family in Japan • The status of housewives in Japan • Summary

9

3.

4.

11 17 19

Overseas transfer to the UK • The history of Japanese manufacturing and financial institutions • Infrastructure catering to the Japanese community in the UK • Summary

20

What overseas transfer means to wives • Women’s reactions to their husband’s transfer to the UK • Women’s concerns about transfer to the UK • Allowances and financial benefits provided by husband’s company • Practical assistance from Japanese companies • Women’s perceptions of their housing in the UK • Women’s perceptions of the cost of living • Quality of family life • Summary

31

20 25 29

31 35 39 44 46 48 49 53

vi 5.

The Japanese Housewife Overseas Japanese housewives’ roles in the UK: caring for the family and maintaining links with Japan • Women’s perceptions of their housewife role while living in the UK • Creating a home environment by maintaining traditions of the home country • Caring for the family’s health • Gift giving and managing a husband’s personal and business relationships • Maintaining good relationships with neighbours • Managing the family finances • Care of elderly relatives • Summary Photographs

6.

7.

8.

Japanese housewives’ roles in the UK: Care of young children and education • Care of pre-school children • Mothers’ role in choice of school and enabling child to settle into school life • School run and homework – increased burden for mothers • PTA – less burden for mothers and increased involvement of fathers • Mothers’ roles in the Japanese Education of their children and the increased participation of fathers • Summary Life outside the confines of ‘housewife’: enriching aspects of overseas transfer • Women’s activities beyond housewife roles in the UK • Women and their Japanese friends in the UK • Factors making the acquisition of non-Japanese friends difficult for Japanese women • Women and non-Japanese friends in the UK • Volunteer activities and ambassador roles • Summary Effect of overseas transfer on wives • Appreciation of the positive and negative aspects of the UK as host country • A new awareness of positive and negative aspects of the home country

55 55 59 64 65 67 68 71 74 75 75 75 84 90 91 96 101 104 104 106 109 112 114 117 119 119 121

Contents • • • • 9.

Influence on world view How seeing Japan from the outside causes women to reassess aspects of their own culture and behaviour An increased awareness of and pride in Japanese identity Summary

vii 122 125 132 133

Conclusion 135 • Significance of transience for women 136 • UK as a welcoming host country to Japan 137 • Japanese wives and long-term positive influence on British attitudes towards Japan 139 • Opportunity for other family members and friends 139 • Women’s long-term view of benefits for their children 140 • The role of the Japanese wife in the overseas transfer process 143

Bibliography Index

146 156

Acknowledgements

T

his book could not have been written without the cooperation, generosity and good will of the Japanese women who allowed me take a part in their daily lives during their husband’s assignment to the UK. In order to preserve anonymity, all names have been changed in the text, but I give special thanks to Chieko Shove and Miki Ukai who helped facilitate fieldwork in Telford and also to the Ban family, to Japanese mothers at the North London school where participant observation took place including Nagi Seki, Takako Otsuka, Yuri Uchida, Junjo Kojima, Akemi Honda and Yumi Yokou. Keiko Kumamaru and her family Koki, Haruka and Madoka helped facilitate reunions of these mothers in Tokyo and did much more besides. Keiko Ito helped with interviews in Nara, and Natsu Iwaki introduced me to the Japanese community in Cardiff. I also thank fellow members of Nichi-Ei Otomodachi Kai – both Japanese and nonJapanese – and in particular, Sakae Inoue, Yoshiko Sato, Yoshiko Yokoi, Mrs Nomura, Kumiko Komatsu, Keiko Yamada and Yuka Kobayashi. I stress however, that the views expressed in this book, along with any errors, are my own. Thanks are due also to Joy Hendry for her encouragement from the time I approached her at Oxford Brookes University with my initial research idea, and to Louella Matsunaga and James Roberson. Ayumi Sasagawa drew my attention to Japanese sources on the history and perspectives on the housewife debate in Japan, and her own work on this subject has been referred to throughout this book. My husband, David Martin has provided endless support and encouragement and, as well as participating in fieldwork, my two daughters Abbie and Naomi Martin have kept me in good humour and given me a sense of proportion. Finally, I thank Paul Norbury for enabling me to publish. The promotion of Anglo-Japanese understanding has long been at the heart

Acknowledgements

ix

of Global Oriental, and I hope this book will also show, of the Japanese women on whom it focuses. JAPANESE NAMES/USE OF THE MACRON All names have been changed in order to preserve anonymity. Macrons are used for Japanese words throughout, except for particular names of persons and places.

1

Introduction

S

ince the Second World War, the Japanese economy has been the subject of an immense literature, both academic and popular. Much has been written about the Japanese company and the Japanese management process, including that of overseas transfer and what it means not only to the economy but to Japanese working men (Hamada 1992; Morgan, Kelly, Sharpe and Whitely 2003; White 1988; Sakai 2000). The status of women in the workplace has also been focused on (Hunter 1993; Lam 1992; Matsunaga 2000), and there have also been studies of housewives in Japan both in Japanese and English (Hendry 1993; Vogel 1978; Imamura 1987; Allison 1996; Salamon 1975; Kanda 1982; Madoka 1988; Ueno 1982, 1987). Recently there has been interest in Japanese company wives living overseas (Saint Arnault 1998; Yeoh and Khoo 1998; Inaba 2000; Kawai 2000; Kurotani 2005). However, studies have focused on Japanese (male) bankers and (male) expatriate managers (Newhall 1996; Sakai 2000; Whitely and Morgan 1998–2001; Morgan, Kelly, Sharpe and Whitely 2003), and less has been published on Japanese women in the UK, apart from on the Japanese community in the North East of England (Conte-Helm 1989 and 1996). Little has been written, however, about what wives think of their husband’s transfer overseas, their contribution to the process and how it affects their lives. Yet these questions are especially pertinent in view of the clearly-defined gender roles within the middle-class salaryman (white-collar worker) family in Japan since the late 1940s, whereby a wife’s world and identity tends to be separate from that of her husband, which is closely linked to his working life outside the home. This fact was brought to my attention while working at the London branch of a Japanese bank in 1990 after spending two years

2

The Japanese Housewife Overseas

on the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme in Japan.1 Like most JET participants, I came into contact with all manner of Japanese citizens from English teachers, both male and female, the government officials of the prefecture in which I worked, through to ‘Office Ladies’, mothers and housewives. Yet I found the working atmosphere in the bank quite different. My role had changed from being a participant in an educational programme for the promotion of cultural understanding and exchange, to that of an ordinary working member of working staff. What is more, the only Japanese women I now came into contact with were those referred to as ‘local hires’ who were married to non-Japanese men and were now living permanently in the UK. In this workplace environment, I heard little about the wives of my Japanese male colleagues, since ‘private matters’ were rarely discussed. My Japanese boss was even apologetic about leaving the office when his wife went into labour with their second child. Although both he and his wife were invited to my wedding, only my boss attended. I began to wonder about my Japanese colleagues’ wives. What were they doing day to day, where were they living and where were their children going to school? How were they coping without family members on whose help, especially with childcare, they could rely in Japan? When tanshinfunin – or ‘single-person assignment away from home’ (Hamada 1992: 136) – is a regular part of working life for company men in Japan, why uproot a wife thousands of miles to join her husband if in fact they would be leading separate lives in the UK? In the final analysis, what is a wife’s role in the process of her husband being transferred overseas? Significantly, it was only when I quit my banking post to become a full-time wife and mother myself that I came into direct contact with expatriate Japanese wives, and found myself in a position to seek answers to these questions. Three important points must be emphasized from the onset. First is the middle-class of the women in question, which also means that they are well educated – in most cases to university or Junior College level.2 The second significant fact is that few such women in Japan are transferred to work overseas in the same way as men. During the course of my own research I found no married Japanese woman who had been transferred to the UK in the same way as male colleagues within Japanese companies. I frequently heard from my informants that women had greater chances of promotion in the Diplomatic Service and Overseas Agencies, but, as will be discussed further in this

Introduction

3

book, despite the fact that the female labour force in Japan is said to be growing at a greater rate than that of men (Wakisaka 1997: 131), opportunities for promotion on an equal footing to men remain limited. For this reason, therefore, the book focuses on the experiences and roles of Japanese women who accompany their husbands on assignments to the UK as wives, concentrating in particular on the role commonly known as ‘sengyo shufu’ (full-time, or ‘professional’ housewife), which will be examined in detail in Chapters 4 and 5. The third point to emphasize is the fact that these Japanese expatriate women represent a minority in Japan. As of October 2001 a total of 837,744 Japanese were recorded as living abroad for three months and over (Japan Statistical Yearbook 2004) which accounts for only 0.6% of population. Thus, although overseas transfer has become more common amongst Japanese workers in middle-class families (Kurotani 2005), those with such international experience remain a somewhat exclusive, minority. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODOLOGY This book is based on a Ph.D. thesis (Martin 2004) and ongoing fieldwork since 2000, amounting to six years to date. The Japanese women who took part are of three main age groups, broadly defined as young, newly-married women without children, middle-aged women with children of school age or younger and older women with no, or non-dependent, children. The methodology used is integral to the study, involving a close relationship with the women of the Japanese community on which it focuses. The main methods have been participant observation and informal interview during fieldwork that has allowed as much time as possible to be spent with Japanese women as they go about their daily lives. The United Kingdom is currently home to the largest number of Japanese in Europe. The vast majority (50,553) live in England, with 24,189 being located in London, which was the main focus of this research. In order to relate the experience of women living in places in which there are fewer Japanese and less infrastructure catering to Japanese needs, fieldwork has also been carried out in two further English locations – Telford and Plymouth – as well as in Cardiff in Wales, which had a recorded Japanese population of 1,344 in October 2005 (Embassy of Japan in London). A total of 1,052 were registered as living in Scotland at this date, and 153 in Northern Ireland (ibid.). The 53,191 registered as resident

4


by the Japanese Embassy in London (2005) are classified by purpose of stay as private company staff, journalists, self-employed, students/ researchers/teachers, those working for government and ‘others’. The figures include all family members, and there are 9,928 registered as permanent residents. For the first year of the research participant observation was carried out at the independent North London pre-preparatory school where my own daughters were pupils. The participants included a core group of ten mothers aged between thirty-five and forty, plus a wider group of Japanese women with children at the school. The children were the same age as my own children just as I was the same age as my informants. As a mother I was present at all school activities that required parental participation. While many non-Japanese mothers had nannies or child-carers collecting their children, Japanese mothers were, like myself at the time, full-time housewives and mothers. Participant observation was carried out at the school gate each morning and afternoon. I watched what happened when the visiting parents or parents-in-law of Japanese women were introduced to other Japanese mothers, or to the child’s schoolteacher, and from this I learnt much about accepted forms of behaviour and how these are adapted while living overseas. I watched what happened when a new Japanese mother arrived at the school, whether the rest of the Japanese ‘group’ welcomed her, and how her behaviour changed as she became more accepted into it. Occasions such as the school fête were opportunities both for participating and observing. Each year the Japanese mothers were asked to provide a stall selling Japanese food such as sushi or noodles. This became a major operation involving the cooperation of all Japanese mothers, and I too became involved. As such, I shared in the complaints or grumbles they had, which were definitely not expressed to non-Japanese organizers of the fête. In order to better understand the world of Japanese women in the UK, I joined various groups and took part in their activities. These included Sakura kai – a weekly group run by volunteer Japanese women to teach Japanese language free of charge and held at the Daiwa Anglo Japanese Foundation building in Regents Park, London. I attended these classes from April 2000 to July 2001 and kept in touch with several members after they returned to Japan. The teachers were aged from forty-seven to fifty-five, often with children who were no longer dependent, and many were in London for their husband’s second or even third posting in the UK or overseas.

Introduction

5

Another group joined was the Japan Friendship Group (Nakayoshi Kai) for young Japanese and non-Japanese mothers and pregnant women. A British woman affiliated with the National Childbirth Trust (NCT) founded this in North London in 1990. It caters for Japanese mothers and pregnant women in Britain and, as of July 2002, there were 220 members, both expatriate Japanese and Japanese women in international marriages. Although the group was originally based in central London, its network has now expanded to the suburbs. All staff are volunteers, usually mothers bringing up their own children or with the experience of having done so, and the emphasis is therefore on mutual support. There is also emphasis on enabling Japanese children to keep in touch with their Japanese culture. In September 2002, I was kindly welcomed by Nichi-Ei Otomodachi Kai (Anglo-Japanese Friendship Group), in which I now remain active. This was formed almost fifty years ago by the wife of a British diplomat in order to promote friendship between women of the United Kingdom and Japan. Each non-Japanese member has experience of residence in Japan herself and aims to assist Japanese members in adjustment to living in Britain and to help increase their knowledge and enjoyment of life in the UK. Japanese members tend to be wives of senior managers or diplomats, often with older nondependent children, many of whom have had more than one posting overseas. Their current experience in the UK therefore varies from that of mothers mentioned earlier, though they may also have been posted overseas with young children themselves, when their husband was more junior. Other groups for Japanese women attended include the ‘Green Chorus’, a women’s choir that was formed fifteen years ago in North London’s Golders Green. It is attended weekly by some thirty members, and holds an annual concert. I took part in a choir practice, talked to the women as a group, and members responded to a questionnaire. In Telford, strong links were developed with a group of eight housewives who were in their mid to late thirties with children, and also with another group of seven younger more recently married women, aged from their late twenties. I also attended the Japanese school in the town. From the second year of the study, I was permanently resident in Devon, which presented the challenge of getting involved with the Japanese community there. However, the small Japanese population

6


that had grown as a result of manufacturing in the area had been significantly reduced as a result of the long running economic recession in Japan. I located only two women in Plymouth, with whom contact was made through their husbands’ factory. They provided valuable insight into life in a community with no infrastructure catering to its needs. Contacts within the Japanese community in Cardiff were established through a Japanese expatriate wife who introduced me to friends, and to the headmistress of the Japanese Saturday School in Cardiff. I interviewed women in depth, distributed questionnaires and carried out participant observation at the Japanese Saturday School, including at the annual school sports day. In order to interview returnee women in depth, fieldwork was carried out in Japan in May 2002, with a second period of fieldwork taking place in Tokyo in September 2006. These two occasions enabled me to follow up mothers from the North London school who had now been repatriated. They also provided the opportunity to talk to them first hand and in situ about both their experiences of returning to Japan, and about their experiences in London in hindsight. On the first occasion, I also spent a day with one of the mothers, visiting her daughter’s school and observing her involvement in the PTA (Parent Teacher Association), the significance of which will be clear in Chapter 5. I experienced her daily routine in Tokyo compared to that in London. During the second period, one of my daughters accompanied me, and attended elementary school with one of her former Japanese school friends who had already returned to Japan from London. Three older women in their fifties and sixties who had lived in the London in the 1970s, as well as the daughters of two of them were interviewed in Tokyo. Further interviews with a group of four women in Nara also enabled me to compare the experience of age and location in the UK in the context of the changing role of the housewife in Japan. These women had lived in Manchester in the 1980s and 90s when their husbands worked for the same electrical manufacturing company. They provided valuable insight into the experience of a housewife in the UK in the 1970s when the role of the professional housewife was at its height (see Chapter 2). They also demonstrated the changing role of the Japanese housewife, not only as a result of transfer abroad but also as a result of change for women in Japan. In addition, it was significant to see how women viewed their experience after thirty years of being back in Japan compared to being back only one year, or less.

Introduction

7

STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK This brief Introduction has explained the background to the research. It has introduced the participants and set out the methodology used. The subsequent chapter will outline the process of overseas transfer within Japanese companies for men, followed by the changing role and status of the wife within the salaryman family in Japan. Chapter 3 moves on to focus on the transfer of Japanese businessmen to the UK. It outlines the history of Japanese manufacturing and financial institutions in the UK, and the subsequent growth of the infrastructure serving the Japanese community living there. The focus of Chapter 4 is on what overseas transfer means to wives, rather than to working husbands. The chapter analyses women’s initial reactions to the news of the transfer and their concerns about it. It examines the relationship of the husband’s company to the wives in terms of support provided by allowances and financial benefits, and whether companies provide any practical help. It also addresses other factors that have impact on women’s lives, such as the perception of housing compared to that in Japan, the cost of living and the quality of family life experienced while resident in the UK. Chapters 5 and 6 concentrate on housewife roles while living in the UK, beginning with those of caring for the family and providing a comfortable home environment that maintains links with Japan (Chapter 5). Chapter 6 focuses on the care of young children and the vital task of overseeing children’s education during the UK assignment. Life outside the confines of housewife and the enriching aspects of overseas transfer for wives is the focus of Chapter 7. This includes women’s numerous activities outside their housewife roles, the volunteer activities in which they take part, who women make friends with and factors that make the acquisition of non-Japanese friends difficult. This said however, the chapter reveals the resourceful ways in which women are successful in this, and argues that Japanese women can be greater ambassadors for Japan that their working husbands. Chapter 8 explores effects of overseas transfer to the UK on wives, while the final chapter reaches conclusions about the role Japanese wives play in the overseas transfer process of Japanese companies. In so doing, it discusses the significance of the temporary and transient

8


nature of the assignment for women and of the UK as a welcoming host country. It also draws conclusions about benefits of an overseas assignment for Japanese children and finally, about the long-term positive influence of Japanese wives on British attitudes towards Japan. NOTES 1

2

The JET Programme, sponsored by the Japanese Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Education and Home Affairs in conjunction with Japanese local government, recruits graduates from thirty-nine countries, to work as Assistant English Teachers (AETs) in Japanese schools or as Coordinators of International Relations (CIRs) in local government offices. Since 1994, a new category of Sports Exchange Adviser has also been added. Under the Fundamental Law of Education and the School Education Law of 1947, compulsory education in Japan requires six years at elementary school from the age of six followed by three at junior high school, though a high percentage progress to high school until the age of eighteen (96.3% in 2004) or to the age of twenty in the case of technical colleges (Asahi Shimbun Japan Almanac 2006). Further options from the age of eighteen include three to six year university courses, followed by graduate school, specialist training colleges or junior colleges. The latter tend to be attended exclusively by women (see McVeigh 1996).

2

Salarymen, Their Wives and Overseas Transfer

T

he relationship between the Japanese company, the salaryman and his wife has been well illustrated by studies such as Allison’s (1994) analysis of corporate masculinity. It is a situation that has developed relatively recently since the Second World War, when middle-class women who moved to urban areas with their salarymen husbands took pride in their position and status as housewives (Salamon 1975; Vogel 1978; Kanda 1982; Ueno 1982, 1987; Imamura 1987; Madoka 1988; Hendry 1993; Allison 1996). Their husbands were commonly referred to as ‘corporate warriors’ (kigyo senshi) and worked all hours outside the home, seeing little of their family, while their wives concentrated on their housewife tasks and developed strong bonds with their children. If these clearly-defined roles were deemed important in allowing the husband to carry out his work function for the sake of the family, the company and, in a wider sense, the nation, they have been seen as doubly important when husbands are transferred overseas. The notion of the wife as caretaker of the family who can provide a comfortable and Japanese home environment so that her husband can concentrate on his job has been promoted if not directly by Japanese companies, at least implicitly, and also by Japanese society, including husbands and wives themselves. As this book will show, the cooperation of Japanese wives in accompanying their husbands overseas has in fact been vital to the overseas transfer process, and ultimately to the Japanese economy in the post-war period. There are in fact two possible types of personnel transfer within Japanese companies, tenzoku and shukko. Tenzoku is mainly used in

10


reference to domestic personnel transfer (Hamada 1992). It literally means ‘change of belonging’, and refers to the system whereby an employee must formally resign from the parent company (honsha) in order to be hired permanently by its kogaisha, or ‘subsidiary company’. This is often the head office’s way of preventing the core personnel of the parent company from being too elderly (ibid.: 142). Shukko on the other hand, refers to a temporary transfer of personnel which can be domestic, or, in the case of kaigai shukko, overseas. It has been said that for many Japanese (male) managers, overseas transfer is seen as a positive career progression – an indication of good future career prospects and the launch pad for future top management (Hamada 1992; Morgan, Kelly, Sharpe and Whitely 2003). In the case of one particular bank for example, it was estimated that between twenty and thirty per cent of the managing directors had international experience in this way (Morgan, Kelly, Sharpe and Whitely 2003). An opposing view however, is that overseas transfer represents ‘a temporary sidetracking of their long-term career marathon in a Japanese corporation or at its worst, a dead-end job’ (Hamada 1992: 136). Some expatriate Japanese workers in the 1980s felt that being overseas was almost like being in exile, since they were invisible to powerful people within the company and unable to sustain a network of relations between peers and managers upon whom their career success depends (Sakai 2000; Morgan, Kelly, Sharpe and Whitely 2003). The term ‘terai mawashi’ conveys a further negative view. It means to be ‘helplessly passed from one place to another’, and was commonly used to describe those employees who were seen as being transferred from one mediocre overseas post to another without being returned to Japan (White 1988: 149). Views towards overseas assignment may have changed with the collapse of the bubble economy in 1990, especially in financial institutions as they have struggled to adapt (Morgan, Kelly, Sharpe and Whitely 2003). On one hand, it has been suggested that there is a feeling of disillusionment amongst some expatriate Japanese workers about how they will be able to use their international experience once back in Japan (ibid.). On the other hand, as Japanese companies seem to be changing their emphasis from the generalist to the specialist, there has also been a change in attitude towards prospective employees who may have specialist knowledge that comes from overseas experience. This may in fact have promoted the flexibility to transfer to other companies, including non-Japanese companies


11

(ibid.). There has certainly been an increased number of ‘headhunting’ and job agencies for Japanese employees in London, as witnessed by the number of advertisements in publications for Japanese living in London. It has even been said that the interwoven logic of lifetime employment, seniority system and enterprise unionism that formed the fundamental basis of the Japanese management system collapsed with the collapse of the economy (Smith 2006: 77). In terms of career progression, therefore, the meaning of overseas transfer may vary for Japanese (male) managers (Hamada 1992; Sakai 2000; Morgan, Kelly, Sharpe and Whitely 2003). However, although this has been neglected in studies of Japanese management and the overseas transfer debate, overseas transfer is also of course a subjective experience for women. Revealing what a transfer assignment to the UK means for a Japanese wife is a further major focus of this book. THE CHANGING ROLE OF THE WIFE WITHIN THE FAMILY IN JAPAN It is important to stress that the clearly-defined gender roles that developed in the post-war period along with the common image of the urban housewife who stays at home to concentrate on domestic duties while her husband is at work is in fact relatively new (Bernstein 1991). Until a little more than one hundred years ago, 80% of the population lived on farms (Iwao 1995: 80). In less wealthy families, younger women often worked outside the home as farm labourers and with the exception of the upper classes, women in Japan have been a vital part of the labour force in this way. Fathers often took part in taking care of their children, which in the post-war period has been considered a woman’s task. Many other tasks now commonly associated with women, such as greeting guests and management of household finances, were actually managed by men in their capacity of head of the ie (or ‘household’) (Imai 1994: 50–51). A translation of ie as ‘household’ or ‘house’ (as in the ‘House of Windsor’) gives a truer sense of the meaning than ‘family’ or ‘family system’ (Hendry 2003; Ochiai 1996: 58; Uno 1991). The ie may also be seen as a corporate group (Nakane 1967; Bachnik 1983: 160–82; Hamabata 1990; Kondo 1990). It often owned property or had an occupation associated with it. As Bernstein points out, ‘Like a wellestablished business, the ie was devoted to its own perpetuation’ (1991: 3). According to Lebra (1984: 21) neither the genealogical nor the functional view of the ie can be ignored, and this dualism is in

12


fact the essence of the ie, and it is in this light that the woman’s role and status should be understood (ibid.). It is actually difficult to specify the nature of the ‘traditional’ ie since it has assumed different forms depending on the era, class and nature of the business of the family concerned (Yamada 1998: 10).1 During the pre-modern period, the system applied to the privileged classes only, but with the Meiji Era (1862–1912) an approximate ie system became mandatory for everyone (Lebra 1984: 21). The first Family Law of 1898 established the patriarchal and ideally patrilineal family system known today as the ie system (Ueno 1887: 134). The ie was abolished as a legal unit following the Second World War, but households with more than two generations under the same roof still exist, especially among farmers in rural areas where they are often associated with some traditional craft or skill. The rise in the proportion of nuclear families from the 1960s should not, therefore, be taken to represent a wholesale conversion of the ie to the nuclear family (Ochiai 1996: 59–60). Furthermore, many of the values, ideas and attitudes of the traditional system are still profound within Japanese society and even permeate through to urban areas (Kuwayama 2001: 24). One of the most essential features of the ie has been continuity. The members of the household included ancestors (senzo), the recently dead and descendants as yet unborn (Hendry 2003: 38). Living individuals had a duty to remember those who went before them as well as to ensure that the house would continue after they themselves die. In each generation, one permanent heir would be chosen, and a spouse would be brought in to share the role of continuing the family line. Other members of that generation could stay in the ie, or return to it, but if they married they were expected to move out. The system that became codified was that of primogeniture, or inheritance by the eldest son, but it is important to realize again that there were regional variations to this, such as first-child inheritance by a female in some northern districts, and in Kyushu there were instances of last-son inheritance (Hendry 2003: 40). The head of the ie was legally responsible for all members, and was accorded privileges accordingly, such as being served first at mealtimes. Hendry points out however, that a head who was despotic or detrimental to the household in some way could in fact be removed by the decision of a wider family council (ibid.: 39). Confucian principles of loyalty and benevolence were used to characterize the ideal


13

relations between generations, and accepting duty to the house by sons and daughters was a sign of loyalty to their parents for benevolence received (ibid.: 39). Younger members of the house were expected to consider themselves indebted to the older members for their upbringing, and in return they were expected to take care of the older members. Women were supposed to obey men and a new bride would be expected to obey her mother-in-law as well. This often led to a fragile relationship, frequently portrayed in literature (see for example Ariyoshi Sawako, 1978). The mother-in-law played an important role, however, in teaching her daughter-in-law the particular ways of that ‘house’ (kafu), clearly illustrated in the diary of a merchant wife in 1910 Kyoto (Nakano 1995). Within this ie system, the role of the woman was vital. Domestic chores within the home accounted for much of her time, and a reading of Makiko Nakano’s diary mentioned above (Nakano 1995) illustrates just how hard the wife of a merchant in the late Meiji era worked within the household. Among these domestic tasks preparing, cooking and serving food, not only to the members of the extended family, but, in the case of a merchant family, to people like shop boys and clerks, in addition to the many visitors who would call at the house, took up a large proportion of the day. According to Nakano it would not be unusual to be preparing food for twenty people at a time (1995: 3). This was without the conveniences of today, and without even recipe books, which further emphasized the importance of learning from a mother-in-law. A husband would often invite guests who needed to be catered for, and, in addition, a wife would frequently need to wait up to serve her husband at whatever time he may return to the house. This feature actually continues in salaryman households and happens even today, which shows just how attitudes relating to the traditional ie system and gender roles within them remain (Hendry 2003). In addition to cleaning the home, another task would be sewing, and again not only garments for extended family members, but often those of employees. Maintaining the harmony of the household was also important, and a wife would constantly be aware of her behaviour, and of how she presented herself to others as a representative of the house. Correspondence was often also a woman’s work, both in noting what mail came in and responding to it. In more wealthy households, the hiring and managing of maids was another responsibility. Finally, taking care of parents-in-law was also a wife’s major responsibility, reflecting the importance of Confucian values as discussed.

14


Women were thus valued as workers, wives and especially daughtersin-law (Imai 1994: 3). A wife’s main role and duty was not simply that of bearing children and rearing them. While continuity of the ie was vital, there were different ways of ensuring it. A son-in-law, known as the yoshi, could be married in for example, or a child, who need not even be related by blood, could even be adopted into the family. While a blood connection was desirable it was not, therefore, vital for continuity (Ochiai 1996). Before the Meiji era (1868–1912), the wife of the head of the household was called shufu, ie-toji (oldest woman of the household) or ienushi (head of the household) (Ueno 1987: 77).2 Until then, among the upper classes, the polygamous custom of a man taking care of women other than his wife was common (Yamada 1998: 10), and the original meaning of the term shufu – made up of two kanji characters, ‘shu’ meaning ‘head, main’ and the ‘fu’ meaning ‘woman, especially a married woman’ – was to imply the head woman of that family. It was only in 1874, during the Meiji era therefore, that the term shufu was adopted in the more Western sense of today, based on middle-class values of a woman in charge of domestic duties within the home (Imai 1994: 55). The term was used in textbooks in primary schools for teaching home economics to girls and these books encouraged housekeeping skills based on Western upper- and middle-class models (ibid.: 55–56). The responsibility of managing the family budget and child rearing, which are two important aspects of women’s roles today, came to be in the housewife’s control at this time, and the term ryosai kenbo, ‘good wife and wise mother’, was also promoted as an ideal for all women, not just those of a certain class (ibid.). Emphasis was on the importance of educating women to be able to perform duties within the home, and on the role of being a mother. These ideals continued to be promoted during the Taisho era (1912–26) with women’s journals and magazines such as Shufu no Tomo (Housewife’s Friend), which targeted middle-class women in urban areas.3 Motherhood continued to be encouraged as a key role of wives during the war years and the state required employers to provide childcare. Mothers were encouraged to have large families to help with the nation’s war efforts, the national ideology of the time being ‘for the sake of the country’ (Yamada 1998: 11). Women of childrearing age were seen as playing an important role in this way and were thus not called to work outside the home. Post-war Japan continued to emphasize the woman’s role as a mother, but she was encouraged


15

to raise a smaller family to help Japan’s economy. In the war’s aftermath, the ideology of ‘for the sake of the country’ was abandoned, and in its place the idea of the ‘family’ formed the basis of people’s lives and ‘for the sake of the children’ became the core of social consciousness (ibid.). The notion of ‘my home-ism’ that appeared in the post-war period essentially meant a family centred on children (ibid.: 12–13).4 After the Second World War, the ie was abolished as a legal unit and from then on a nuclear family had to be registered on marriage. As already discussed, however, not all families shifted from the lineal to the nuclear family. The traditional system of more than one generation living in the same household still exists, especially in rural areas, and the ideals and values of the traditional system are still held strongly throughout Japanese society today (Kuwayama 2001: 24). Hendry (2003) points out that members of a family living under one roof in certain parts of Japan still conceptualize their unit as a continuing ie, especially if the property itself has been passed down through generations. What is more, Article 897 of the new civil code actually makes provision for a degree of continuity, by stating that one member of a family needs to be chosen to take care of the genealogical records and ‘utensils of religious rites’. Even if all the generations are not present under one roof, a family may see themselves as only temporarily separated (ibid.). It was following the Second World War and Japan’s period of economic growth, that the base of Japan’s social structure shifted to the company employee, and ‘white collar workers’ (salaryman), along with teachers and government employees, constituted a significant ‘new middle class’ (Ochiai 1996: 31–32; Vogel 1971). The term ‘new family’ was borrowed from the English and used from the 1970s to describe middle-class nuclear families, consisting of a salaryman husband, his wife and two children. The ratio of such ‘nuclear families’ to ie households grew from 59.6% in 1955 to 63.9% by 1975 (kokusei chosa hokoku, National census reports, Statistics Bureau, Management and Coordination Agency, in Ochiai 1996: 60). According to the 2000 Population Census, as of 1 October, the number of ‘nuclear families’ in Japan was 46,782,000, while the total of ‘other relatives households’ was 33,679,000 (Japan Statistical Yearbook 2004).5 Many of these families moved to urban areas and into small ‘2DK’ apartments, meaning that the accommodation consists of two (2) bedrooms, one of which is likely to be tatami matted, a dining room

16


(D) and a kitchen (K). For a woman at the time such a life was seen as a dream – a life of freedom from the reigns of the extended family and particularly from a mother-in-law, and from hard manual labour as a result of new labour-saving devices of the day. These included the refrigerator, rice cooker and the washing machine. In theory therefore, all married women became shufu in terms of being the principal woman of their own house. Women who, due to their salaryman husband’s income, were lucky enough to be in this position, usually worked before marriage, but concentrated on the family once they had married. After their children went to school or had grown up, however, they often returned to work. When represented on a graph, this work pattern forms an ‘M’ shape, and is commonly upheld as a distinctive feature of women’s labour in Japan (Yoshida and Kanda 1977; Inoue and Ehara 2000; Iwao 1995: 162; Ochiai 1996: 13). A housewife’s role in such a family included general housework, which was greatly reduced in her small apartment, shopping and cooking. The latter was also made easier to some extent by increased availability of frozen foods (reizo shokuhin) and convenience foods bought from the osozaiyasan (literally, a person who makes everyday household dishes). In addition, the housewife now had only herself, her children and husband to cook for, rather than members of an extended ie family. As in the case of the extended family, another important role was representing her husband to the outside world. In the past, a wife presenting her husband and children in a good light reflected on the extended family. Now, however, housewives began to take pride in the credit they received for themselves. It was wives who saw to the giving of gifts during gift-giving seasons at midyear (ochugen) and year end (oseibo), and in a parallel to the ie system, it was wives who dealt with correspondence in terms of thanking the senders of such gifts their husbands received. Taking care of the family finances, in addition to childcare and overseeing her children’s education in particular were also vital. For the full-time housewife, pride was not only taken in being lucky enough to be in this position due to her salaryman husband’s income, and in devoting herself to her own family, but also from the fact that she was considered as playing an important role in promoting the economic success of the Japanese nation. Salarymen husbands were seen as vanguards of Japan’s economic success, and a wife who could provide such a husband with home comforts, prided herself on this. Encouraging the academic achievement of her chil-


17

dren was seen as an important contribution to Japan’s future prosperity, along with her part in reducing the number of children from the larger number encouraged during the war years. In developing Japan’s human capital, the role of the Japanese housewife was vital (Brinton 1993). What is also significant is that during this period of high growth the notion of the division of roles according to gender became further entrenched, with salarymen sharing the idea that it was important for them to support the family by devoting themselves to their job, and women believing that they should singlehandedly assume the burden of the house and childcare (Yamada 1998: 21). THE STATUS OF HOUSEWIVES IN JAPAN Hendry suggested that in the 1980s, the role of the housewife in Japan was ‘a far cry from the downtrodden image sometimes associated with housewives elsewhere’ (1993: 238), and that they were rather privileged and proud of the position they occupied (ibid.). There was certainly status attached to the fact that her husband’s job meant that she could afford to be at home, and it may be argued that, contrary to the image of subservient wife, such housewives enjoyed a large degree of freedom to organize their own lives around their various activities, and especially when children were at school, to enjoy their free time. Hendry thus concluded, that the housewife in Japan ‘is not regarded by herself or her family as a second-rate citizen. She is regarded as playing a vital role in several ways’ (1993: 238). From as early as the mid-1950s, however, there was in fact both media and public debate as to whether or not the housewife’s role was the desirable status imagined. This Shufu Ronso (‘Housewife Debate’) was initiated by Ishigaki (1982) who criticized the fact that women left the workplace before the age of thirty in favour of the role of housewife (Sasagawa 2001: 127) and it continued in the magazine Fujin Koron (Women’s Public Opinion) from 1955. Some argued that the housewife should have another occupation in order to be economically independent and were critical of 1950s middle-class American women whose only purpose was marriage and to be a fulltime housewife (Kanda 1982: 217–218 quoted in Sasagawa 2001). Others stressed the value of the role of the housewife as being more important than any paid work, based on the idea that women are

18


naturally gifted in household work and childcare. Some lauded the housewife’s role as the driving force for creating happy homes and a better society (ibid.). During a so-called ‘Second Housewife Debate’ the main argument focused on whether domestic work should be paid or not (Sasagawa 2001), but in a ‘Third Debate’ housewives were praised as the initiators of a more humane lifestyle concentrating on sport and enjoying hobbies and taking part in grass-roots movements and consumer groups (Takeda 1982, first published 1972 quoted in Sasagawa 2001). Takeda suggested that such a lifestyle was not lazy and was of more use than paid work (ibid.). The number of full-time housewives decreased significantly during the 1970s as more women joined the labour force. It was then that the term sengyo shufu (full-time housewife) was used in order to distinguish them from those engaging in paid work outside the home (Hisatake et al. 1997: 153). The term sengyo shufu was used for the first time in the magazine ‘Housewife’s Friend’ in an article entitled, ‘Is the sengyo shufu a lazy person?’ (Asahi Newspaper 5 March 1995). The term was used in a derogatory context. The article claimed that a housewife’s life was made easy by modern labour-saving appliances, ready-made food and clothes, and described her typical day as consisting of ‘three meals and an afternoon nap’ (sanshoku hirune tsuki) (ibid. quoted in Sasagawa 2001: 128–129). By the late 1990s, the term sengyo shufu (full-time housewife) began to be used in the media in the context of housewives who were depressed, frustrated and isolated from the rest of society (Sasagawa 2001: 133). A series of books on depression that housewives were purported to suffer from, commonly referred to as Shufu Shokogun or ‘Housewife Syndrome’ was published (Madoka 1988). The symptoms of this ‘syndrome’ included insomnia and depression and even domestic violence, said to be caused by discontent with married life and a lack of affection from husbands, and problems with parentsin-law and children (ibid.). The number of full-time housewives who concentrate only on family-related matters has gradually decreased, especially in the current economic climate, and it has been suggested that the fulltime housewife is no longer the object of admiration by the majority of women (Sasagawa 2001: 130, 133). This book argues that overseas transfer, however, offers an opportunity envied by many women in Japan. Although a wife who accompanies her husband on an assignment may well be considered vital to her husband’s career and to the


19

success of his company’s overseas operations, an assignment to the UK has much to offer Japanese women. SUMMARY This chapter has outlined the process of overseas transfer within Japanese companies. It has also described the changing role of the wife within the middle-class family in Japan in order to explain the status of the middle-class wives who accompany their husbands to the UK. The following chapter will examine overseas transfer to the UK in the context of the history of manufacturing and financial institutions and the subsequent infrastructure that has developed in order to serve the Japanese community that now resides there. NOTES 1

2

3

4

5

Examples of variations include the practice of kayoikon in the Heian period, when a man went to and from the wife’s house but did not reside there. In the Meiji era in rural areas of southern Kyushu there were examples of nuclear families with parents living separately from their children, and in the mountains of central Honshu there were forms in which many families combined to live in a single house (Yamada 1998). I am indebted to Ayumi Sasagawa for drawing my attention to the Japanese sources used here and on the ‘housewife debate’ below (see Sasagawa 2001: 119–152). Though the notion of a wife focused on motherhood arose during the Meiji and Taisho eras as described, it should not be presumed that all women were tied to the home. During the Meiji era, for example, there were both middleand upper-class women involved in patriotic and charitable activities, and many lower-class women worked in factories doing work that was vital to Japan’s economic development (Nolte and Hastings 1991: 151–175). During the Taisho period, an increasing number of women, middle-class included, began to enter the workplace, even in cases where the family could manage financially without the extra wage ( Bernstein et al. 1991). Smith indicated that the term ‘my home-ism’ was sometimes used in a derogative sense to refer to a man who was thought to pay too much attention to his family life (1985: 120–122). Nuclear families are given as being those consisting of married couples only, married couples with children, father and child(ren) and mother and child(ren). ‘Other relatives households’ are defined as consisting of a married couple and parent(s), a married couple with parents and children and ‘other’.

3

Overseas Transfer to the UK

T

his chapter focuses on the overseas transfer of Japanese businessmen and their families to the UK by outlining the history of Japanese manufacturing and financial institutions, and the infrastructure that has developed to serving the Japanese community living there. As this book will show, the growth in facilities over the past forty to fifty years meets not only the practical needs of the maledominated world of Japanese business, but it has also had a vital impact on the experience of Japanese wives, and the extent to which a UK assignment has become a source of opportunity for them. The focus is on those areas at the centre of this research – London, Telford, Cardiff and Plymouth. THE HISTORY OF JAPANESE MANUFACTURING AND FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS

The history of the overseas transfer of Japanese company men and their families to the UK can be traced in the establishment of Japanese manufacturing and financial institutions. This began when the Yokohama Specie Bank opened a representative office in London in 1905 to coordinate fund-raising efforts for the RussoJapanese War (Newhall 1996). After the First World War, New York emerged as the global financial centre, and although several Japanese banks did open offices in London during the 1920s and early 1930s, they were all forced to close during the years leading up to the Second World War as a result of rising nationalistic sentiment (ibid.). Japanese banks returned to London to help finance trade, and from the 1960s to finance the expansion of Japanese manufacturing


21

in the UK. The first records of the Japanese population in the UK, numbering 792 Japanese nationals, are recorded for 1960, but the Japanese presence in the City grew most during the 1980s. This was partly a result of the rapidly-expanding economy in Japan, reinforced by strong credit ratings for Japanese companies and large cash reserves generated by the high rate of Japanese consumer saving, as well as by rising property prices in Japan (Newhall 1996; Sakai 2000). By 1990, more than fifty Japanese financial institutions had established representative offices in London (Sakai 2000). A massive increase in the number of Japanese companies locating in the United Kingdom was also seen in the 1990s. This reflected a pattern typical of Japanese investment overseas at the time, referred to as the ‘Japanese Strategy’, and led to Japanese investment overseas reaching record levels (Kojima 1985; Tsurumi 1976; Yoshihara 1979; Yoshino 1976). The strategy in question referred to the Japanese search for cheaper labour, raw materials and energy sources overseas. Joint ventures were valued, and emphasis was on export to ‘Western’ markets (Hamada 1992:138).1 In 1987, there were as many as fifty established Japanese projects in the UK, but in 1989 there were over ninety-five (Sasao 1990). The Japanese population registered with the Japanese Embassy in London grew from 25,230 in 1987 to 31,162 in 1988, to 37,335 in 1989 and 44,351 in 1990. According to the Japanese Ministry of Finance, by 1987 the total share of Japanese direct overseas investments in the UK, including financial and commercial subsidiaries, was higher than that of any other country apart from the USA. At first, emphasis was on electronic consumer goods but this was followed by an increase in the numbers of manufacturers producing semiconductors. During this period, all of the major Japanese consumer electrical companies had at least one plant in Britain, often sited in a regional development area, or in new towns, such as Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire and Telford in Shropshire. Reasons for locating in London, a global city and one of the major financial centres of the world, are easy to understand, but what of areas outside the capital such as those focused on in this research? Telford holds several attractions for Japanese manufacturing companies, not least incentives given by the Invest in Britain Bureau of the Department of Trade and Industry and from the Telford Development Agency (TDA). The latter was formed in 1991 to attract investment to Telford, which was designated a new town in 1968. There are currently 150 non-UK companies from eighteen countries

22


in the town, creating one of the highest concentrations of both Japanese and Taiwanese manufacturers in the UK. Two of these Japanese companies, Denso Manufacturing UK, which makes air conditioners and Epson Ltd, which manufactures computer printers, both have over 1000 local employees, and at least ten other Japanese companies manufacture goods from video and audio tapes to car door panels. These include, in order of size, Ricoh Products Ltd, Makita Manufacturing Europe Ltd, Ogihara Europe Ltd, Maxell Europe Ltd, Kiyokuni (Europe) Ltd, IK Precision Co Ltd, TP Mouldings Ltd and NEC Technologies (UK) Ltd. Cardiff is the economic heart of Wales, and its centre of government. It also acts as a regional centre, providing retail, financial and professional services and cultural and leisure facilities to surrounding areas. Since 1972, Japanese companies have made large investments here, with Takiron choosing Bedwas in the valleys as a site to manufacture corrugated sheeting. This was followed in 1973 by the establishment of a Sony plant at Bridgend, also in the South of Wales, and a number of Japanese companies then followed suit, with Matsushita establishing a factory in the area in 1976, Hitachi in 1979, Aiwa in 1980, Sharp and Brother in 1985, and Toyota in 1992. In 1997, nearly forty Japanese companies had operations in Wales, making the highest concentration in Western Europe (Welsh Development Agency, http://www.cec.org.uk). Competitive set-up costs, advanced communications and a skilled labour force were among the attractions for Japanese companies investing in the Cardiff area. In addition, Wales was also seen as having easy access to the European Union, with a market potentially as large as that of the US and Japan combined. Cardiff and its surrounding areas offer world-class telecommunications, good road access, rail network and air travel, with Cardiff International Airport and six other international airports within relatively easy reach by motorway or rail. Freight by sea is also a possibility, with the deep harbour facilities of Wales itself and facilities elsewhere easily accessible. Finally, the quality of life in Wales is seen as a further attraction, with a high standard of living, good quality housing and high education standards. The Japanese population in Cardiff has, like other areas in the UK, been affected by the Japanese recession. This is illustrated by the closure of companies such as Aiwa in May 2002 in nearby Newbridge. Aiwa made hi-fis and other electronic branded products at the site, but suffered from falling sales. In the summer of 2001, it changed its


23

business to contract manufacturing, laying off 150 staff and the factory was eventually sold to a Hong Kong-based investment company in May 2002 (Welsh Development Agency, http://www. invest-in-wales.com).

Map showing main research locations

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In Plymouth, in the South West of England, Toshiba was the first Japanese company to set up in 1981. Its first operation for the manufacture of televisions and magnetrons for microwave ovens was followed by a second in 1987. In 1990, Toshiba began to manufacture air-conditioning units at another site. This is now a joint venture with an American company, though the brand name ‘Toshiba’ is still used. Murata, a company manufacturing electronic components opened in Plymouth in 1990, and a Japanese company acquired Vickers Systems under the new name of Kawasaki Precision Machinery (UK) Limited in 1984. This company manufactures hydraulic motors and pumps. There is also another Japanese company in the nearby town of Paignton that manufactures electronic components. Plymouth lies 40 miles to the west of Exeter in Devon. The location and transport were incentives for Japanese investment, with Plymouth being well served by road networks, both to London, via the M5, which ends at Exeter, and then the A38 Expressway, and throughout Devon and the neighbouring county of Cornwall. The city is also on the main rail link from London Paddington, with the fastest time to London of three hours. A Channel Tunnel sleeper service is planned from Plymouth to Paris, to arrive for the start of the French business day, and the city also has its own airport with flights to London Gatwick from where international connections can easily be made. There are also passenger and freight services to France and Northern Spain via Brittany Ferries. Despite all this however, it stands to reason, that in difficult times, cuts will be made in what in real terms is a relatively remote area. Consequently, Japanese investment in Plymouth has been adversely affected by the recession in Japan. As in Cardiff the result has been not only in cutbacks of Japanese managerial staff, but of local staff. In November 2002, Toshiba announced the loss of 200 jobs for local staff, leaving a workforce of less than 450 – half the number employed in 2000 (North Devon Journal, 2 November 2002). Currently, therefore, the Japanese presence in Plymouth is minimal. The latest population figures available for Devon, the South West county in which Plymouth is situated are 433, of which 121 are male and 312 female. These are the number of nationals registered at the Japanese Embassy in London including categories such as students, researchers and teachers as well as private company staff. Since Devon attracts a large foreign student population at Exeter University, the University of Plymouth and language schools in


25

the area, it is likely that they contribute significantly to the total population number. I located only two Japanese managers living with their families in Plymouth, both attached to the same manufacturing company. With the bursting of the Japanese economic bubble in 1991, many Japanese banks and financial institutions were also forced to cease or at least suspend activity in London (Morgan et al. 2003). Interviewees have often lamented the numbers of their Japanese acquaintances who have been repatriated to Japan. Figures from the Embassy of Japan in London show a drop in the total population from 55,583 in 1998 to 50,864 in 2002, but as already noted this number had risen to 53,191 by October 2005. The true effects of the recession on repatriation are, therefore, not clear cut. This is partly because as the Japanese Embassy makes clear, it is not possible to determine the reasons for the decline in population figures, since ‘shifts in residency are private matters and the Consulate does not request them’ (private correspondence with the Japan Information and Cultural Centre, Embassy of Japan, London). The number of private company staff and family members seems in fact to have stayed at around 18,000 over the past few years. Amongst manufacturing companies in Telford at least there seems to have been a trend for head offices to keep Japanese staff rather than repatriate them and send new employees to the UK, meaning that some Japanese families have stayed in the area for as long as seven years. The greatest population increase seems to have been in the number of students, teachers and researchers, with almost double the number of females in this category in 2005 than male, and this gendered phenomenon merits further study in itself. INFRASTRUCTURE CATERING TO THE JAPANESE COMMUNITY IN THE UK Throughout the boom period of the 1980s, and into the early 1990s, a large infrastructure catering to the growing Japanese population developed, above all in London. Acton, in West London for example, became popular because of the location of the Japanese school there. Golders Green in North London is commonly known locally as the ‘JJ area’ or ‘Jewish Japanese area’, while nearby Finchley and St John’s Wood, also in North London and Wimbledon in the south, have also been favoured by the Japanese population. Hairdressers and beauty salons, specialist food shops and even shops for wearing kimono

26


dress were established in these areas from the 1980s and there are now numerous Japanese restaurants in London. Some of these cater for non-Japanese local residents rather than to Japanese expatriates, reflecting a growth of interest in things Japanese in the UK, and evidence, as Befu has pointed out, that the ‘West’ is not the only centre of globalization (Befu 2001: 3–4). In the centre of London, two of the three large Japanese department stores that opened have since become victims of the recession and to some extent terrorism. Mitsukoshi department store, which opened in Regent Street in 1979, was reduced in size in 2003, and Sogo, that was housed in a smart building at Piccadilly Circus, shut in 1992. This leaves Takashimaya near Bond Street, which was opened in 1989. A Japanese shopping complex, the Yaohan Plaza opened in Colindale, North London, in 1993, also became a victim of the recession in that it is now under new nonJapanese ownership. It should also be pointed out that Mitzukoshi and Takashimaya are aimed more at Japanese tourists visiting London than the resident Japanese population – as was Sogo – and while the recession in Japan may have affected the number of Japanese tourists travelling overseas, fear of terrorism has also affected the numbers visiting London, along with the SARS outbreak in 2003–4. Japanese recruitment offices in London now advertise positions not just for non-Japanese local staff with Japanese language ability, but also for Japanese personnel. This indicates a change in work patterns and in the previous belief in reliance on lifelong employment with the same company. At least two husbands of interviewees changed their company as a result of their stay in the United Kingdom, and both moved to non-Japanese companies – one in the UK and one in Japan, and this illustrates a growing new trend.2 There are also Japanese estate agents in London dealing mainly with the letting and management of lets to Japanese and their families. There were fifteen separate Japanese estate agencies operating in London in the year 2000 and some of these had multiple branches, resulting in a total of twenty-six offices (White 2003: 87). The Japanese community in the UK is served by various clubs and organizations. The Nippon Club was formed in 1960 with the financial backing of Japanese banks and companies and caters for Japanese businessmen and their families in London, providing services such as a clinic at The Hospital of St John and Elizabeth in St Johns Wood and another in South London. Though focused on London, it also


27

supports the wider Japanese community throughout the UK. Informants in Telford and Cardiff told me that they visited London regularly to use these medical services. In addition, the Nippon Club sponsors both the Japanese school and the Japanese Saturday School in Acton as well as other cultural and sports activities within the Japanese community and the promotion of Anglo-Japanese relations. Membership is by annual payment at either individual or corporate level. There is also a Japanese Residents Association in the UK and numerous other clubs and groups, of which this book focuses on those catering for women. Nami no Kai is an association for Japanese women married to non-Japanese who have settled in the United Kingdom. The Eikoku Nihon Fujin Kai (Japanese Women’s Association in Great Britain) has just celebrated its fiftieth anniversary and has a strong link with Japanese companies, while groups such as the Eikoku Bunka Senta (British Culture Centre) organize cultural visits and activities for Japanese women, mainly around the capital, in order to promote understanding of British culture and society. The Nakoyoshi Kai (The Japanese Friendship Group) and Nichi-Ei Otomodachi Kai (Anglo-Japanese Friendship Group) are also groups for women, both for Japanese and non-Japanese members.3 One indication of the numbers of Japanese in London is the newspapers that are available. The Asahi Shimbun (Asahi Newspaper) is now printed in London, and there are other Japanese language newspapers specifically for the Japanese community. The Eikoku News Digest is available free in London, or on subscription elsewhere in the country. Until 2001 there was an additional free approximately twelve-page newspaper, the Nichi-Ei Times (Japan Anglo Times), which concentrated on events of interest to the Japanese population in the United Kingdom, as well as having classified and paid advertising. This was disbanded and the Eikoku News Digest was upgraded and improved at around the same time and a new glossy monthly magazine, called BR: Z, was launched which focuses on lifestyle in the UK, especially in London. Another new publication is ‘BaySpo’, a free weekly entertainment newspaper. All of these, however, have been somewhat superseded by internet publications such as ‘Internet Journal’ which has a comprehensive website (www.japanjournals.com) as well as a printed publication. At the bookshop of the Japan Centre in Piccadilly a wide range of Japanese language booklets and magazines can be found, with advice and help for living in the UK. In addition to the printed

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material above, Japanese satellite television can be received in certain areas. To date, Japanese TV can be accessed through cable in Westminster, London, and in Milton Keynes. It can be viewed in some other areas via satellite. More than one interviewee in Telford expressed the belief that living in London was no different than living in Tokyo, and the kind of infrastructure found especially in popular Japanese residential areas like Acton, indicates why that belief may be held. The educational needs of the Japanese community are also catered for. For those children who do not attend local state or independent schools, London has one full-time Japanese school (Nihonjin gakko) at Acton, as well as a Saturday school, known as a supplementary school (hoshuko). The Saturday school operates on three sites in the capital – Acton, Camden and Croydon.4 The Japanese school is a private school, largely funded by the Japanese Ministry of Education, with the deficit covered by the school fees. The head and senior teachers are recruited from Japan, usually on short-term contracts, and the Japanese school curriculum is followed closely. Education of their children while living in the UK or elsewhere overseas has been one of the major concerns for Japanese (White 1988; Conte-Helm 1989 and 1996; Kumagai 1996). It has been suggested that this worry is decreasing with the changing climate in Japan, and the increasing prestige of the opportunity to live abroad and speak English (Goodman 1990). The extent to which this is true for women and their children living in the UK will be demonstrated in Chapter 5. Telford also has a Saturday school for Japanese children. At the time of fieldwork, the school had eighty pupils, twenty short of the number required for funding from the Japanese Ministry of Education, and is, therefore, subsidized by the Midlands Japanese Association, whose membership consists of local Japanese businesses, though the Ministry of Education does provide all textbooks, as they would for children in Japan. The school provides another focal point for the Japanese community – most children attend, and a van selling food and other goods comes from London each week. This means that a wider Japanese community is formed than that based around individual factories, and in Telford most members of the Japanese community will recognize each other at least by sight, which is impossible in London. As in Telford, the Japanese Saturday School in Cardiff provides a central point for the Japanese community and in the same way is


29

supported by the Japanese companies in the area. A van selling Japanese foods visits the school from the same company – TK Trading. Just as in Telford, there is no other infrastructure aimed at the Japanese community, while in Plymouth there no infrastructure at all, and the only option for Japanese children in Plymouth is to attend local schools. The increase in infrastructure catering to the needs of Japanese women is well illustrated by recent changes in the constitution of Nichi-Ei Otomodachi Kai – the Anglo-Japanese Friendship Group mentioned earlier. When this group was formed in 1961 there was little or no infrastructure catering to Japanese women’s needs, and there were fewer fellow Japanese women to turn to for support. Each Japanese member was assigned a non-Japanese friend (otomodachi) to assist her in adjustment to British life. From the autumn of 2003 however, members of the group are no longer obliged to have one special tomodachi (friend) to whom they are assigned, though they may choose to do so. In addition to the increased infrastructure, this also reflects the fact that it is now easier and cheaper for women to take return flights to Japan than in the past throughout the transfer period. The community of Japanese women in the UK has become more self-sufficient and no longer needs the same kind of support as almost fifty years ago. SUMMARY This chapter has explained the process overseas transfer to the UK in the context of the history of manufacturing and financial institutions, and the subsequent growth in infrastructure serving the Japanese community that lives there. The focus of the following chapters is on Japanese wives who accompany their husbands on a UK assignment, beginning by examining what a husband’s overseas transfer to the UK means to contemporary middle-class Japanese wives. NOTES 1

2

In order to avoid presenting the idea of a homogenous Western culture in opposition to a homogenous Japanese one, care should be taken in using the term ‘Western’. See Goodman 1990:232; Hendry and Wah Wong 2006 and Martin 2006 in that volume. See Beck and Beck (1992) on employment patterns among Japan’s managerial elite from the 1980s, including the rise in job mobility.

30 3

4

The Japanese Housewife Overseas In January 2000, there were also some twenty-six clubs and organizations nationwide for Britons interested in Japan known to the Japanese Embassy, and this is not claimed to represent the total. The other Saturday schools (hoshugakko) in the UK include those in Cardiff, Derby, Telford, Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh and the North East of England, reflecting the location of Japanese companies.

4

What Overseas Transfer Means to Wives

T

his chapter explores what an overseas assignment to the UK means to Japanese wives, rather than what the process means to working husbands, which has been the focus of other studies to date. It begins with women’s reactions to the news of their husband’s transfer and, as well as their personal concerns about it. It also examines other factors of significance, such as the degree of help provided by a husband’s company, the standard of housing provided, the cost of living in the UK and the quality of family life, which all have a bearing on the overseas experience for women. WOMEN’S REACTIONS TO THEIR HUSBAND’S TRANSFER TO THE UK For many of my informants, their husband’s overseas transfer came as no surprise, particularly in the case for those whose husbands worked in banking, or for security houses and trading companies, especially in the 1980s when Japanese overseas expansion was at its height. For many this also reflected the fact that the husbands concerned tended to be high-calibre graduates of the best universities for whom overseas transfer was seen as the next step on the promotion ladder (Sakai 2000). Women who said that they were ‘surprised’ at the news of their husband’s transfer (bikkuri shimashita) tended to be younger women who had not expected their husband’s transfer so soon in his career, or those whose husbands worked for manufacturing companies (in Telford for example) where overseas transfer was not as commonplace

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as in financial institutions. Akiko explained that although her husband had told her that he might be transferred one day, she had not expected it to come when it did, three months after her wedding. She had to leave her new marital home with new things in it, many of them wedding presents. She lamented the fact that some of them, especially electrical goods, would be out of date by the time she returned to Japan. On the whole however, reactions were positive. The most common response to the question ‘How did you feel about your husband’s transfer?’ was that they were ‘happy’ or ‘delighted’ (ureshii). Another expression commonly used was ‘I felt positive about it’ (maemuki na kimochi) or that there were expectations or hopes for their husband’s new work placement (atarashii shokuba he no kitai o motte ita). The United Kingdom as a location was a prime reason for these responses. Companies grade countries according to their hardship level depending on whether they are considered as developed or undeveloped, and financial allowances are provided accordingly. For my female informants, transfer to the UK was seen as favourable compared to less-developed countries where their husband might have been posted. Kyoko told me, ‘My husband’s doki (contemporary) was sent to Africa at the same time we came here, so we felt very lucky.’ Shoko told me, ‘I cried, “banzai!” when my husband told me we had been posted to England.’ Since all Japanese study English at school in Japan, the prime reason for the attraction is the English language. There is also an image of the United Kingdom in many Japanese minds, which also makes it appealing. The image is of green scenery, red pillar boxes and double decker buses, Buckingham Palace and tales of Beatrix Potter, which is both popular and fashionable in Japan. Japanese tourists can be seen by the dozen in London’s Fortnum and Mason buying tea both for the fashion of the tea itself and the famous British brand. ‘Food from Britain’, the food and drink export marketing agency released figures in May 2002 showing how British cheese had become a fashionable ‘delicacy’ in Japan, and in that year Japan was among the top ten of buyers of British produce (www.foodfrombritain.com). This fashionable appeal certainly acts as an impetus for women in their desire to experience life in the UK. In the late 1980s and early 1990s it was said that there was a kind of symbolic kudos amongst Japanese banks related to being established in London (Sakai 2000) and my own research suggests that this feeling is shared by many women.


33

Perceived similarities between Japan and the United Kingdom are also part of the appeal. My informants commonly point out the similarities between the two countries, such as the fact that both are island nations with Royal and Imperial families. It is not insignificant that members of the latter have been educated at Oxford University. Women also mentioned the importance of tradition and ritual, of politeness and formality and the fact that both drive on the left side of the road (see also Conte-Helm 1996: 70). This last point is not insignificant for women who must drive their children to school while living in the UK, which, as will be discussed further in Chapter 6, is not normally a mother’s role in Japan For other women, a husband’s transfer to the UK gives them an opportunity that they had not thought would be possible after they married. Kelsky (2001) has written about the number of young Japanese women who have invested in study or work, or even in romance abroad and several of my informants had travelled overseas before marriage. These included Yukiko who had spent a month in London. She was delighted by her husband’s transfer to the UK having given up hope of such an experience after her wedding, and even more significantly, after having children. Similarly, Rie had spent one month in Gloucester living with a host family and, despite the fact that she had not expected the transfer to come when it did during the pregnancy of her second child, she was delighted at the chance to return. In such cases, a husband’s work transfer can provide women with a positive opportunity. Contrary to the image of the trailing spouse commonly associated with trailing expatriate wives in fact, a significant number of Japanese women interviewed actively sought overseas transfer for their husbands themselves. Many expressed the desire to travel, and, for the reasons explained above, specifically to England. Yuri said, ‘I had thought I would like to see what it was like to live in England and this was my chance’ (Igirisu ni sunde mitai to omotte ita no de chyansu dekita). Another informant with three young children described how she asked her husband to request an overseas transfer as a way of escaping, albeit temporarily, her life in Japan that was closely linked to helping in the family business of her parents-in-law. Another related factor making overseas transfer particularly attractive to these wives is the lack of real career opportunities for middleclass educated women in Japan. The difficulties facing such women, who typically give up work on becoming mothers and who find returning to the workplace after childbirth difficult, is clear. Firstly,

34


so-called ‘part-time work’ does not in fact mean that working hours are shorter. There seems to be no standard definition of ‘part-time worker’, and many part-time working women actually put in the same number of hours as those classed as full-time (see Brinton 1993: 36; Lam 1992: 56 and 1993; Matsunaga 2000: 20). What ‘part-time worker’ usually means in reality, however, is a worker who is excluded from the wage structure and from the long-term employment security and benefits that are generally applied to full-time regular workers (Lam 1992: 56). It is not uncommon for younger regular workers to be paid more and have more job security than older housewife parttimers, regardless of either the number of years served by the latter or the responsibilities assumed (see Matsunaga 2000). If part-time work actually means the same hours as full-time work, with the same hours of overtime, it is not, therefore, surprising that many university-educated women are not interested in returning to so-called ‘housewife part-time jobs’ (shufu pato) after having children (Sasagawa 2001). And yet, mothers know that if they do give up fulltime posts they will never be able to return to the workplace in the same position (ibid.). For educated women who see little career prospects, coupled with the attraction discussed above, a temporary overseas assignment opportunity provided by a husband’s job, I argue, is, therefore, especially attractive. Keiko for example, was newly married and bored with her job that had not changed in content for seven years. She saw her husband’s transfer as an opportunity to escape this mundane job in which she felt she had no prospects. In any case, she said, she expected to give up work in the foreseeable future to start a family. Akiko said that she had always envied her sister who was living in Singapore, and that for her being transferred overseas was ‘like a dream’. It was also a dream for Yuki who had a passion for English literature from childhood. Mrs Oi lived in Manchester in the 1990s with her husband leaving her grown-up children in Japan, and had given up her job as a teacher to accompany him. When I asked whether she did so for the sake of her husband’s job (go shujin no shigoto no tame?) she was emphatic that she did so for herself (iie – jibun no tame!). What is more, she added with glee, she really enjoyed it (watashi wa honto ni enjoy shimashita!) and this had clearly been her aim. It would be wrong to overlook those women, often above the age of forty and who had already had one or more spells overseas, and who, therefore, expressed the feeling, ‘Not again!’ (Mata ka. . . .?).


35

Such women said that their first reaction on hearing of the second, third or even fourth overseas assignment of their husband was ‘why me’ (nan yue . . . watashi ga). On the other hand, there is a significant group of women of this calibre who, having had at least one assignment abroad when their children were younger, now find themselves transferred to the UK when their children are grown up and independent. Without responsibility for children these women say that they enjoy the experience more this time round and since by now their husbands are at a higher, if not at the top level within the company, their accommodation is of a high standard and their financial and other allowances even greater. One woman who had just arrived in London for her husband’s second posting there and came back to visit us at Sakura Kai, of which she was a member the first time round and in which she planned to be active again. She was truly excited and animated at the prospect of being in London with her husband and without children to care for, and was determined to enjoy her stay. Despite the fact that women with children have concerns for their children’s education and language development to be discussed below, a significant number also considered that the transfer to the UK is also an opportunity for their children. Many saw it as a chance for their children to gain international experience and to improve their English and future job prospects. This attitude reflects an increased value attached to individuals with good English language ability and international experience in the workplace, which has also been illustrated in studies of returnee school children and Japanese graduates of overseas universities (Goodman 1990; Mori 2004). Many mothers expressed the belief, especially following the economic recession in Japan and changing attitudes towards life-long employment with one company, that their children’s future would benefit as a result in the long run and their reaction to the news of their husband’s job transfer reflected this. Whether this is true in practice will be addressed further in the Conclusion of this book. WOMEN’S CONCERNS ABOUT TRANSFER TO THE UK While this book argues that overseas transfer presents a positive and desirable opportunity for Japanese women, overseas living is of course, rarely without its crises. Even those women who expressed delight at the prospect had serious conerns that cannot be overlooked. Many

36


women admitted that on hearing of their husband’s jirei (the notification of the transfer) they were worried about everything to do with daily life (seikatsu subete). Difference in daily lifes, food, culture and custom was commonly cited (seikatsu.tabemono.bunka.shukan no chigai) as a primary concern. Akiko expressed this when she noted that her sisterin-law was envious of her lifestyle in London. ‘She thinks everyday is like a holiday for me,’ she told me. Clearly, from Akiko’s standpoint it was not. Women’s anxieties are largely linked to their housewife roles and depend also on their life stage, the significance of which has been well documented in the case of Japanese women (see Brinton 1992; Kumagai 1996: 21; Imamura 1987). Of the newly-married women interviewed who did not have children, Harumi was typical in saying that her fears were being homesick, leaving her parents, speaking English and general things such as driving and making friends. The latter is an important issue and will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 6. For middle-aged women with children the most commonly expressed and serious concern is the children’s education (kodomo no kyoiku). One initial worry is choosing the correct school for their child. Women went about doing this by talking to and often following the example of their predecessors, or by talking to GAPPITAS – an independent educational consultant company that specializes in private education. Mothers worry about the development of their child’s Japanese language while in the UK and falling behind in this (nihongo no okure), especially with the eventual return to Japan in mind. The worry is not just a matter of spoken Japanese but written language, since during the overseas stay the need to write Japanese kanji characters is less. They are thus easy to forget, and in fact this is a problem for women too, though they point out that in the age of computer and mobile phone use for e-mail and texting, it is not just an overseas stay that means that women do not write kanji on a regular basis. At the same time, mothers are concerned about the English language ability of their children and how they will cope in the classroom. As many women said, ‘I was worried that they would be behind in both languages.’ Yumi said, ‘My son can write a diary in English, but not in Japanese.’ There is also a concern that the Japanese spoken by their children might sound ‘strange’ when they return to Japan, or as some women said ‘like a foreigner’s Japanese’. Speaking Japanese ‘correctly’ is considered to be an important part of being accepted in Japanese society.


37

Several women said that their young children either insisted on talking English even when at home, or conversely refused to speak English at home when their mothers tried to do so in a bid to improve their language ability. Or, as Yumi continued, ‘I speak to my daughter in Japanese and she answers in English.’ On another occasion as our children hid from each other, she sighed, ‘My daughter only knows the English words “hide and seek”. She doesn’t even know what it is called in Japanese.’ Yumi expressed the concern of many of my informants, that for Japanese children to be successful kikokushijo (returnees) they must have both excellent English and Japanese. She spoke of a relation’s son whose English was not good enough for him to go to an American high school, at the same time another friend’s child’s Japanese sounded more like a foreigner’s Japanese when he returned to Japan. ‘Language’ (kotoba) or ‘Japanese language/mother tongue ability’ (gogaku ryoku) was commonly expressed by all women in interview as a primary concern, not just concerning their children’s abilities, but also their own. It is not just language that is a worry. As another informant explained, she was worried about ‘kyoiku no okure’. Literally this means that she was worried about her children ‘falling behind in education’, but in using kyoiku she said that she did not just simply mean education, but ‘training’, ‘culture’ or ‘upbringing’. The prime concern however, is examinations, which children must pass in order to be accepted into desirable high schools and then universities. Being away from Japan means that children may fall behind in the important preparation for such examinations. Women worry that their progress will lapse when they are not following the Japanese curriculum. This is frequently a prime factor for those women who enroll their children at one of the full-time Japanese schools in the UK. It also accounts for those who send their children back to Japan alone during the period of the assignment, or in some cases for mother and child to stay in Japan while the husband works in the UK. Mothers expressed other worries about the British education system – that their children would fall behind in mathematics (sugaku no okure), that discipline would be slack (kiritsu ga warui), and they were especially anxious about the infrequency of sports or exercise classes in comparison to Japan. Another prominent concern for women is the health of the family. Women worry about what will happen if their children are ill, about

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whether they will be able to get medicines available in Japan, and how they will convey medical problems to a doctor in English. This is a particular problem if a member of the family has a recognized condition, such as in the case of one mother whose child suffered from a skin complaint and worried about supplies of his regular medication. According to White, Japanese women living abroad have been known to delay treatment because of anxieties about communication, and she says that in Japan it is not customary for patients to be involved in their own treatment in terms of questioning their doctor’s diagnosis (1988: 74). White suggested that the advice of a foreign doctor is less likely to be taken as a directive than it would be in Japan (ibid.), and according to Vogel (1985) Japanese patients may not actually take the medication prescribed by a foreign doctor fearing that it is not appropriate for the Japanese physiology. How women deal with family health matters in the UK is discussed in the following chapter. For those women who own their own home in Japan, what happens to that home while they are away is troublesome. Some rent out their residence while they are away, as in the case of Sawako from Nara. Mrs Taniguchi from Kumamoto left hers in the care of her neighbours who checked it regularly, and a gardener came to take care of the garden. Sometimes the house is left in the care of relatives who check on it on a regular basis. As described earlier, a feature of salaryman households was that they typically moved to urban areas where the nuclear family lived in small urban apartments. This means that few of my informants living in London today share the family home with parents or parents-in-law in Japan, though the latter may live nearby if not with a sibling. For women who are commonly the carers in Japan, concern for parents or other relatives left behind in Japan, especially if they are elderly and living alone, is considerable. There are other problems related to housing. Younger women, especially those from urban areas in Japan are not usually in a financial position to own their own property. While this means that they do not have to worry about the maintenance of a property, they find themselves displaced without roots in their home country for their period of residence in the UK. When they then return on leave for short periods, they must stay with relatives or elsewhere. And, those women who live in company housing (shataku) on their return to Japan have to readjust to the relatively small space and lack of privacy compared to the British home, and learn to deal with the neighbourhood association again. Furthermore, they are often


39

obliged to move out of company housing into their own accommodation within a certain period after their repatriation. Throughout my fieldwork, I came across examples of misfortune suffered by women during their assignment to the UK. One had to return to Japan suddenly when her son was involved in a serious motorbike accident. Another with two young children spoke of her depression and her desperation during the winter months when her family suffered constantly from colds and viruses. She also had problems with her son at school, and was torn between the teacher who frequently complained about her son’s behaviour and complained that ‘he did not listen’, and loyalty to her son, who she knew as ‘a cheerful, outgoing child who really was trying his best’. Another mother was told that her child must be deaf because he did not seem to respond to English. The individual personality of women is of course a significant factor. Despite difficult times, one informant recognized that she was the sort of person who adapted well to life in London and to coping with adversity in general, and an article in Eikoku News Digest (15 June 2000) examined the way in which some women are adept at coping, while others tend to be defeated in situations. It concluded that this is largely due to the personality of individuals and also the extent of their support network in the form of friends. Recognizing this factor however, does not negate the problems involved. ALLOWANCES AND FINANCIAL BENEFITS PROVIDED BY HUSBAND’S COMPANY Japanese companies provide significant financial allowances and benefits, depending on the age and status of the employer transferred. Black, Gregerson, Mendenhall and Stroh (1999) outline fourteen different common allowances made by multinational companies for overseas transfer, acknowledging that their number and variation is nearly as large and varied as the firms providing them (ibid.: 182–90).1 Among these are Foreign Service Premiums, Hardship or Site Allowances, Cost of Living Allowances, Housing Allowances, Utility Allowances, Furnishing Allowances, Education Allowances, Home-Leave Allowances, Relocation Allowances, Restand-Relaxation Allowances, Medical Allowances, Car Allowances, Club Membership Allowances and Taxes (ibid.). Allowances mentioned by Japanese women in interview were referred to as kaigai kinmu teate (overseas service allowances) and include those provided

40


for rent, education, medical expenses, insurance, tax and moving expenses. In addition to rent, women said that some companies also paid for furniture and certain electrical goods within the home. Kyoko said that at her husband’s trading company allowances are paid at three levels depending on the posting. For America and Europe, the amount of benefit received is less, but the length of stay is generally longer. Hong Kong and Singapore are in the next bracket, followed by Africa, the Middle East and Soviet Union. A similar pattern is found in most Japanese companies. Some provide recreational trips to Europe from particularly undesirable sites (White 1988: 126). For trading companies, employees with families are sent to better posts but for longer periods, usually around five years, whereas posts in developing countries are usually for two to three years (ibid.: 149). I report those aspects that women talked about themselves in interview. What they said, or indeed did not say, is revealing. Women sometimes appear vague about the allowance or benefits they receive. This is partly due to the discrepancy between companies – women do not like to talk openly about it in front of other women, especially women from other companies, and especially if they feel that they are better off. This was evident on the occasion I referred to a particularly generous benefit given by a certain company to its workers during discussion with a group of women. The recipient, Yuri, became embarrassed as if she had wished I had not mentioned it in front of the others, even though they did know about it. One woman wrote in a questionnaire, ‘It’s a secret so I cannot write about it.’ On the other hand, vagueness is occasionally because wives really do not know the details, as one woman told me, ‘There are allowances, but I don’t know about them in detail’ (kuwashiku shiranai). Sometimes of course, this was a way of saying indirectly that they did not want to tell me, but this vagueness is in line with what Imamura found in asking housewives in urban Japan about their husband’s salary (1987: 81). How women manage their family finances while living in the UK has an important role, and one that is modified during their stay overseas will be discussed in Chapter 5. Homes are usually rented for the duration of the stay. In areas like Telford and Cardiff, however, there are cases where the company owns the house, which is then inherited by successors in the job. In other cases a home previously rented by a company member who has returned is taken on recommendation by his successor. In senior management, the company usually takes more responsibility for finding


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the suitable home, and for meeting the rental costs. In the case of many banks, successive managing directors will live in the same high quality accommodation, often at an exclusive address, in the same way that an ambassador lives in the ambassador’s residence.2 With rent (yachin), payment is usually assistance (hojo), but is occasionally paid in full. Some women reported that the company paid 90% of the cost, but this varies greatly. Another woman, for example, said that her husband’s bank paid 75% of the total. Yumi moved from one flat in London to a more expensive one in order to accommodate her growing family better, but had to make up the difference in rental cost allowed in accordance with her husband’s position herself. Women living in London considered their rent to be very high and, indeed, a 2006 survey indicated that rent in London was the highest in the world (UBS 2006). Outside the capital, in Telford in particular, the low level of rent was commonly cited as a good feature of their home in the UK but one woman was paying £4,500–£5,000 per month for her five-bedroom house in Richmond, London. (Since her husband was very senior however, it is likely that the company paid the full amount.) Hampstead is a similarly expensive area where the typical rental cost of a two-bedroomed flat is £280 per week and a four-bedroomed furnished maisonette £600 per week (Ham & High newspaper 16 May 2003). The actual purchase cost of a four bedroomed house can easily be well in excess of one million pounds (ibid.). Such areas are only usually accessible to upper management. In most cases of course, the amount of allowance received relates to the position of the husband. This presents difficulties for those younger Japanese women with children of school age in Hampstead, whose husbands were therefore lower ranking, and therefore prevented financially from choosing accommodation in the expensive centre of Hampstead Village itself. Instead, they tend to rent in areas such as Golders Green or Hendon, for a larger house with a garden suitable for children and in their price range. In Telford however, a new four-bedroom house in Leegomery, one of the areas around a Japanese factory where Japanese families often live, can be bought for £160,000–£190,000 and rent is accordingly lower – estate agents estimate that, on a nationwide basis, rent should be calculated as 6% of the property value. Assistance with education fees (kyoiku hi) is also generally available, but not often paid fully in the case of expensive private education. Some women reported that the company paid 80% of school

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fees, but this varies greatly. The varying policy of different companies is especially clear in Telford. The children of managers from Denso – a manufacturer of air conditioners and the largest Japanese company in Telford – live in or around Leegomery close to the factory and tend to attend the local state school, whereas managers of other factories favour private schools for their children. Medical assistance is generous and women are well supported in this. Akiko said that her husband’s bank paid 75% of the medical costs when she had her second child in hospital. With regard to other financial support, some women reported that the company paid for English lessons for them, and gave financial assistance for language learning. Another company provided generous allowances for purchasing Japanese goods, especially foodstuff on the internet, and also for Japanese books. The goods are purchased at Japanese prices and the company pays for the postage from Japan. One company paid an allowance of 75,000 yen per year for this, which is significant in that it is the cost of Japanese goods (i.e., those goods which, as mentioned above, women consider as essential to their lives) that was mentioned as contributing to the high cost of living in the UK. Flights home are another form of benefit. The number of flights paid for by the company depends on the amount of time spent abroad. Flights are normally paid for once every two years for a posting of up to six years, and once a year after that. The Japanese airlines JAL (Japan Airlines) and ANA (All Nippon Airlines) have additional sato gaeri3 and kikoku sabisu schemes, which allow Japanese temporary residents in the UK special rates for fares, and there are also clubs and schemes run by these airlines. This is actually in the interest of the airlines since competition is fierce. The airlines are constantly competing with each other by introducing night-time flights and more comfortable seating, such as JAL’s ‘shell flat seat’ and the ‘skyluxe seat’. A bulletin from ANA for 1 May to 29 June 2003 offered incentive packages such as a free overnight stay in a hotel before a flight from London or upon arrival in Japan, shop gift vouchers and chauffeured limousine service. For Japanese families not resident in London the cost of overnight accommodation close to an airport can add considerable expense to a journey to Japan. Several women mentioned that the company paid their tax. They were, however, vague on this, which is not surprising in view of the complexity of the issue (see Black, Gregerson, Mendenhall and Stroh 1999: 189–90). As well as depending on the company and on the husband’s position within it, the difference in benefits received


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depends on location in the UK. In Telford, for example, women mentioned that the company provided an allowance for a car, and in Cardiff also, a company car is often provided. In both areas, in fact, a car could be said to be essential both in general for family purposes and, for the husband, in commuting to work. There is no doubt that the allowances families receive make a huge difference to the quality of their life and stay overseas. They also result in the image held by compatriots in Japan of expatriate housewives who spend most of their time having lunch out with their friends and shopping. For women intent on providing comforts of a home environment overseas however, such allowances are essential. They allow women to purchase Japanese food and other goods that they consider essential in maintaining the traditions of a Japanese home environment, but which are expensive to buy in the UK. When Sumiko’s husband quit his job for a Japanese company and took one with a non-Japanese firm in London he lost the generous benefits received and had to face the expense of living in London independently. She said that it was also especially difficult to meet the expense of their daughter’s private education fees, which had previously been subsidized by his Japanese company. As well as enabling women to provide Japanese goods for their families, and hence a point of reference to Japan, financial allowances also permit women to enjoy their lives to the full in other ways. Mrs Kamakura made the most of the benefits she received to attend the best concerts in London even though she lived in Manchester. This was a great thrill for her as a music lover, and she attended musical events that she could only dream of if she was in Japan. In Japan, she was deterred by the cost of the ticket, and by the fact that she lived in Nara, some 200 kilometres and an expensive shinkansen (bullet train) train journey away from Tokyo. Being a Japanese resident in Manchester however, made distances seem immaterial, even though the distance between Manchester and London (some 260 kilometres) is actually greater than that between Nara and Tokyo, and she was determined to make the most of the opportunity while she could afford it and was able. In this sense, the transient nature of the stay and having the finances to do so gives a feeling of making the most of the opportunity provided by an overseas assignment while it lasts. In this way, the overseas transfer may be thought of as a kind of liminoid experience – a term suggested by the Turners (1978) based on van Gannep’s characteristics of rites of passage, where rites of separation from the mundane world lead into

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a place and/or period of liminality before incorporation into a new stage of life (Hendry 2000: 89). This is an important theme that arose over and again throughout fieldwork. The assignment period has also been referred to elsewhere as ‘a holiday’ (Kurotani 2005). The lack of an appropriate reciprocal visa agreement between Japan and the UK means that it is not possible for wives accompanying their husband on an overseas assignment to obtain paid work. One limiting aspect about receiving financial benefits, however, is the suggestion that they emphasize an obligation to the husband’s company and contribute to the belief that that wives should not take paid work outside the home, even if they want to. PRACTICAL ASSISTANCE FROM JAPANESE COMPANIES Japanese companies then, provide generous financial support to families living in the UK, which makes family life overseas more comfortable. But to what degree do companies provide practical and moral support to wives? When I asked women what help was given to them by their husband’s company in preparing to come to the UK, the universal response was, ‘There was nothing in particular’ (toku ni nashi). Many women mentioned attending seminars held by Japan Airlines (JAL) or All Nippon Airlines (ANA) on ‘Life overseas’ (JAL no kaigai seikatsu semina ni ikimashita), or so called ‘explanation meetings’ at the company (setsumei kai) or ‘women’s study meetings’ (fujin kenkyuu kai). Such meetings, however, do not seem to tell housewives what they really want to know, which is practical advice for their dayto-day lives. The best help given to women is clearly the advice of other women who have had the experience of living abroad in the same country. Most companies arrange gatherings for wives, typically once or twice a year. Whether such meetings constitute support, however, is actually doubtful. In fact, they can add to the stress in women’s lives. This was described well by Mrs Honda (in her early sixties) with regard to her experience in London in the 1970s: A stressful thing for me at that time was the strict hierarchy in my husband’s bank amongst the wives. The seating arrangements were very strict depending on who was the wife of whom. When the managing director’s wife left the room we other wives had to stand and clap until she reached her car that was waiting for her outside.


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When we first went to London at the age of twenty-eight my husband was the youngest man, which made me the lowest wife!

Shoko (age thirty-five) confirmed that she encountered a similar situation in London in the early 1990s, where as the wife of one of the most junior members of staff she was required to sit at the back of the room. This never occurred in Tokyo, and she said that she sometimes felt that in London women were required to act ‘more Japanese than in Japan’. It would seem, however, that women are beginning to protest at such meetings and that there has been a change in this policy, especially in some banks. Akiko told me that her husband’s bank had stopped meetings for wives since some women had begun to express discomfort at the attention paid to hierarchy. A diplomat’s wife in London told me about changes in wives’ attitudes that she had noticed during her husband’s career. When her husband was a junior diplomat wives were expected to help as required at functions and events whenever required and however inconvenient, but nowadays women are not afraid to say, ‘I cannot help unless you pay for a babysitter.’ Mrs Honda described the following contrasting common occurrence in London over thirty-five years ago: When the head of the branch was moving house or had a party we wives had to drop everything to help. That was difficult if you didn’t have a babysitter. And then, on New Year’s Day, a hundred people from the branch had a party, which we had to help prepare and we all had to wear a kimono. It was an obligation (gimu).

An incident described by my informants illustrates the lack of support provided by Japanese companies to wives and how they were forced to review their actions. A Japanese wife in London complained to her husband that she did not feel well. He felt unable to take time off work to assist her, according to normal behaviour and pressure within his Japanese company. When his wife died suddenly as a result of her illness, shock waves went around the Japanese community and around Japanese companies themselves. The husband’s company initiated a new policy stating that a husband should take time off in the event of a wife’s illness, and other Japanese companies followed suit. In general, however, it is true to say that apart from financial benefits, women neither receive nor expect to receive significant practical

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help from their husband’s company during the overseas assignment. The greatest support comes from the network of friends that women make in the UK and providing this support to others is in fact an important function of company wives during the overseas transfer process. WOMEN’S PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR HOUSING IN THE UK In comparing housing in Japan with temporary houses in the UK, two factors are of significance. One is location, both of the home in Japan and that in the UK. The second is the age of the woman in terms of how it reflects the position of her husband within the company and therefore the standard of accommodation provided. As discussed in Chapter 2, the families of ‘salarymen’ commonly moved into 2DK apartments in urban areas following the Second World War. The wife of a junior company member may live in company housing (shataku) of this size in Japan, but she will usually move to larger privately rented or owned accommodation as her husband is promoted. For example, one of my informants whose husband was head of his company’s London branch now lives in a 4LDK apartment of 100 square metres in Tokyo – four bedrooms, one living room (L), a dining room and kitchen. This is large by Tokyo standards, but in the UK she lived in a five-bedroom house, opposite Richmond Park, West London. Unlike most employees of banks or financial institutions who tend to live in or around Tokyo, the families of husbands engaged in manufacturing do not always reside in urban areas in Japan. One Japanese manufacturing company in Telford has its headquarters in Nagoya, and although this is an industrial city, many of the wives I interviewed lived in a relatively rural area near to this main city, where accommodation is typically larger. This is especially true when women live in extended households with parents-in-law. An informant in Telford, where the emphasis is on manufacturing, told me, ‘In general, English homes are bigger, but because I lived in the country with my parents-in-law, my house was actually bigger in Japan.’ A common response however, was that housing in the UK was big (ookii) and spacious (hiroi) compared to Japan, especially those who had moved from a small urban area apartment in Japan. One informant told me that her London home was about one and a half or two times larger than their home in Japan. The facility of the garden is


47

also mentioned frequently, as Mrs Morii wrote in a questionnaire, ‘When I first saw the garden and the size of the house it was like a dream’ (niwa mo ie mo hirokute hajimete mita toki yume no you na ki ga shimashita). In contrast to women in London, all of my informants in Telford enjoyed living in a newly-built three- or four-bedroom house with garden on a modern housing estate, and informants in both Cardiff and Plymouth also lived in similar accommodation. In London, however, unless they move further out into the (less expensive) suburbs, wives of junior or middle managers tend to live in apartments. The fact that British houses are often carpeted throughout was seen partly as comfortable, but partly as a nuisance since it meant that women had to be concerned with its cleanliness. In relation to this, they lament the lack of an area, known as the genkan in Japanese, where shoes are taken off before entering the house. No Japanese person would dream of entering the home in shoes that are ‘polluted’ with the outside world. One mother told me how she had asked the landlord if she could change the carpet since, although she had had it cleaned, the previous owners had not taken their shoes off. Systems of classification associated with ideas of dirt and cleanliness are, of course, held deeply in all cultures (Douglas 1970), and in Japan the distinction is conveyed by uchi and soto, or literally inside and outside. Uchi is commonly associated with the clean inside of the house, while soto is associated with the dirty outside world (Hendry 2003: 47). An indication of the importance of removing shoes, which children learn from a very young age in Japan, was illustrated to me when I was alerted to the presence of a vagrant in my Nara apartment by his shoes that were left neatly outside the window entrance. Some women, while commenting on the size of the house, also mentioned the fact that the increase in size compared to Japan could also equate to an increase in housework for its maintenance, and this is especially of concern when that house is rented. Landlords carry out strict inventories, and women find that keeping the house in order is an onerous responsibility. Wives play a vital role in packing the house on departure for Japan, in checking the inventory with the landlord and cleaning the home. This is especially important since in many cases the husband returns to Japan to take up his new post before this is done, leaving the wife to do it, often with the assistance of friends. Women often said that their British home is more ‘comfortable’ (kaiteki) than in Japan, but that is not to say that they are always thrilled with its facilities. The kitchen was frequently mentioned as

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being too small, or inconvenient. Windows and taps were also mentioned as being substandard, drafty or leaking, by Japanese standards. The central heating system in new British homes was commonly mentioned as superior to the system of heating in Japan and women were also surprised to have more than one bathroom in the house. However, the bath and plumbing was commonly cited as inadequate for Japanese bathing habits (see Clark 1994). Japanese women typically favour what they call ‘newness’, and often complained that in London the only housing available was old (furui). The role of wives in creating a comfortable home environment for the family during the assignment to the UK is discussed in Chapter 5. WOMEN’S PERCEPTIONS OF THE COST OF LIVING During the period of my initial fieldwork, London was rated the tenth most expensive city in the world (Mercer Human Resources (www.mercerhr.com), reported in The Times, 9 July 2002), and in 2006 along with Copenhagen and Oslo, London joined Tokyo in being the world’s most expensive cities in relation to a standardized basket of 122 goods and services (UBS 2006). As already indicated, however, surveys showed that when the cost of housing is included, London is particularly expensive (ibid.). The perceived cost of living is largely dependent, of course, on the exchange rate. As one woman said, ‘When we came to the UK in 1997 I thought that England was cheaper but now, except for food, I think a lot of things are a lot cheaper in Japan.’ Most agreed that the cost of fruit and vegetables, dairy goods and bread is less in the UK and clothing such as shoes were also quoted as cheaper, but what often makes the cost of living seem higher in the UK is the high price of imported goods from Japan, particularly food, which are essential to daily life partly because they provide an important link with Japan and to a large extent account for the necessity of allowances provided by companies. Other items that are considered expensive by women are paper goods, such as toilet paper and tissues, which are handed out free of charge at train stations and public places throughout Japan, and also stationery. Petrol is considered expensive, as are cleaning materials/ chemicals and photographic developing, recently somewhat superseded, however, in the digital camera age. There are items, however, the relatively low cost of which help to make the standard of life better. Despite the fact that British train


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fares have been singled out as being expensive compared to those in other countries (UBS 2006), several women said that they thought that ‘transport costs’ (kotsu hi), such as bus and train fares, were cheaper, making travel of all kinds easier, which is surprising to British people who experience constant poor service and lack of punctuality on British trains. Another item frequently mentioned is the cost of theatre tickets. The high cost of opera, ballet and musical tickets in Japan makes them an even greater luxury than they are in the UK, and Japanese women have said that they cannot believe the relatively cheap price of going to the Royal Opera House, even when it may cost over £80 for a ballet ticket. In addition, the wives of some senior managers are quite routinely given the chance to attend such events as part of the client entertainment package of their husband’s company. In Japan, accompanying a husband to such an event, even at this level of management, would be rare, but this can be one of the perks of the new social role such women find themselves in. Women did not feel that they had to be resident in London to benefit from musical, theatrical or similar events. First, there are excellent regional theatre and concert halls that attract big names, and for which the tickets can be even cheaper than London. Second, the research showed that the fact that a woman did not live in the capital did not prevent her from taking advantage of the theatrical, musical and cultural opportunities available there. Mrs Kamakura who lived in Manchester used her allowances to go to concerts in London. Once living overseas, distances seem immaterial, and women are determined to make the most of opportunities while they can afford it and while they are able to do so. The temporary nature of the stay – a defining feature of an overseas transfer assignment – gives a feeling of making the most of the situation while it lasts. QUALITY OF FAMILY LIFE One of the aims of financial allowances provided by companies is to keep the standard of living constant before, during and after the international assignment (Black, Gregerson, Mendenhall and Stroh 1999). There are other significant factors, however, that improve the standard of living for Japanese women while resident in the UK that are perhaps surprising benefits of the overseas transfer process for Japanese women. One of these is the chance to spend more time with husbands, particularly for travel, and the increased involvement of fathers in family life. This is significant when compared to the norms

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discussed above, whereby spouses in Japan have tended to live relatively separate lives. A newly-married woman in Telford said: I was looking forward to the great experience of being able to live abroad. Since we do not have children yet and have the freedom to do so, I began to look forward to being able to spend more time with my husband visiting places in England.

For middle-aged married women with children, the increased involvement of fathers in their children’s education is also significant, and will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 6. Fathers find that they have more time to spend with their family at weekends, sometimes in the evenings, and more importantly in taking holidays from work to go travelling as a family much more than would be possible in Japan. When asked whether they had more time together in the UK, one questionnaire response was: We get more time together here because he comes home before the children have gone to bed, and the time that the children have to talk to him has increased.

Many women expressed this last point as an important benefit of their stay overseas. The fact that husbands are able to spend more time with the family does not mean that fathers do not work long hours while posted in the UK – on the contrary, many wives said that their husbands worked longer hours. Some said that their husbands worked less even though they were working eleven to thirteen and a half hours a day. Others said that their husbands worked less, but they actually still worked an eight-hour day, which would not be considered particularly short by British standards. Commuting time may be less, and especially outside London, there is less opportunity for socializing with colleagues after work or for client entertainment (settai). A common response in both interview and questionnaire was, ‘We do not get a lot of chance to spend time together on ordinary weekdays, but at weekends we do.’ There is a difference to be noted in the experience of living in London to outside the capital in this respect. An opinion commonly expressed by women, was that living in London was little different from living in Tokyo. Akiko told me of her unpleasant surprise when her husband, a banker, was transferred from Switzerland to the London Branch:


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I never imagined that working in London would be like working in Tokyo but it is. My husband goes to work from early in the morning to 11 p.m. and after that he is out doing settai. He does the same now as he did in Tokyo. It was very different when we were in Switzerland. There were few bars there and he would often be home by 7 p.m. Also, in Switzerland he would often take four days holiday and we would go off, but not in London. We can now only take a holiday once a year. Even when my son was born he said that he could not take a day off because there was no one else at the bank. After seven months, one of his colleagues did not even know I was pregnant.

This was an experience echoed by Keiko when her husband moved from Telford in the UK to the main office in London, ‘He leaves home at 8.15 a.m. and gets back at 10 or 11 p.m. It was not like this in Telford.’ Due to the number of Japanese bars and restaurants in London, there is still plenty of opportunity for drinking and socializing after work hours, and a husband may return home as late as he would in Japan. Outside London, in Telford, Cardiff or Manchester for example, there are few or no such provisions. In addition, while in London there is a strong emphasis on financial institutions, in Telford the emphasis is on manufacturing. Japanese managers in Telford commonly live close to their factory. This means that commuting time is certainly less. It may also mean, however, that husbands are able to return home for meals that they would not expect their wives to prepare in Japan, and that they may return to the factory to work, even in the evening. In addition, when there was no provision for drinking outside the home in Cardiff, and also in Manchester, women said that they often mixed with her husband’s colleagues in the home instead. This not only meant that they were spending the time with their husbands, but is also significant in that entertaining at home is not as common in Japan as in Europe, providing women with an additional housewife role during the assignment. As well as location in the UK, another factor affecting the amount of time that a father is able to spend with his family is his position within the company. Surprisingly, informants who said that they saw little of their husbands were the wives of those holding very senior positions; one, for example, was the head of the European branch of his company. In Japan, it is usually the less senior members of staff who are seen to work the hardest on the way to promotion. The

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position of the head of the European branch, however, meant that he was frequently away travelling all over the continent, or was required to represent the European branch in Tokyo, while his wife remained in London. In addition, as mentioned in the case of Akiko above, Japanese bankers in London frequently work long hours as they do in Japan, and especially as a result of the economic recession and particular problems that have faced the financial sector in Japan. The time difference between Japan and the UK also often means that bankers need to stay in the office in order to communicate with colleagues in Tokyo. One area that all women agree on is the fact that husbands certainly take more holidays than they would in Japan. Apart from some bankers working in London as mentioned, women commonly cited the fact that their husbands feel able take a holiday in both summer and wintertime, corresponding to British school summer holidays and to the Christmas holidays. This is significant when taking into consideration that fact that in Japan it would be rare for a salaryman to take a holiday outside one of the designated national holiday periods that include New Year and ‘Golden Week’, a series of national holidays in May or an overnight trip to a hot spring resort over a Bank Holiday. Peer pressure and expectation would make this extremely difficult. What is more, travel during these periods in Japan is expensive and resorts are crowded. Japanese workers in the UK, however, frequently take up the opportunity for holiday and commonly spend it travelling with their family in the UK, or even more popular, visiting other European countries. This reflects the fact that families believe they must make the most of the opportunity of being in the UK to visit places that are both beyond easy reach from Japan and expensive to visit in terms of plane fare. For younger women without children, the increased time together on holidays allowed them to travel even more easily in Europe. Such women in Telford regaled me with tales of new European cities they had visited each time we met. At weekends, young couples frequently socialized together, meeting not only in each others homes for nabe parties,4 but taking trips, such as to Liverpool on a ‘Beatles Tour’. As one of them said, ‘Because I do not have children I can be carefree (nonbiri).’ Mrs Kikunaga, who is now in her sixties, lived in Manchester in the 1990s and did not have children. She also said that she enjoyed the chance to do things as a couple while living in the UK. At weekends, she and her husband came to an arrangement, whereby he would


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have one day to himself for golf, and one day that they would spend together. She added that, while in Japan women like to be on their own without their husband, while living abroad this was more difficult, especially in her case since she did not have children to occupy her time. Mrs Kojima spoke about how she tried to continue the family time when she returned to Japan: My husband discovered that spending time with the family was a pleasure even for him. If he had time now – if his job allowed it – he would like to attend school events and so on. In that respect he changed. Our relationship changed in terms of how much time we spent together. In Japan, I would go and visit friends and my husband would do whatever he was doing, but in the UK, if I said, ‘I am going to a friend’s’ he’d say, ‘Oh, I’ll come with you.’

The situation described above contrasts with the experience of an informant living in London in the 1970s. Mrs Honda, who at that time was the wife of a junior banker, told me: In the 1970s, Japan was increasing its power. Salarymen were referred to as ‘soldiers’ (kigyo senshi) and their role was considered very important, especially if they were abroad. So, I was a ‘mother and child family’ (boshikatei) and my husband just earned the money. My husband’s life and work in the UK was almost the same as in Japan, although I did hear him say that he had problems with language at first. But, for me, my life was very different. In Japan I had close family and friends who would listen to me and who I could talk to.

SUMMARY This chapter has discussed the overseas transfer process in terms of the viewpoint of wives rather than that of their husband’s career, his company or the Japanese economy. It has discussed women’s concerns about the assignment, many of which are closely linked to their housewife roles. The chapter has also outlined financial benefits provided by a husband’s company but highlights the lack of practical support received. Women’s perceptions of their housing in the UK, the cost of living and the quality of family life experienced during the transfer have been discussed. The following two chapters, will

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concentrate on Japanese women’s roles when accompanying their husbands to the UK, showing their importance during the overseas transfer process, how they are modified during the assignment and how at the same time, attitudes towards them are changing in contemporary Japan. NOTES 1

2

3

4

See Wiltshire (1995) for an overview of allowances given by companies for transfer within Japan. A female colleague at the London branch of a Japanese bank was surprised one day to receive a call in the office from ‘the chandelier cleaner’ of the general manager’s central London residence. Here, sato gaeri means ‘return home’, i.e. to Japan. Literally, sato means one’s parents’ home or the place from which you originate, and gaeri means to return. The term refers to a bride’s first visit after marriage to her old (parents’) home, and there is a great deal of nostalgia linked to its usage. Kikoku saabisu means a service for Japanese returning to Japan, in this case for a short stay. Nabe means pot and here refers to a dish served in one pot that is eaten communally.

5

Japanese Housewives’ Roles in the UK: Caring for the Family and Maintaining Links with Japan

P

roviding a home environment, which becomes an important point of reference to Japan, and taking care of the health of the family were unanimously considered to be the most important roles in accompanying a husband to the UK by my informants. Further important roles carried out by housewives in Japan include managing the household budget, maintaining good relations with family and friends and, in relation to the company, managing the husband’s personal and business relationships by gift-giving and sending nengajo (New Year cards). Taking care of elderly parents is also a role that befalls women. How women carry out these tasks while resident in the UK, however, indicates not only changes brought about as a result of the overseas transfer assignment, but also changes taking place in contemporary Japan. WOMEN’S PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR HOUSEWIFE ROLE WHILE LIVING IN THE UK No women interviewed for this research undertook paid work outside the home in the UK, as discussed in the Introduction. When I asked women in questionnaire and interview what their work was in the UK, some wrote ‘none’, but the majority replied ‘housewife’ (shufu) or ‘full-time housewife’ (sengyo shufu). Two informants were engaged in post-graduate study but they also had to balance their duties as a housewife with their studies.

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When asked in questionnaire, ‘If you are a housewife now, what kind of work does that involve (housework, childcare, etc.)?’ the following were given as tasks while living in the UK: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Housework (kaji) or general overall housework (kaji zenpan) Washing (sentaku) Cleaning (soji) Washing up (sara o arau) Cooking (shokuji) Preparing family lunch boxes (bento o tsukuru), Shopping (kaimono) Gardening (gadeningu) Taking care of the property (fudosan kanri) Decorating the home (ie no decoreshiyon) Taking care of husband’s and family health (shujin ya kazoku no kenko kanri) Providing a home environment (seikatsu kankyo eru) Associating with neighbours (kinjo no otsukiai) Childcare (ikuji) Taking children to school (kodomo no gakko no sogei) Taking children to music, gym, ballet, etc. (kodomo no narai koto no sogei) Associating with people from husband’s company (shujin no kaisha no kata to no tsukiai) Taking care of the family budget (kaji no kateikeizai no kanri).

With two exceptions, they are roles that are carried out by housewives in Japan. The exceptions are taking children to school and to out-of-school activities such as music lessons, gym or ballet, and this will be explained in Chapter 6. According to the 2001 Sociological Survey, the average amount of time per day spent on housework and childcare in Japan over a oneweek period is five hours two minutes (http://www.stat.go.jp/data/ shakai/2001/shousai/yoyaku.htm).1 Japanese women living in the UK said that they spent between six to ten hours a day on housewife tasks, but this depended on whether they had children. Women without the responsibility of children to care for said in fact that they did as little as two hours, mainly on domestic tasks such as cooking and washing up. Some claimed to spend longer on housewife tasks in the UK than they would in Japan. For those with children, an important cause

Caring for the Family and Maintaining Links with Japan

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of the increase of time spent on housewife duties per day was the ‘school run’ – i.e. taking children to and from school, often by car – and taking children to other events. In most areas of Japan children not only go to school in their neighbourhood, meaning that a car is not required, but they do so by themselves. In Cardiff, one woman reported that the school run added three hours a day to her work each school week. Women who had repatriated after an assignment in London, said that one of the most difficult things to get used to on their return was that their children walked home from school by themselves. Not only this, but they often called in at friends’ houses on their way home. Yukiko, who had been in London for six years and whose son had spent all of his school life in the UK, said that for the first few weeks she watched nervously through the curtains to see if her son was returning safely. Though a difficult adjustment at first, she eventually found a degree of freedom and free time that had not been available in London. The role of the ‘school run’ in the UK will be discussed further in Chapter 6. Another explanation for increased time on housewife duties compared to Japan is when the home in the UK is bigger than that in Japan, meaning that domestic chores take longer. In addition, women often need to spend longer buying, preparing and cooking Japanese meals that they would be able to buy ready-made in Japan. Mrs Ito said that she spent more time making the evening meal each day in Telford, because of the foods she had to make from scratch that would be packaged ready to use in Japan. Japanese women commonly spend longer on the chore of washing up than their British counterparts. In serving a Japanese meal, several individual serving dishes are commonly used per person, and my informants reported that they prefer to wash these by hand, taking particular care over the rinsing process. Several women in Telford told me that they preferred not to use a dishwasher, even if they had one. Older women said that they actually enjoyed some of the tasks, in particular cooking. They considered that to some extent their work was easy (raku) in comparison to in Japan, especially when the children were not living with them and they were living alone as husband and wife (fufu de). Young women without children also felt that they did not actually have much to do in terms of domestic housework, as one woman said, ‘apart from cleaning, washing and preparing food, I hardly do

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any housework’. When asked further about her role as a housewife she said: Since I do not have any children, I go out shopping with friends, go out to eat, go to English lessons twice a week, flower arrangement once a week and decoupage with friends once a week.

Women do not talk of domestic roles such as cleaning, washing and other housework as being important or of priority. Roles associated with childcare therefore constitute the greatest work load, and when there are no dependent children women are somewhat freer to enjoy themselves even more. A significant feature of the lives of Japanese women in the UK is that, with the exception of wives of senior management, they rarely have paid help in the home. While the wives of senior management in London may employ a cleaner, none of my middle-aged informants with young children did. Calling on the services of a babysitter is also rare amongst Japanese women. Babysitters are occasionally used when attending evening social functions, especially those related to a husband’s company, but not for the mother’s respite during the day. Very few of the women interviewed for this research said that they used a babysitter even in the evening, though recent editions of the Eikoku News Digest seem to show an increase in personal advertisements for the services of childminders. Instead of paying babysitters, women typically help each other with childcare by looking after each other’s children when needed. The 2001 Sociological Survey indicated that the amount of time spent on housework and childcare by husbands in Japan is an average of thirty-six minutes per day (http://www.stat.go.jp/data/shakai/ 2001/shousai/yoyaku.htm). The question, ‘Does your husband help in the home while living in the UK?’ generated answers ranging from a definite ‘no’ to ‘practically not’ (hotondo ‘no’), ‘sometimes’ (tokidoki), ‘a little’ (sukoshi), ‘a little at weekends or holidays’(shumatsu, kyujitsu sukoshi) or ‘He does some shopping’ (kaimono). The most common form of ‘help’ seems to be with the garden, though ironically gardening seems to be an area where women do sometimes pay for assistance while living in the UK. A common answer was, ‘My husband is very traditional.’ Akiko said that her husband never helped, and that she sometimes envied European and American women, but that she had grown up with the Japanese way and had got used to it. ‘It was the same with my father,’ she sighed. There have been moves to encourage


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paternal involvement in family life in Japan, which will be discussed further in Chapter 6. Living in the UK does, however, provide opportunities for husbands to contribute more with childcare than in Japan. The fact that some husbands come home from work earlier means, as already mentioned, that they are sometimes able to spend time with the children in the evening or put them to bed, which women said rarely happens in Japan, even if the father is home in time to do so. Kyoko was the envy of other Japanese mothers in the way that her husband helped by taking their son to school after their second child was born. When I asked if he would have done this in Japan she laughed and said no and that it would not have been possible, partly since it meant her husband arriving at work late each day, which would be frowned upon in the Japanese workplace. In any case, as already mentioned above, in Japan children generally make their way to school without parent’s help. CREATING A HOME ENVIRONMENT BY MAINTAINING TRADITIONS OF THE HOME COUNTRY As mentioned above, housework tasks such as cleaning, washing and such are not spoken about by women as being a priority. What they do consider vital, however, is providing a home environment for the family, and looking after the family’s health. These roles are in fact vital in providing for the welfare of the ‘company man’ during the overseas transfer process. Informants in Telford spoke of Japanese men who are tanshinfunin that is, living and working in Telford alone without the support of wife and children. Such men they said often lived in hotels and ate Chinese takeaway food every day, and were described as kawaiso (pitiable). Clearly, the home environment that women provide when they accompany their husbands is considered a vital female role. One reason that the home environment is so important is the point of reference it provides to Japan. Akiko, whose husband was a banker in London, said that she felt her husband could do just as well without her in London. He could have his dry-cleaning done, eat at Japanese restaurants and go to Japanese bars. At weekends, however, he only wanted to have the Japanese food that Akiko had prepared for him, and never wanted to go anywhere after a busy working week and her presence in this way was clearly an advantage. Even in the case of salarymen in London who have a huge infrastructure catering to their

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needs, a wife’s role in creating a good home environment for him and their children is considered important – by her husband and also implicitly by his bank, his Japanese (male) colleagues and the community of wives. Providing nourishing meals for the family is an especially important task, which is taken seriously by women in Japan. A meal should ideally include miso soup, rice and three vegetables (isshu san sai) and one that included tastes from both land and sea – san kai no aji (literally ‘the taste of the mountains and the sea’) is especially appreciated. Presentation and even calorific content of food is important (see Allison 1996b). A wife takes cooking for her children seriously, with specialist cookbooks available, for example on food for students during examination time (Imamura 1987: 20). Food shopping in Japan is usually a daily affair, often with a social element attached. Hendry (1993) described how in the 1980s the housewife would make sure she was suitably attired for anyone from the neighbourhood she should meet. A young Japanese woman staying with my family during the research was amazed to see the whole week’s shopping done in one go at a large supermarket. This is not to say that there are not large supermarkets in Japan. They are in fact readily available and well used, but what is not common is to buy so much in one shopping trip, especially frozen goods, and to do this large shop by car. Cooking Japanese food is one important way in which women maintain links with Japan while living overseas. In London it is possible to get Japanese foods easily, and even outside the capital Japanese goods can be purchased on the internet, or from TK Trading Company that visits the Japanese Saturday Schools weekly. In addition, women or their husbands now return to Japan during the course of their sojourn more frequently than in the past, and food supplies can be brought back to the UK then. Women become very skilled in taking both Japanese and British ingredients and adapting them to provide a Japanese taste, and often take pride in their skills at doing so. Several times during fieldwork I enjoyed a shared lunch with Japanese women, where each of them brought a dish to the host’s house. The dishes would be a mixture of both British and Japanese foods – chirashizushi (a party favourite dish consisting of sushi rice topped with finely-shredded sweet omelette, dried seaweed, seasoning and various toppings) might be made by Yuri, sandwiches brought by Hiroko, a dish using grated radish, tinned tuna and soy sauce to create a ‘typical Japanese taste’ by


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someone else, while another would bring fruit and mugicha to drink (a cold tea made from barley). A great deal of the conversation around the table would be about who had made which dish, asking how they made it and complementing them. My own daughter often takes Japanese kappa maki (sushi rolls filled with cucumber and sesame seeds) to school in her packed lunch. When I mentioned my concern about lack of protein in this meal, my Japanese informants were full of suggestions of what I could add to her lunch box, based on their own experience of using foods that are easily available in the UK. These included using ‘crab stix’ (made of reconstituted fish and having a sweet taste) that can be bought frozen, and spinach that can be cooked to resemble a dish called ohitashi – a cold dish consisting of spinach, dashi (a kind of fish stock), soy sauce and dried fish flakes (bonito). A discussion followed on which brand of ‘crab stix’ was the best and tasted most like those bought in Japan, along with a tasting of the said product. This is one illustration of the seriousness women attach to their role in this regard. Adapting British foods for Japanese taste was particularly necessary for informants who had lived in the UK in the 1970s when there were few Japanese and no infrastructure catering to their needs like today. Mrs Kitamura told me proudly: I improvized. There were no shops selling sushi then. I used to make sashimi out of lemon sole. I used to add shoyu (soy sauce) to salmon and to smoked mackerel I added spring onions. It was not so difficult to get nice fish but it was really difficult to get pork because we lived in a Jewish area. That was the most difficult thing. The only good meat we seemed to be able to get was chicken, but they did not sell it in nice portions like they did in Japan – you had to buy the whole chicken. There was no tofu in the UK twenty years ago. Someone sent me an instant tofu kit from Japan and I made hiya yakko (a chilled bean curd dish) with it.

Women are also resourceful in pooling what they possess or acquire. For example, they often share what they receive in food parcels from Japan sent by relatives, or what a husband brings back from business trips to Japan. They also join together to buy expensive ingredients, such as purchasing a whole side of tuna from the early morning fish market in Birmingham, dividing it and sharing the cost between them. Another way of providing links with and maintaining Japanese traditions in the home is in providing a comfortable home

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environment for the family to live in. The husband typically plays a role in finding a home by coming to the United Kingdom three to four months before the rest of the family when he is assigned his new post – often at short notice. He seeks the home with the help of an estate agent, and in London this will usually be a Japanese estate agent. It is also common for a family to move into a Japanese predecessor’s home, and again, it is usually the husband who arranges this. While the wife might not be responsible for finding the home, however, she often has great influence on the choice, especially once in the United Kingdom when she may decide to find ‘a more suitable residence’. One woman told me that she did this when she was not happy with the kitchen in the home chosen by her husband. Another woman told how her husband telephoned her in Japan with two final choices for home he had made – one in the country, which he preferred, and one in an area of Telford convenient for shops and facilities where other Japanese lived nearby. She chose the latter and her decision was final. When repatriating to Japan, it is common for the husband to return first in order to begin his new post, leaving the wife to finish the packing and arrangements for leaving. In this she carries a great deal of the responsibility and burden, and plays an important role. Having a wife that can tie up all the loose ends necessary on repatriation allows a husband to concentrate on his work and to return to Japan whenever necessary – even immediately – with no further responsibilities. For women, however, the task of taking care of property becomes a significant burden while living in the UK, especially since that property is usually rented and women feel that their responsibility is great. The maintenance load is greater in times of crisis, particularly when English is needed to communicate with a landlord or workmen. When Yumi had a flood in her London flat, communicating with the landlord and plumbers made the stressful situation even more difficult for her, emphasizing the difficulties caused by language. When a residence is rented, it is also harder for a housewife to make it feel like ‘home’. She has to be concerned about maintaining the condition of the property, which is especially difficult with children. In the fickle rental market, landlords can decide to sell properties at short notice, forcing families to find new accommodation. Hiroko was given short notice to move out of her home when the landlord wanted to sell. She could not find a new home in the area


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in which she lived and had to move to a new one, only to find that her husband was to be repatriated a few months later. In examples like these, the wife plays a vital role that allows a husband to concentrate on his assignment with minimum disruption. Women create a comfortable home environment by maintaining Japanese traditions in the home. As already suggested, no Japanese home that I visited in the UK neglected the Japanese custom of taking off shoes at the doorway in favour of slippers, and many kept a change of slippers for use in the toilet and another pair for use in the kitchen as is common in Japan. One house visited had a sign at the door written in English, which said, ‘Please take off your shoes’. The use of futon varied from family to family in the UK as in fact it does in contemporary Japan. This type of mattress is placed on the floor for use as a bed in Japan and can be put out at night, folded and stored during the daytime in order to make more space in a room. If anything, informants said that there is a growing tendency to prefer beds in Japan, but beds require space, and specifically rooms for that purpose. Rie told me, ‘When we lived in London we used futon because we wanted to sleep together in the same room.’ She brought the futons from a shop in Finchley Road, but ironically, when she returned to Japan, the whole family used beds and the children had separate rooms from their parents. A defining feature of many Japanese homes in the UK in fact is the mixture of two cultures – British and Japanese. At the house with the sign about taking off shoes, Japanese scrolls were found either side of the fireplace. On the mantelpiece between them however, was a complete model of the British TV soap opera’s Coronation Street. Many Japanese homes have access to Japanese TV either via cable or satellite. A Japanese newspaper may be open at today’s NHK programmes, alongside the Eikoku News Digest television pages showing the day’s viewing on British TV. Souvenirs brought back from various locations both abroad and within the British Isles are evidence of family trips enjoyed during the time of residence overseas. In the kitchen there is invariably a rice cooker and an ‘oven toaster’ (an essential feature of any Japanese kitchen), and some homes possess a mochi (rice cake) maker to compensate for the high cost of omochi (rice cakes) in the UK. This awareness of a dual location expressed in adopting traditions selectively from both cultures has been referred to elsewhere as a particular form of awareness generated amongst transnational communities (Vertovec 1998).

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The Japanese Housewife Overseas CARING FOR THE FAMILY’S HEALTH

Caring for the family’s health is an important role for wives and a major concern of those leaving Japan for the assignment to the UK, as discussed in the previous chapter. The concern can also be placed in the context of the growing popularity of kanpo in Japan, a system of Japanese medicine derived from China (Ohnuki-Tierny 1984: 102). Shortcomings of biomedicine along with its image of ‘wait three hours to see a doctor for three minutes’ image have contributed to this popularity (ibid.). The use of kanpo is currently evident in every pharmacy in Japan where kanpo medicines are available in pill and other easy to use forms (ibid.: 116). They are also widely advertised. Pharmacists also offer kanpo sodan (kanpo consultation), which has actually long been common practice (ibid.: 117; see also Lock 1992). In London kanpo medicines are available at Japanese outlets. Women also bring a wide range of medicines with them from Japan. Yukiko told me that when she first came to London she was nervous about buying what she called ‘small medicines’ off the counter in High Street chemists. It would seem that this is a common concern – I found a book at the Japanese bookshop in Piccadilly, London, that contained a photograph and description of all British medicines available for purchase (now out of print). Yukiko said that she had a cupboard full of ‘small Japanese medicines’ at home. There are numerous medical facilities for Japanese, notably clinics organized by the Nippon Club already mentioned and held in St John’s Wood and Wimbledon. A reading of the advertisements in the Eikoku News Digest shows an array of private clinics and dentists available. Outside London, this is not the case, and mothers in Telford said that they sometimes travelled to London to receive such services. Women attended regular medical check-ups in London, and went together. It is interesting to note that, while they may attend Japanese clinics in Japan in the case of emergency, working company husbands commonly receive medical check-ups on periodic business trips to Japan. Women outside the capital usually register with a British doctor’s practice, which means that communication is sometimes a problem, and many of the consultants at clinics run by the Nippon Club in London are also non-Japanese. Anxiety about health is considerable for mothers, especially those with young children as previously discussed in Chapter 4. One informant consulted me about childhood vaccinations. She was


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extremely worried about giving her baby three vaccinations in one dose, insisted upon by her UK doctor, since the practice in Japan is one inoculation at a time. Many middle-class British mothers also have doubts about vaccinations, expressed in the debate on the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccination and its possible links with conditions such as autism. When I interviewed Mrs Tanaka in Plymouth her baby had a cold and a temperature and she had taken her to see the general practitioner near where she was living. She said that she was not a hundred per cent happy with the treatment she received since she felt that she was never sure whether what the doctor said was the same as a doctor in Japan would have said. She often had the feeling, ‘Is the [British] doctor right?’ and she often felt that in the UK, whatever the child’s condition, the doctor’s response was, ‘Give it Calpol’ ( a common paracetamol-based children’s medicine). This is in fact, a feeling shared by many British mothers about the treatment their children receive, as was evident from subsequent discussion on the topic with non-Japanese parents. GIFT GIVING AND MANAGING A HUSBAND’S PERSONAL AND BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS As well as meeting the physical needs of her husband, it has been usual for a wife in Japan to manage her husband’s personal and professional relationships, and to maintain good relations with relatives and also neighbours in the community. Vogel suggested for women in the 1970s, ‘The housewife is in charge of human relations, or social engineering, both in the household and among relatives’ (Vogel 1978: 29). An important manifestation of this ‘social engineering’ role has been the responsibility for gift-giving during the two main gift-giving seasons in Japan, year end (oseibo) and mid-summer (ochugen). This involves giving gifts to those who had been helpful during the year or whose favours would be continually required such as certain close relatives (shinseki), a boss, nakodo (matchmaker) and sometimes teachers (Edwards 1989).2 It has also been a wife’s role to acknowledge any gifts her husband received during these periods. Views expressed by women living in the UK towards gift-giving within companies suggest a change in women’s attitudes, both during the overseas assignment and in contemporary Japan. For some Tokyo women, the idea of sending oseibo and ochugen to a husband’s boss now sounds rather old fashioned. In fact, since the onset of the economic recession in Japan, some companies now prohibit gift-giving,

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and in some cases, even the sending of New Year cards (nengajo) within the company. Kyoko said that her husband’s company banned the sending of gifts and nengajo, which, from her point of view, saved both time and money. Shoko, who lived in Telford, implied that she and her husband had discussed the issue of gift-giving during the assignment together, and decided that they would not send ochugen and oseibo when they were in the UK. Instead, they would take omiyage back when they went to Japan. She stressed however, ‘In Japan we have to do it. My husband’s company said you don’t have to and I said, “Oh good”, but my husband said, “They don’t really mean it”. My nakodo (matchmaker) also said, “You don’t have to”, but we do.’ This is a good example of the distinctions between tatemae, or public behaviour, and honne, or one’s real feeling – i.e. the difference between what is said and what is really meant (see Hendry 2003: 49–50). It is also an indication that despite change in Japan, some women continue to feel pressure and worry about what others will think of them if they do not send gifts at appropriate times, and this is also the case for some women during their assignment period who worry about what others will think about them if they do not send oseibo and ochugen. In addition to gifts within the company, women’s attitudes to giftgiving to others to whom they have been traditionally given also seem to be changing. Yukiko’s mother sent gifts to both her daughter’s and son’s parents-in-law, as well as to the matchmaker (nakodo) and according to Edwards (1989: 75), the rule of thumb was that gift-giving to a nakodo should be observed for three years after a wedding. Yukiko, however, claimed that she had never done so since marriage and believed that amongst her contemporaries the tradition was dying out. One reason for a decline in such gift-giving might be that more women choose their own partners in a so-called ‘love marriage’ (renai kekkon) rather than a marriage arranged by parents through a matchmaker. It should also be pointed out that there are local variations of gift-giving rules. However, a more modern outlook expressed was, ‘I do not send (gifts) even in Japan. I would rather write a letter or send a present to friends and family but I would like to do this when I would like to.’ This suggests that not all women will be dictated to by tradition, whether during an assignment overseas or in Japan. Women modify the giving of gifts to family and friends during the assignment period, in order to fit in with the experience of living in


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the UK. Most said that while they do not follow the seasons of midyear and end of year, they follow British traditions of sending gifts or cards at Christmas, birthdays and other occasions. They also send gifts on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. In addition, they take gifts (omiyage) of typical British goods back to Japan. And, while some companies forbid the sending of gifts internally as mentioned above, women adapt such gift-giving by sharing food parcels they received from Japan with the wives of other company members, and they bring back gifts (omiyage) from visits to Japan, especially of food that they know will be appreciated. The process of gift-giving in this way has been seen as a manifestation of a housewife’s role in managing her husband’s business and personal relations. During an assignment to the United Kingdom a new important role related to ‘social engineering’ and serving a husband’s company and relations within it develops for wives of upper and senior managers. The role is that of accompanying husbands to work-related social and other functions. Black and Gregerson cite the following case of a woman who was reluctant to return to Japan: During her husband’s assignment in Britain, her social role as the wife of a vice-president had given her the opportunity to interact, entertain, express opinions and discuss world events. These activities were not possible or accepted when she returned to Japan (1992: 224).

In addition to the benefits expressed in the case above, the role also provides women the occasion to meet other Japanese wives on a frequent basis. In addition, it allows women to relate to their husband’s colleagues and clients, providing shared topics of conversation. In addition, at such functions, women are required to associate not only with the Japanese colleagues of their husband, but the wider Japanese community and also with non-Japanese representatives from other companies and their wives. As this book will show, this is a role in which Japanese wives in fact excel. MAINTAINING GOOD RELATIONSHIPS WITH NEIGHBOURS For women living in urban areas of Japan one important way in which they represent their family is in taking an active role in neighbourhood associations such as the chonaikai or jichikai (see Hendry 2003:

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62–81). Membership of these is by house rather than individuals, and both deal with matters such as arranging festivals in the area, sharing expenses for common water and lighting facilities, cooperating in clearing the area of rubbish or even weeding (Imamura 1987: 9). As well as the function of the wife in this, the social aspect can be significant for women. In the 1950s, Dore even stated that housewives often indicated that they were closer to their neighbours than to their own relatives (1958: 262–268). When women also work outside the home, however, such chores can be a burden, and even when women do not have another job, the burden can be that they feel obliged to participate (see Ben-Ari 1991). Japanese women play a role in maintaining relations with their neighbours in the UK in the same way that they do in Japan. In urban locations, especially London, where residents are at work during the day, this is not easy for Japanese women, but in locations such as Telford, British neighbours speak highly of their Japanese neighbours. It is usual in Japan for new housewives to a neighbourhood to introduce themselves and present a small gift, typically a towel. One woman in Telford also sent a card to neighbouring houses telling them the names of the members of her family. The behaviour of Japanese women in this way goes a long way to form both good impressions and good relations with their British, or non-Japanese neighbours. While living in the UK women are free from the obligation of the chonokai (Residents Association), a fact that Mrs Kamakura pointed out with enthusiasm. Makiko also mentioned this with regard to the pressure of the same at the shataku (company housing) when she returned to Japan, and the obligation of having to join in communal tasks like weeding. Japanese women in the UK, however, have been known to join in local neighbourhood watch schemes and in neighbourhood events like the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. As will be argued throughout this book, while Japanese working men are less evident in neighbourhoods since they are at work during the day, their wives not only represent their husband, but also his company and ultimately Japan. What is more, they do so favourably and in many cases to greater practical effect than working men. MANAGING THE FAMILY FINANCES One of the roles of the housewife in Japan in recent times has been that of managing the family budget. Since the 1970s, it has actually


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been common for a salaryman husband to hand over his salary to his wife, who would then gave him an allowance (okozukai) for his own needs (Iwao 1995). Wives have thus been said to hold the family purse strings, along with the power to manage the home with autonomy and freedom (Iwao 1995: 84). This has lead many a husband to jokingly refer to his wife as ‘uchi no Okura Daijin’ (my Household Minister of Finance). Imamura however questions the degree of power housewives wield in this way, since her own interview data showed that in the 1980s, while women were aware of their husband’s basic salary, they did not know if he received any other payments (Imamura 1987: 81–83). My own interviews with informants in the UK from 2000 seem to corroborate this, suggesting that some were not clear about the exact nature of financial allowances provided by the husband’s company for overseas living. Furthermore, nowadays, banks automatically deduct certain essential monthly payments, taking this function out of women’s control (Imamura 1987). However, when all payments have been made, wives do have to manage what remains of a salary. This is an important skill, especially at times of financial difficulty (Hendry 1993; Iwao 1995: 85), and especially when living overseas. My interviews with Japanese housewives in the UK indicate change in the extent to which women single-handedly control the family budget in contemporary Japan, and not merely as a result of the experience of living overseas. While the process of a husband handing over his salary to his wife is still common, not every household adheres to it. One woman told me that she definitely did not follow that system either in Japan or while living in the UK, and went as far as to say that her husband’s salary was a ‘no go area’ – untouchable by her (hontondo no tacchi). Others also agreed that after marriage, it was their husband who managed his salary and gave his wife an allowance for living expenses (seikatsu hi). Others however, believed that this case might be considered peculiar, and many believed that it creates the negative impression of a husband who does not trust his wife very much. Whatever the situation in changing Japan, no woman interviewed said that she continued the tradition of managing the husband’s salary and giving him an allowance while resident in the UK. Instead, the role is either taken over completely by the husband as above, or is shared by husband and wife. The reason commonly given for the former, whether true or not, was that the husband’s English-language

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ability was better, enabling him to check bills and to pay them. Several women told me in Japan they set up three accounts for their husband’s salary that they themselves managed. One account was for bills such as gas, water, electricity and tax, another was for the husband’s okozukai (allowance), and the third was for ‘all the rest’. However, when living in this country, the family only had one bank account, which, in a reversal of roles, the husband managed. There are also other practical reasons. As one woman said, her husband played a bigger role than in Japan because his company was close to the post office and bank which were often difficult for her to get to with her young child. Even though she considered that they shared managing the salary, in a somewhat ironic afterthought she added, ‘of course, even in London he gives me the meisai (the pay slip which indicates all deductions, for insurance, etc.) of his salary’, indicating that perhaps she wielded more control than appeared. Many women reported that they share the role of managing the family budget while living in the UK, especially when their English language ability allows. Harumi told me: We discuss the management of domestic finance together. Actually, I often go to the bank more than my husband and I receive invoices and check all the statements. So it seems like I control the finance by myself . . . but I always talk about it to my husband.

Changes in banking methods, whereby salaries are paid into bank accounts to which husband and wife both have access through debit or credit cards, are a further factor. In 1988–90, when I worked in Japan, my monthly salary was paid in cash in an envelope, and the use of banking facilities such as the cheque book and credit card have not been in common use in Japan as long as in the United Kingdom. Use of credit cards was rare in Japan twelve years ago and cheques are still not in use. In fact, the guide to living in London produced by the Japanese Women’s Association of Great Britain provides instruction on how to fill out and use them. One woman told me that the reason that she and her husband did not manage their finances in the ‘traditional’ way (i.e. with her husband handing over his salary) was due to the fact that they had started their married life in America, where they began not only to use cheques and credit cards, but to trust each other to use the account to make purchases as necessary. Women commonly manage their finances with the use of a single bank account and cheque or


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credit cards in this way while living in the UK. One informant told me that when they lived in Japan they used the ‘traditional’ method, but she always spent too much and her husband took over the job, giving her a monthly allowance as in the cases described above. In this country however, she had access to the bank account and, as long as there was enough funds in the account, was not limited by the same monthly allowance. Kumiko told me that while she managed the finances in the ‘traditional’ way in Japan, she and her husband decided that on moving to England they would both have a credit card and take money out of the account as they needed it. In almost all cases, it is interesting to note that housewives who had returned to Japan after their assignment said that whatever method they had used in managing the household budget in the UK, they reverted to the system used before their husband’s overseas transfer on their return to Japan. CARE OF ELDERLY RELATIVES The role of taking care of elderly relatives is one that has typically befallen women within the family in Japan in a continuation of traditions of the ie system and its ideology described. This custom continues, often even when women have work outside the home and their own children to look after. This is an issue of particular importance as the proportion of the elderly increases while the overall population declines. A new social health insurance (April 2000) introduced the idea that this type of nursing care is no longer expected from the family. There have been trends such as a move away from the coresidence of young families with elderly parents. At the same time, there has been an increase in parents living close by to their children if not in the same property, and also the building of a new style accommodation with a separate floor for parents to live independently, as well as the existence of more care homes for the elderly. In some regions of Japan retirement homes (inkyo-ya) have been built close to the main family home with the idea that two generations can still live close enough to each other for hot soup to be carried from one house to the other without getting cold (Hendry 2003: 46). Women are in a sense free from the responsibility of caring for elderly relatives while temporarily resident in the UK. This does not, however, free them from a degree of guilt, or from worry, stemming from the fact that they are not able to do so. Many women expressed the desire to be available for parents when they were elderly and in

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need of care. Akiko was aware that since her sister was permanently resident abroad having married a non-Japanese, she would be solely responsible for her parents, and had told her husband that she wanted to do so – meaning that she would not wish to be resident abroad at that time. Women feel less pressure if there is a sibling living with or near to parents or parents-in-law. It is noticeable that women interviewed seemed to feel some responsibility for both. For younger women whose parents are correspondingly younger, the concern is not as great as it is for older women with more aged parents, especially when those parents were living alone. While women in their early thirties said that they did not worry because their parents were in good health, the reverse is true for women in their late forties and fifties. Health of the elderly relative is the greatest concern, along with the fact that it would be difficult to return to Japan quickly should they fall ill. Women felt concerned in cases where elderly parents needed regular hospital visits when they were not able to accompany them. I encountered many cases of a woman, husband or both having to return to Japan when one of their parents dies or was ill. One of my informants returned to Japan in February 2002 when her father died, leaving her husband alone in London and also returned to Japan in August that year for a two-week period to cover Obon.3 Another woman living in Plymouth had to return to Japan when her elderly mother was sick. Since she had young children whom her husband with his work commitments would be unable to look after in the UK, she had to take them with her. Thus, in addition to concern about her mother, there is the added dimension of disrupting the children’s education. A wife of a senior banker in London said that she had had little chance to travel in the UK or Europe during her husband’s posting in London, since she had been compelled to return to Japan each vacation to visit her father who was in his nineties. Interviews with women who had lived in London and Manchester in the 1970s and 1990s suggests that there has been a change in the attitude of parents to their children’s transfer overseas, reflecting a general trend. Mrs Kamakura, who was in her fifties when she was living in Manchester, said that her elderly mother-in-law made her feel guilty about going overseas and the mother-in-law of Mrs Honda, who lived in London in the 1970s, had a similar inflexible attitude. All of the women interviewed who had lived in London in the 1970s saw their stay in the UK as a freedom from the role of care of elderly relatives. Mrs Kitamura told me:


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I did not have to live with my mother-in-law in the UK. I was free from that kind of responsibility. When I got back to Japan, several of my elderly relatives were ill, or died, and I was very busy looking after them, but when I was in the UK I was free from all that.

Mrs Honda also expressed a feeling of ‘freedom from my husband’s mother’. She said that when she came back, one of the most difficult things was living with her mother-in-law again: Whenever I said this and that happened in England, she replied, ‘This is Japan’ (koko wa Nihon desu). That was twenty-five years ago. Now it’s not like that anymore (ima chigaimasu).

Informants living in London today expressed the same delight at freedom from their mother or mother-in-law while living in the UK. During interview I asked Ryoko, ‘Do you mean that you feel freer in the UK?’ Her reply was emphatic: Yes! Freedom! Especially from my mother! In Japan she always tells me what to do. For example, if she was here now and I wanted to go to Harrods shopping for the day she would say, ‘You shouldn’t do that.’

According to Ryoko, her mother had fixed ideas on how her daughter should behave as a wife and mother, and going shopping for frivolous enjoyment did not comply. In a change of roles, informants reported that their husbands visited her parents if time allowed during business trips back to Japan. They said that they telephoned, or felt obliged to telephone parents once a week, but that today’s cheaper telephone rates made that no problem. (One woman said that telephone rates have become so cheap that they are almost free – tada mitai yasuku natta no desu.) The parents of some women actually gain benefits from their daughter living abroad. Many were visited by parents, sometimes more than once a year and made the most of the chance to travel both in the UK and in Europe. The reversal of roles, in terms of a mother coming from Japan to help her daughter during the period of childbirth should not be ignored, and I met several cases of the mother coming to help out when the daughter herself was ill. In such cases, overseas transfer requires the cooperation of a wife’s mother as well as the wife herself.

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The Japanese Housewife Overseas SUMMARY

This chapter has focused on the important role of wives in providing a comfortable family home environment that maintains links with Japan during the overseas transfer process. This is considered to be the most important role in accompanying a husband to the UK, along with taking care of the health of the family. The chapter has also outlined other tasks that are carried out by housewives in Japan to show how they are carried out while resident in the UK. These include gift-giving and managing a husband’s personal and business relationships, maintaining good relationships with neighbours, managing the family finances and taking care of elderly relatives. The following chapter concentrates on women’s role in caring for young children and education in the UK, which, post-1945 has been seen as paramount to a mother’s existence in Japan. NOTES 1

2

3

This survey (Heisei 13 nen shakai seikatsu kihon chosa) is carried out by the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications (somushou) every five years, to determine how Japanese spend their time. The role of nakodo is normally played by a married couple. Although, often translated as ‘matchmaker’ or ‘go-between’, in modern Japan, the couple that fulfils this role may have had no hand in the actual making of the match (Edwards 1989: 15) but ‘after the wedding, they are said to serve as guarantors for the marriage, taking an active interest in the principals’ welfare and acting as conciliators should there be any serious marital dispute. Most commonly the nakodo – the term normally refers to the husband only – turns out to be an older relative or company superior of one of the principals, usually the groom. He must be a married man and, more, one who has already demonstrated his ability to lead a stable married life. He is likely to be considerably older than the principals and ideally should be socially prominent and respected as well’ (ibid.). It should also be pointed out that the nakodo can also be a woman, though this was not the case among my informants. The mid-summer festival when the dead are prayed for and graves tended. The first Obon after her father’s death is particularly important.

6

Japanese Housewives’ Roles in the UK: Care of Young Children and Education

T

his chapter examines the housewife’s role in the education of her children as a vital role carried out by wives who accompany their husbands overseas. It looks at how this role is carried out and modified while living in the UK, beginning with the care of young preschool children, before focusing on children of school age. CARE OF PRE-SCHOOL CHILDREN

The role of motherhood for housewives in Japan was introduced in Chapter 2, which looked at the role of women within the family. According to Iwao, the term ‘okasan’ (mother) conjures up images of bliss, security and warmth (1995: 126). It is the embodiment of inexhaustible love, and the role of a woman as a mother has often been said to exceed that of wife (ibid.). Writing in the 1970s, Vogel went as far as to say motherhood was a woman’s ‘ikigai’ (purpose in life) and even her ‘self definition’ (1978: 41). There has also been a traditionally-shared idea in Japan that a woman is not seen as fully adult until she gives birth. This can be related to a Japanese saying, ‘Women are weak, mothers are strong’ (Iwao 1995: 125). Work on middle-class educated mothers in Japan has suggested that contemporary society still clings to the notion that motherhood is a woman’s most important attribute and that her life should be child-centred (Sasagawa 1996, 2001, 2002).

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The most widely accepted view amongst urban middle class mothers has been that children should be at home until the age of three or four (Lebra 1984; Tobin Wu and Davidson 1989; Peak 1991; Ben-Ari 1997a; Rohlen and Le Tendre 1998; Hendry 2003; see also Inoue and Ehara 2000: 22–23). This relates to a Japanese proverb, ‘the soul of a three-year old lasts till a hundred’ (Hendry 1986: 17; 2003: 46). Ideally, a child should be surrounded by family and in close proximity to the mother (Hendry 1984: 106), allowing close physical contact for her to bestow the large amounts of affection considered necessary to enable the child to develop normally (Ben-Ari 1997b: 16). The ideal Japanese mother’s life is carefully orchestrated around high standards of care for the young child (Rohlen and Le Tendre 1998: 6). Vogel described the constant care and attention given by Japanese mothers to their children (1978: 24) and the ‘dependency’ (amae) that Japanese children tend to develop on their mothers as a result has been much written about, notably by Doi (1986). During this fieldwork, next to my Japanese counterparts, I have often felt negligent. The depths of a Japanese mother’s small and compact handbag, seem to contain items for every childcare eventuality, be it a plaster complete with cartoon motif for a minor injury, or a packet of tissues. The fact that motherhood remains a vital part of the work of today’s housewives has not been displaced by the increase in women’s participation in the labour force. This grew from 48.6% to 50.4% between 1986 and 1997 and the increase has been especially evident amongst women of child-bearing age (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare 2000 and see Ishii-Kuntz 2003: 200). For women between the ages of twenty-five and twenty-nine, the labour force participation increased from 56.9% in 1986 to 68.2% in 1997, and the number of women interested in pursuing a homemaker role on the birth of their first child decreased from 33.6% in 1987 to 20.6% in 1997 (ibid.). According to Sasagawa, however, even if today’s women are not ‘house-bound’, they remain ‘child-bound’ (2001: 31). Despite changes in the attitudes of individual women, Japanese society still requires mothers to bear the whole responsibility for her child’s growth and emotional development and most housewives in Japan continue to see motherhood as their prime function (ibid.). A series of measures from the 1990s have attempted to address the gender imbalance in childcare that has made work outside the home

Care of Young Children and Education

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problematic for women, and to encourage paternal involvement in childcare. These began with the Child Care Law (Ikuji Kyugyo Ho) of 1991 (revised in 1997) and the Child Care Family Leave Law (Ikuji Kaigyo Kyugyo Ho) of 1995. Other initiatives included a system of certification and awards for ‘family friendly’ firms with flexible working conditions, and a plan to provide better daycare for infants (the Enzeru Plan carried out over a ten year period from 1995). The Ministry of Health and Welfare also carried out a major media campaign in 1999, which urged fathers to spend more time caring for their children with the slogan, ‘A man who doesn’t raise his children can’t be called a father’ (Roberts 2002: 76). This became known as the ‘Sam Campaign’ after the artist/entertainer husband of the popular singer Namie Amuro, who was pictured in posters and on TV throughout Japan (ibid.: 76–86). In 2002, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare carried out a second campaign aimed at involving fathers in childrearing and to encourage fathers to take the childcare leave already laid out in the 1991 Child Care Leave Law. This had stated that both men and women should be permitted to take leave from work in order to care for children under the age of one, or to use flexi-time schedules. In reality, since inadequate provision for childcare has been recognized as one of the reasons for women’s reluctance to have children, these measures reflect a realization of the problem of the long-term effects of the declining birthrate as much as an attempt to address the gender imbalance involved (Roberts 2002). Recent research has focused on the emergence of Japanese fathers who are willing to take more responsibility in childcare. These include fathers involved in the Childcare Hours for Men and Women Network (Otoko mo Onna mo Ikuji Jikan), commonly known as Ikujiren. It is possible in today’s Japan to see fathers playing with their children in the park, taking them to school or going on outings with their children at weekends and, in the current economic climate, caring for them when they are sick if the mother is working. This may be especially true in families where the father does not work for a company or financial institution, such as in the case of academics. However, current research suggests that there is still a long way to go in this respect (see Ishii-Kuntz 1993, 1994, 2003; Makino 1995; Mathews 2003). The early period of children’s lives is notable for the way in which mothers and other caretakers in Japan train them to do things in the way they consider fit and proper (Hendry 2003: 45). During this time,

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children learn to classify the world in which they live, and to impose a system of values upon it (ibid.). They learn to perceive the world through both spoken and unspoken language, through enacted ritual and through the total symbolic system that structures and constrains that world (ibid.). It is during these important early years therefore, that children learn an understanding of notions vital for functioning in Japanese society. Japanese women living in the UK can continue to spend these important early years in the home with their children as they would if they were full-time housewives in Japan. The priority is to provide a good material home environment in the UK, in which the mother can be with her children, and to maintain links with Japanese culture, the importance of which was emphasized in the previous chapter. This is especially important in the care of young children, who may have no other point of reference, understanding or even concept of their home country. Mothers play a vital role in the early stages of children’s language acquisition and reading skills. Mothers living in the UK provide Japanese toys and books in the home and encourage the child to be familiar with his or her name in the same way that they would in Japan, using the many toys aimed at making children familiar with hiragana characters such as building blocks with hiragana on one side and pictures on the other.1 Hendry (1986) found that while Japanese mothers said that they did not teach their children any hiragana before school, she realized that this was not in fact true, and that most mothers encouraged their children by use of such hiragana toys in the home. It would seem that most Japanese children are taught to read in the home, before school, by their mothers (White 1987). Tobin, Wu and Davidson claim that parents find it almost as natural and unproblematic to help their children learn to read as to talk (1989: 58). There is an increased burden, however, for mothers to achieve this while living in the UK. In a sense, they are the guardians of both their children’s Japanese language and the learning of Japanese culture and identity and the burden is heavier while living outside Japan. In Japan, most children attend a kindergarten or day nursery for a period before entering school – usually of a year or more (Hendry 2003: 47). Though not compulsory it is considered an important training for several reasons. While both home and school are thought of as the place for learning basic habits such as dressing and keeping clean, the development of character traits and interpersonal


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skills such as obedience and courtesy are usually thought of as the responsibility of the school (Peak 1991: 33). Furthermore, pre-school in Japan plays a vital role in training children how to behave in a group. The importance of being able to function as part of a group, vital to Japanese society, is expressed in the term shudan seikatsu, meaning ‘life in a group’ (see Tobin Wu and Davidson 1989; Peak 1991; BenAri 1997a; Rohlen and Le Tendre 1998). As group participants children must learn to make their own goals and desires secondary to those of the group (ibid.). This requires enryo, or restraint in expressing one’s feelings, and the need to learn a degree of modesty in selfpresentation (Lebra 1976). In order to function both in the group life of school and later in the wider Japanese society, children must also learn to participate in group activity with enthusiasm and without selfishness (wagamama). It is widely believed therefore, that character can only be properly developed at school (Tobin, Wu and Davidson 1989: 58), and that to grow up exclusively in the bosom of a nuclear family is to risk not becoming truly Japanese (Doi 1986). Home, however, is a different matter. It has been suggested that Japanese mothers do not consider it their duty to manage the child’s behaviour at home according to rules that will be followed in the classroom (Peak 1991: 11) and that home, therefore, is the place that children can relax and express their real feelings (Peak 1991: 12). This further illustrates the importance of the home environment created by mothers when living overseas. For Japanese mothers in the UK, finding a place where young children can speak Japanese and play in a Japanese environment is considered a priority. The biggest concern is to find friends for both the child and the mother, and women consider that these need to be friends with children of the same age. They need to find a nakama, or ‘group’ to which they can both belong. ‘Friendship’ and ‘play’ were the two key elements required by mothers for their young children as expressed in interview, the ability to play, share and empathize with other children being thought of as crucial preschool skills not best taught within the home (Tobin, Wu and Davidson 1989: 57). When I met a mother who had just arrived in the UK and was visiting her daughter’s school for the first time, one of the first questions she asked me was, ‘How do children play in England?’2 It can be difficult for Japanese women with young pre-school children to make friends and find this nakama, in the UK. In Japan, one

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place for meeting other mothers is the local park. In fact the first visit of a mother to her local park with her new baby is considered a significant event and is commonly referred to as ‘The Park Debut’ (kouen debyu). A mother will often dress both herself and her baby up for the event and the kouen debyu of celebrities is commonly reported in women’s magazines. As well as the chance for young children to make friends of similar age, interviewees suggested that going to the park enabled women to ‘get out of our small houses and because our husband is often not around to talk to’. Japanese women in the UK, however, said that they found it difficult to make friends in this way in the UK and that if they did go to the park, none would speak to them. Yukiko asked. ‘Why don’t women talk in parks [in your country]?’ In London and Oxford there are groups, such as Nakayoshi kai and Hiyoko kai that recognize the difficulties that women with young children face. In other instances women form their own groups, or reply to advertisements for such groups in the Japanese community newspaper (Eikoku News Digest) to meet their needs. ‘Mums in Ealing’ is one such group advertised, along with the regional groups that make up the Nakayoshi Kai. The meetings are often held in a member’s home, or sometimes at a local park, and are announced in advance. E-mail is used to keep members up-to-date. Imamura (1987) pointed out that in Japan pre-schools serve mothers as well as children, since they offer young women friendship, structure and guidance in learning their roles and solidified their identity as mothers, and the groups in the UK serve mothers’ needs in the same way. An examination of what women do in these mothers’ group meetings shows that they are not just a social event for mothers, but that they are also educational, with weekly themes such as ‘caring for toddler’s milk teeth’ for which mothers may be asked to take a small toothbrush and mug for demonstration. The theme on another occasion was ‘preparing healthy snacks’ for toddlers. Mothers were asked to bring their favourite recipes to share after the discussion, plus a snack for their child. There is also an element of ‘crafting’ their skills here, in the same way mentioned by Hendry for housewives in Japan (1993: 226). In London, there are several nursery schools that cater for Japanese pre-school children. I asked mothers whose children attended why they did so. (None of my informants sent their children to the nursery full time, but did so on Saturdays, or in the case of several, only once every three weeks.) The main reason was so that their


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children could learn about Japanese seasonal events such as the Boys Festival, Girls Festival, and Obon so that they could learn Obon odori (dancing). For most this was their first and only chance to experience and learn about such Japanese events that mothers consider important for their children’s Japanese identity. As Kyoko said, ‘It is his only chance to learn these Japanese things. He is in England but he is Japanese.’ In addition to this, the fact that this was carried out in a group with other children reflects the importance of shudan seikatsu expressed above. In Japan, a woman’s role as mother of a kindergarten (yochien) child can be time consuming (Imamura 1987) and there are many occasions requiring a mother’s participation, including the PTA (Parent Teacher Association), which will be discussed further in this chapter. A mother may be expected to attend school outings, lunches and to send various supplies to the school (Tobin, Wu and Davidson 1989: 67). An informant in Japan described how the pressure to conform in this can make life difficult for the increasing number of women who combine childcare with paid work outside the home. Japanese mothers at the private school where I carried out fieldwork in London were only too glad to go on school trips if a parent was required, possibly to compensate for lack of involvement in the daily life of their child’s school compared to what they would expect in Japan. Many non-Japanese mothers, on the other hand, were prevented from attending since they were at work during the day. Japanese yochien play a major part in defining the identity of their mothers. As Tobin, Wu and Davidson point out: Mothers at many Japanese yochien must not only make a fancy bento and get their child fed and into his uniform each morning; they also must get themselves sufficiently dressed up and made up to meet other mothers and the teachers. Especially in wealthy neighbourhoods in urban Japan, groups of well-dressed young mothers and their sailor-suited children standing on corners waiting for the yochien bus to arrive are a common sight (Tobin, Wu and Davidson 1989: 67).

A returnee mother interviewed in Tokyo in May 2002 confirmed that she and the other mothers at her daughter’s private school dressed in similar immaculate navy blue suits. Women are free from these restraints while living in the UK. They do not have to worry to the same degree about their attire. Yukiko told me that this was what she

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was dreading most on her return to Japan, after six years of dressing informally as she pleased in London without worrying how others judged her. Japanese mothers in the UK often find themselves free from many of the tasks that befall them as a kindergarten mother in Japan. Once they have dropped their children off at school they are free for the day, and have extra finances available at their disposal. A Japanese mother in Telford told me that she dropped her daughter off at nursery at 9 a.m. most mornings, went to the gym and did not collect her until 4 p.m. and that she had very little else to do with regard to the school. The Japanese mothers of children in a private nursery in London also said that they had little contact with the school apart from taking and collecting the child. Mothers did contribute more to the life of private Japanese nurseries, but even so, less than they would in Japan. First, since they are private, less parental input is expected than in state nurseries in London, and, second, many children only attended on a part-time basis, which freed women from total involvement. Japanese women in the UK sometimes say that they thought that bringing up small children was easier in the UK than in Japan (Martin 2004). One of the most commonly cited reasons for this is that people spoke to them in the street and helped them by holding open a door or lifting a pushchair if necessary, which strangely contrasts with their experience in the park. Kyoko said, ‘If I am in Japan, maybe no-one will help me get the buggy on the bus.’ This is somewhat in line with the observation that in Japan it is rarer to talk to someone with whom one has no relation outside of one’s group, such as a stranger in the street (see Doi 1987). Akiko also explained the above by saying, ‘We do not like other people’s dirty children.’ This may also be related to the distinction between soto and uchi (outside and inside) and notions of dirt and cleanliness mentioned in Chapter 4. A British consultant at a London hospital treating Japanese told me that a Japanese mother said, ‘In Japan I love my children, but in England everyone loves my children.’ Several women mentioned their surprise to be stopped by a stranger in the street who initiated conversation simply because of her child. One mother told how she appreciated complements that her child received from complete strangers, saying, ‘Every mother wants her child to be liked.’ It is arguable that mothers of non-Japanese children in Japan may experience the same interest in their offspring because of their difference or perceived ‘cuteness’, but women said


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that such incidents made them more relaxed since they felt that they were less judged by the behaviour of their child, or by ‘making mistakes’ than they would in Japan, and that they felt more relaxed about parenting as a result. Despite the above observations however, women also commented that there are more public places such as restaurants, where children are unwelcome in the UK than there are in Japan. Another issue is the worry about children’s safety. My informants did not consider London as dangerous a place as some large American cities, but even so, in line with British mothers, Japanese women in London would be reluctant to let their children out in the street alone. This was not a problem, however, for women living on middle-class housing estates in Telford where their children could enjoy the relative safety and freedom to play outside with their friends in the same way that they would in Japan. When I visited Tokyo in May 2002 I was surprised by the way in which even young children played in the local park without adult supervision. Issues surrounding child abuse have recently come to the forefront in Japan (see Goodman 2000). Rie told me that mothers had become more aware of dangers after a man was spotted taking photographs of children in the park in her Tokyo neighbourhood. While she commented that she thought that Japanese mothers were a little naïve in this, she still felt that in Japan it was safe for children to play alone, since other Japanese mothers in the neighbourhood would watch out for them. Kyoko mentioned a further freedom of responsibility with regard to ceremony and ritual concerning her baby. In Japan, there is a custom called Omiyamairi whereby a mother visits the local shrine with her baby and parents one month after birth (see Ford 2003). There are other ceremonies and rituals commonly observed by pregnant women and women with new babies in Japan (see Hendry 1981 and 2003; Ohnuki-Tierney 1984; Ford 2003). After birth, the mother is expected to rest and refrain from housework and exercise (Hendry 2003: 147) and in the case of all informants who had given birth in the UK, their mother came to take care of them for a period of up to a month after the birth, which in Japan would coincide with the period recognized by the Omiyamairi ceremony mentioned above. Kyoko said that if she were in Japan her mother would encourage her to carry out Omiyamairi, but since she was resident in London she did not have to do so. Ford’s research indicates that fewer women are observing these rituals in modern Japan, but their parents may still

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encourage them. My informants in the UK, however, felt that they had an ‘excuse’ not to observe the tradition. In general, women have fewer concerns about the effects of transfer to the UK on young children than they have for older children of school age. This is discussed below. MOTHERS’ ROLE IN CHOICE OF SCHOOL AND ENABLING CHILD TO SETTLE INTO SCHOOL LIFE An important aspect of motherhood in Japan that arose after the war has been that of taking care of the children’s education. Some women took this role so seriously and with such vigour that the term kyoiku mama, or ‘education mother’ was adopted and a child’s educational success was often seen as a sign of the success of the mother herself. Allison has expressed the important role of a mother in her child’s school life: School . . . . is a totalizing (pre)occupation in Japan: an endeavour that is not delimited to the school building or school day but, rather, infiltrates and shapes every aspect of the child’s life. And mother . . . is the exported implement of this extension of school practices into the child’s home and playtime (Allison 1996b: 136).

Allison shows how the school manages, shapes and monitors the woman’s behaviour in Japan in her role as a mother. She describes the pressure on mothers to provide certain hand-made items for their children. These include bags of definite specification for shoes and for obento lunch boxes, and specifications are also given for the contents of the lunch box itself. Mothers are urged to instill routine and discipline upon their children in the school holidays and are expected to have close contact with the teacher in order to monitor their child’s progress. Outside school hours, they commonly encourage children to attend ‘juku’ cramming schools in order to achieve success in school entrance examinations. It has been said that this kyoiku mama role is generated by the relationship between the mother, child and the school rather than solely by mothers themselves (Allison 1996a: 152). Mothers certainly play a pivotal role in embedding the regime of continuous study and performance patterns into the child, at the same time as offering maternal security and intimacy that enables them to survive such demands (Allison 1996a). Scholars do not entirely agree on this, with Peak


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(1991) believing that mothers play a lesser role in socializing children to school life than the institution of the school itself. Others have pointed to the stiff entrance examinations that mobilize children into a ‘gakureki shakai’, or society in which exam results and academic record are all important (Field 1992). During fieldwork in Japan in 2002, a teacher suggested that mothers had become more relaxed about their children’s education since the recession. Before the onset of the recession in the late 1980s the pressure was for children to do well in examinations, to get a place at a good university and then a place in a good company, which it was hoped might be for life. The teacher suggested that things have changed, with both students and their mothers realizing that however hard they work at school, they might lose their job at any time. At the same time, mothers pointed out that one of the reasons that they push their children to do so well is the inheritance tax laws, which make inherited wealth difficult. In 2006, I still found returnee mothers in a state of stress about forthcoming entrance exams, and devoting themselves to helping their children in their studies. In Japan, my informants reported that decisions concerning education, including those related to choice of school are still largely the responsibility of them, as mothers. When living in the UK, the responsibility for day-to-day education matters continues to lie mostly with the mother, but the father’s input in choice of school and in other decisions regarding education matters is significant. It is the father who will begin investigating schools when he first comes to find accommodation. He may consult predecessors and follow their example. This is significant in that, in Japan, such matters would usually bear no relation to a husband’s company. The Japanese Bilingual Support Assistant working with Japanese children in the Telford area said that it was always the father who contacted her on his arrival in Telford for advice about schools or other educational matters, but she said that after a few months of their stay had passed she rarely heard from the father again.3 Head teachers at local schools in Telford made the same comment. The influence of the father in decisions relating to education was recounted by the head of a state primary school in Telford. His school generally attracted children of middle managers, due to the location and its environment and housing, while children of upper managers preferred a nearby private school. However, many Japanese in the area, of whatever background, aspire to this latter school, and some

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only attend local state schools while waiting for a place to become available. The head of the primary school had experienced at least two occasions when a place had become available for a Japanese pupil at his school, and he believed that at this time it was the father’s decision to move the child that was final. He felt that mothers were reluctant to sever links with a school once their child had settled and both they and the mother had established a relationship with the school and other mothers there. The choice of school in the UK is, therefore, often made after discussion with her husband and not solely by the mother. I found many examples of couples discussing issues about choice of school together, as well as a case where the husband offered his son a bribe of the latest computer game if he would go to the non-Japanese speaking school of his choice. During an assignment to the UK, mothers and fathers seem to share the role of taking care of their children’s education much more than in Japan, where it remains largely the woman’s domain. The input of husbands seems to be greater than it would be in Japan. As outlined in Chapter 2, there is a wide choice of schools for Japanese children to attend in the UK, including the local state school, local private schools, private boarding schools and specialist schools for the Japanese population. The reasons for women’s choice of school are significant in terms of what they show about women’s attitudes to the overseas transfer. According to Befu, Japanese parents living overseas are likely to send their children to Japanese or international schools because they are unwilling to send their children to local schools (2000: 33). He believes that the need for local adaptation has decreased as time has gone by and the Japanese community has developed more self-sufficiency (ibid.) and that this is in line with the situation of other expatriates of ‘globalizing countries’, such as the United States, Germany and France. The reasons why my informants said that they sent their young children to nursery school have already been discussed. However, for older children, Japanese schools are not necessarily the automatic choice for my informants, who frequently choose to send their children to local British schools so that they will be able to learn English as well as possible. One mother told me how her daughter was at a boarding school where she thought she could learn ‘beautiful English’ (kirei na eigo). This desire reflects the feeling that mothers believe that the stay in the UK can be advantageous for their children and their children’s future.


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Another mother said that she chose a particular London private school because it had children of many nationalities, reflecting the interest in matters ‘international’ in Japan as fashionable and positive. Shoko chose a private school in a town some distance from her home because she did not want her son to attend the local primary school where there were already Japanese children. She wanted her son to speak English at school, and not to have the temptation of speaking Japanese with classmates. She viewed the transfer to the UK as a good opportunity for her son in this respect. This is significant in view of Goodman’s findings, which suggested that many returnee schoolchildren (kikokushijo) did not possess the ‘international’ attributes that have been ascribed to them by the rhetoric of internationalization (kokusaika) (1990: 228). At that time, few of those who return to Japan each year were fluent in foreign languages and not many had an understanding of the host society in which they lived (ibid.). My sample of mothers of Japanese children in the UK want their children to be returnees who will possess these attributes, and a significant number of their children are both fluent in English and possess an understanding of British culture when they return to Japan. There are other, more mundane reasons for choosing particular schools, not least the fact that the recession has reduced the amount of educational allowance for some employees meaning less to spend on private education in the UK. Local state schools are often chosen however, because they are close to home, as would be the norm in Japan where children of elementary age tend to go to school, in the state system at least, in their neighbourhood. Some women did of course choose local schools already attended by other Japanese children, not least because of precedent. The fact that a school has a good reputation (hyoban ga ii) is considered important. Mothers often mentioned the importance of the environment (kankyo). By this they meant that the surroundings were favourable, for example that there were green sports fields around, or that the school was in a desirable neighbourhood. As mentioned above, some mothers want their children to go to a British private school, where they feel that the standard of education may be better. One family moved their child to a private school after becoming dissatisfied with the local state school, where the condition of the school building, the environment and the standard of the education was poor. In Telford, obtaining a place at a good state school is often as difficult as obtaining a place at the private school

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mentioned. If a parent does not get a place at the school of their choice, they must go before a panel to appeal. The Bilingual Support Teacher described how she had attended such a panel with Japanese parents, and how daunting it was for both. In the case of those mothers who send their children to Japanese schools – either a Saturday school or a full-time Japanese school – it would be wrong to presume that they do not want to mix within the host country. The reasons for sending children to Japanese schools are not so straightforward. The Japanese school might be the choice for older children, particularly if they are over the age of eleven on arrival to the UK and if their English language ability is poor. Parents feel that in such cases it would be a burden to be thrust into the British education system at an age where success in the Japanese system is important. Pupils must pass crucial examinations if they are to enter the high school of their choice in Japan, and subsequently enter a good university. Sometimes, children who have previously gone to other English schools are moved by their parents to the Japanese school, either because they are planning to return to Japan in the near future and they want their child to begin with the Japanese system, or because they have particular fears about their child – either with the way he is coping in his British school, or worries that for whatever individual reason it would be better for the child to return to the Japanese system. Women whose children had spent time in other countries where they had engaged in an education system with overseas children said that there came a point when they felt it necessary for them to go to the Japanese school, so that they can have experienced both worlds before returning to Japan. Another reason for attending the Japanese school is so that the child can ‘have a Japanese education in Japanese’. A Japanese education includes learning Japanese history, culture and geography, which mothers feel are important, particularly if their child is about to return to Japan. Thus, mothers do not choose the Japanese school for reasons of exclusivity. It is not uncommon for example, for one child to be at the Japanese school while another is in a British private school or even state school, depending on the needs of the individual child. Far from pursuing exclusivity, some informants who sent their children to the Japanese schools were those who were most active in volunteer activities related to British people, such as acting as volunteer Japanese teachers or taking part in the Japan in Your Classroom programme.


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Despite increased involvement from fathers in the education of their children during the overseas assignment, it is mothers who take on the important role of helping children to settle in to their new school life in the UK. The younger the child, the easier it seems for them to settle. Mothers interviewed at a London pre-preparatory school said that it was less difficult for their children to adjust if they joined the school in the nursery, since they will have learned much through play at that time, including the acquisition of basic English with non-Japanese children of their own age. An illustration of the difficult task women face in helping children to settle into their new environment is shown by the case of Yumi, whose son could not speak any English when he started school in London at the age of five. He often asked, ‘How many days until we go back to Japan.’ Yumi explained: He would be at school for three weeks and then be ill for one week and then my daughter would be ill, and my husband too and then me, and the whole [first] year went on like that – at school for three weeks and then off for one week. One parents evening, the teacher said to my husband, ‘It is very strange, your son does not seem to pick up English quickly.’ At that point we had only been in London for four months. Besides learning English he had had to learn how to behave, like how to raise his hand to answer a question, or how to sit cross-legged on the floor – we don’t do that in Japan. One day the teacher said to me, ‘I think that your son is deaf. You must take him to the doctor.’ But, it was just after the Christmas holiday and of course he had not had the chance to speak much English. I knew there was nothing wrong but I took him to the doctor and of course he was fine.

Yumi described her happiness when after a year, her son asked to go to school early to meet his friends in the ‘Long Hall’. This was the area allocated for parents to drop off their children before school started. The children seemed to enjoy this social time to chat and play. Yumi was overjoyed and saw it as the sign that he had settled and was happy at last. ‘I got up and he was already eating his breakfast and ready to go. I felt so happy.’ During the period of this research, Yumi’s son in fact became one of the school’s best students, winning the year prize in his fourth year at the school and a scholarship in his fifth year, which he gained by taking a written examination in competition with other

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students, and which provided thirty per cent of his school fees. The role that mothers play in helping children, both to settle in at school and in their academic success, is a significant role and remarkable achievement of women during the overseas transfer process. SCHOOL RUN AND HOMEWORK – INCREASED BURDEN FOR MOTHERS Schoolchildren in Japan commonly walk to school together, older children taking care of the younger ones in both urban and rural areas. Where children have a distance to travel, they will go by bus together (Hendry 2003: 63), or by train. The ‘school run,’ which is a common part of everyday life for many mothers in the UK, does not normally happen in Japan. The term is used to denote the process of driving children to school in the morning and collecting them in the afternoon. Neighbourhood residents and the media commonly blame the school run for traffic congestion and are particularly scathing of four-wheel-drive vehicles and ‘people carriers’ – the name commonly given to large cars able to carry more than the standard number of five people that are favoured by parents in wealthy middle-class areas. The ‘school run’ by car can be highly stressful, especially parking outside schools, and two daily return journeys are time consuming, whether by car or by foot. In addition to the ‘school run’, another responsibility for Japanese mothers in the UK is helping children with their homework in English, and communicating with teachers and other non-Japanese parents during the assignment.4 Homework was a particular burden for both children and their mothers at the private pre-preparatory and preparatory school where interviews were carried out. As well as written work, even young children were expected to read each day to their mother, and Kyoko sighed, ‘It takes a long time every day.’ She also had to care for a newborn baby at the same time as teaching her son hiragana at home, since he was still too young to attend the Japanese Saturday School. She said that every day ended up as a fight and that she thought it was ‘too much’. Kyoko explained how it got harder to help the children with their homework the older they got. Recently, her son had had homework based on difficult proverbs and she had phoned around the other Japanese mothers for the answers. Mayuki, whose son was at senior school, was frequently up at midnight helping her son with his homework. Several women indicated


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that being able to help their children with homework was in fact their own motivation for learning English. The school run and homework aside, women are free from significant responsibilities related to mothers of schoolchildren in Japan, and at the same time they experience increased involvement from their husbands for the duration of their time in the UK. PTA – LESS BURDEN FOR MOTHERS AND INCREASED INVOLVEMENT OF FATHERS One important role played in Japan by Japanese mothers at their children’s school is active membership of the Parent Teacher Association (PTA). Though titled Parent-Teacher Association, it is generally the mother who attends. It is widely considered to be one of her functions while the father is at work and one of her roles as a ‘professional housewife’ mother.5 As I witnessed in Japan, it would in fact be difficult for her to participate in it fully if she was a working mother. I came to understand the role of the PTA in Japan more clearly from my experience of a day at an elementary school in Japan in May 2002. It was attended by the daughter of one of the mothers interviewed in London, who had now returned to Japan. The mother walked with me to the school pushing her bicycle, on which she had just taken her younger daughter to kindergarten. We took off our shoes as we entered the school and placed them in the allocated shoe racks. One of the racks was labelled ‘PTA’ for the special use of mothers, and many mothers brought their own slippers from home to wear in the building. They came and went busily, looking very much at home, in contrast to my own experience of British schools, where parents only entered the building if they had an appointment. It was also in contrast both to the state primary schools in Telford and to the private preparatory school visited during fieldwork.6 There was also a room allocated for the PTA. In it were photocopiers, and women working feverishly at three tables. At one, women were having a meeting, and at another women were folding the sheets coming off the photocopier – the school newsletter. Another mother was trying to arrange for a room to hold a meeting later in the day. Higuchi (1975) has looked at the importance of the PTA as a channel for political activism for the Japanese mother, believing that far from being merely a strain or obligation, it offers women valuable training and knowledge, and that it influences in this way many

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women’s lives for the better. She shows how it can act as a link between mothers and the wider society, and provide an opportunity for deeper friendships and the chance to meet mothers from different backgrounds. She suggests that as well as providing leadership training it provides the opportunity to learn other skills such as editing newsletters, speech training and chairmanship. In the same way, Imamura (1987) has explained how the PTA draws women out of the home and into other activities, and that it gives women the chance to have their own identity. This latter point may be debated since the reason that they are a member of the PTA is as some child’s mother. I could see that it might be fun, working with other mothers as a nakama (group). Rie said that when she returned to Japan she found the PTA role more interesting than she thought and that she felt the mothers had a degree of power. They could invite important people to the school for talks, and sometimes arranged seminars. As PTA rep for her daughter’s class that year, Rie had a comfortable relationship with the class teacher, she went into the classroom during the day and sometimes even had lunch with the children. She even went out with the teacher socially some evenings. The role of the PTA in the UK is very different to that in Japan described above. In the UK the PTA tends to play a much less significant part in the life of the school, and its function is often to raise extra funds for the school. While some schools have parent class representatives as in Japan, they are not usually related to the PTA, and the class representative’s job is usually a minor one of liaising between teacher and all of the class parents. Language can make it difficult for Japanese mothers to be involved, but I found cases such as that of Yukiko who became a class representative. The head of a school in Leegomery, Telford, emphasized how Japanese mothers were very involved in the school. While there is no official PTA at her school, she counted on a group of active mothers, and the Japanese mothers are amongst those. She almost persuaded one of the Japanese mothers to be a governor of the school, but this did not work out because her husband’s posting came to an end. Japanese mothers were just the sort of mother she was delighted to have in a school made up of low-income families with multi-cultural backgrounds.7 For her they are ideal parents who take an active interest both in their children’s work and in school life. In cases where children finally got a place at the private school mentioned, their loss was quite devastating to the primary school in question. The head


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was proud of what she called ‘her Japanese mums’ as model parents at the school. Another example of this in Telford was a scheme known as ‘Keeping Up With the Children’ run by the same Leegomery School to encourage parent’s participation. The programme allowed parents to go through the curriculum followed by their children. Japanese mothers were among the most active in this and one passed the highest level possible in subsequent examination. The group of Japanese women involved were interviewed on the local radio station as a mark of their success. They told me how they appreciated the scheme as an opportunity for them to be actively involved in helping their children, at the same time as learning themselves. It meant also that they were constantly aware of what their children were doing in the classroom, and not being so has been a complaint often voiced by women throughout the research. Yamada-Yamamoto and Richards (1999) also outline this difficulty in terms of being kept informed of the National Curriculum. In state schools, the National Curriculum SATs tests for seven year olds, are a minefield for Japanese mothers. These somewhat controversial tests are designed to measure whether the child has achieved the basics expected for their age in maths and English. Another way in which Japanese women participate in the life of the school in the UK was seen at the North London school where fieldwork took place. At the annual summer fete, the Japanese mothers were always asked to run a stall selling sushi. This was always very popular amongst non-Japanese, but it was a lot of work for the Japanese women involved. One of them was appointed as organizer each year, and each Japanese mother made an allocation of sushi that she brought to school on the morning of the fete. The sushi has to be made fresh that morning. The women also took it in turns to serve at the stall. When I suggested that this was all quite a burden, the organizer told me ‘shigata ga nai’ meaning ‘there is nothing we can do about it’. This notion is expressed by women in other areas in Japan in relation to roles that they feel obliged to do. However, the Japanese women at the London school did feel that since they had no other PTA commitments, helping annually in this way was a small price to pay, whatever the inconvenience. Mrs Yoko said that although there was no PTA at her children’s school in Manchester, mothers sometimes helped in the classroom. She said, ‘There were lots of meetings like in Japan, but in the classroom the role of us mothers

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was more that of looking after the children, which we wouldn’t do in Japan.’ Informants who had been in London in the late 1990s agreed that lack of PTA responsibilities in the UK marked a distinct freedom. ‘In Japan,’ she said, ‘if you are the PTA rep for that year you are so busy you hardly have the chance to cook the family dinner.’ On their return to Japan, getting used to the PTA and its involvement in school life can be difficult for mothers. Mrs Kojima described her situation. On her return to Tokyo, a Japanese mother said to her, ‘You had better say nothing.’ As Mrs Kojima recounted this she mimicked the mother by making a zipping motion across her mouth. ‘Maybe you could wait before saying a little’ said the mother ‘but otherwise button it.’ Later, when I reported this to other returnee mothers they laughed out loud and indicated that this had also been their experience. Mrs Kojima said that, in fact, to keep quiet proved to be good advice for the first year after her return, when she did not understand the workings of the PTA well. For women whose children had not been to school in Japan, the PTA system was totally new to them on their return. Yukiko told me that her worry about returning to Japan was that she had never actually experienced bringing up children there. For her part, Mrs Kojima added, ‘I watched and learnt what to do, and then after a year or so I took a more active part myself.’ A returnee mother who had lived in London during the 1970s told me that on her return to Japan she joined the PTA to make it work for her when her daughter was being bullied (as a direct result of being a returnee). She joined the PTA to make a nakama and to get on the inside in order to get through to the bullies through their mothers. It was a ploy that worked. Women interviewed had mixed views on the PTA in Japan. Mrs Kojima observed that the PTA works well if the members are good, but can be less successful when dominated by certain individuals, such as those who seek favour with teachers or who are particularly competitive with regard to their children. Rie found a great deal of fulfilment on her involvement in the PTA on her return to Japan. This view reflects those mentioned by Higuchi (1975) and Imamura (1987) above, on the rewards of the PTA for women. A university graduate, Rie said, ‘I found that the PTA can do many things. It can organize meetings and invite important speakers.’ Yukiko also became involved in the PTA by becoming a class representative very soon after her return to Japan. As mothers told me, this is a job that


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can take up a mother’s whole life for the year that she does it. She will have to attend school events even at weekends. On one occasion during fieldwork with a group of returnee mothers in Japan, the mother of a child in private school told us that there was no PTA at that school. The reaction of the other mothers to this was to say, ‘urayamashii!’ (I’m envious!). The involvement of fathers in making the choice of school has been mentioned above. Increased involvement of fathers is also seen in Parents Evening and in their attendance at other school events such as sports days, school fetes, Christmas and other concerts. There are reasons for this. Fathers, for example, often seem to think that their English ability is superior to that of their wives, and that their help is therefore needed. Sometimes this is true. Sometimes, however, I have felt that the English ability of Japanese women is given less credit than they deserve. Sometimes this is due to their demeanor and lack of confidence, in addition to the fact that women do not like to make mistakes but would prefer to be sure that a sentence is perfect before uttering it. Shoko was one of the most competent interviewees, yet on one occasion she said that she was nervous because that evening she had to go to a Parents Evening alone, because her husband had a work commitment. Shoko said that even though her husband would normally attend school functions with her, even in Telford it would not be acceptable for her husband to turn down a work commitment in favour of a children’s school event. Women have also said that if they go to Parents Evening alone, the teacher has appeared surprised as if she wished the father were there to help. Throughout the research I have felt that non-Japanese speakers are sometimes poor at making the effort to understand English spoken by Japanese women. One example of this was when a non-Japanese relative of mine in Telford with no knowledge of Japanese, found herself translating the English spoken by a Japanese woman at her local sports centre into English that the receptionist could readily understand. The Bilingual Support Assistant said that teachers sometimes asked her to attend Parents Evenings so that she could translate, but that usually, both the mother and father would prefer to go alone in order to keep details of their child private. Another reason for increased involvement of fathers is that it is easier for them to take off the time to be so in their UK post than in Japan where to do so would be unthinkable. Shoko described her shock when a school trip in Telford was cancelled because the teacher went to attend his wife who gave birth. She believed that if that

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happened in Japan the teacher would be sacked. In addition to this there is the feeling that husbands should take time off work to attend such events since it is the done thing by British fathers – whether or not this is in fact true. When mothers are asked to do something at their children’s school, they do it to the best of their ability, crafting their tasks as described by Hendry for women in Japan (1993: 226). For example, in a special evening held at a local open air museum by a Telford school, mothers were asked to provide a Victorian costume for their children. The head teacher said that those provided by Japanese mothers were undoubtedly the best. On another occasion a head teacher suggested having a Japanese week to mark the Japan Festival held in 1991. The effort made by Japanese mothers in this was outstanding. They prepared and demonstrated kimono and Japanese crafts and brought sushi, the cost of which they insisted on bearing themselves. In Telford, the theme of integration in this way was common, and several British teachers said that they had been inspired to learn Japanese at the local college as a result. MOTHERS’ ROLES IN THE JAPANESE EDUCATION OF THEIR CHILDREN AND THE INCREASED PARTICIPATION OF FATHERS For mothers whose children attend British schools during the week and Japanese Saturday schools at weekends, there is a double burden in education roles while living in the UK. Not only do they have to deal with their children’s English education, but also, since their stay is temporary, they must help children with their Japanese education at the same time. This applies, of course, even if their child does not attend a Japanese school since they are responsible for maintaining links with Japanese culture and language. The nature of husband and wife roles within the school is illustrated by my visits to the Japanese Saturday School in Telford and the Saturday School in Cardiff, including the annual sports day. Compared to the situation in Japan, the importance of the father’s role and the diminishing of the mother’s role in certain aspects is significant. For example, before attending the Saturday school in Telford, I sent an e-mail to Hiroko Noda, one of the women in Telford whom I had interviewed several times, to ask if it would be possible for me to join her on a normal Saturday when her children attended the school. The reply that I received, however, was from her husband


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and it soon became clear that, in contrast to Japan, he played as large a role in some aspects of his children’s Japanese education in the UK as his wife. Mr Noda replied as follows: Thank you for your e-mail to my wife. I understood your request. Fortunately, I am a member of the Steering Committee for Telford Japanese School at the moment. I can pass on your request to our Head Teacher and support you.

There was a friendly P.S. on the end of the e-mail on a more personal note from Hiroko saying that if the above were agreed she would accompany me to the school. The importance of the father’s role lies partly in the existence of the Steering Committee mentioned by Mr Noda above. In order for the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Monbu kagaku sho) to meet the school’s costs, there must be 100 pupils or more. The Monbusho however, does, pay the cost of school textbooks as it would if the children had remained in Japan. In February 2002, there were only seventy-four pupils at the Telford Saturday school, which meant that the Steering Committee’s job was essential. The six men on the Steering Committee represent the Japanese companies who provide the financial backing for the school. At the Cardiff Saturday school, a school committee is made up of one representative father from each company, currently numbering twenty-six/twenty-eight, plus one representative of the Wales Japan Society. This committee meets once a term. I had arranged to drive to Hiroko’s house to call for her. When I arrived, her husband had already taken their two children to the school in his own car, illustrating another form of paternal involvement rare in Japan. On arrival at the school, the car park was full, and Japanese fathers as well as mothers were coming and going and much in evidence, greeting everyone politely yet in a friendly manner, ‘Ohayo Gozaimasu’ (good morning). We passed a classroom crowded with Japanese women. This was nothing to do with the children’s studies however. It was the home of the Japanese shop that is found at the school every Saturday. Women were queuing with baskets of Japanese food goods. Some bags had names on indicating that goods had been pre-ordered. It was clear that the job of shopping was the mother’s and there were no fathers in sight.

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Inside the school, it was a little more chaotic than usual as a car carrying two teachers had broken down on the way to school and the head teacher was taking one of the classes. The Steering Committee sat around a large table in one large classroom. Mr Nakano was there along with the six other members who stay on site for the duration of the school day each Saturday – usually with the head teacher. Opposite this room was a small administration and welcoming room for guests. After greeting Mr Nakano and other members of the Steering Committee, Hiroko and I went into the guest room, where eventually other mothers already known to me arrived to say hello. The atmosphere made me think that I was back in a Japanese school with its familiar chimes that sounded to indicate the end of classes and break times. As such I felt comfortable in the environment and understood how the Japanese community involved must feel the same way. One thing that becomes clear about the Japanese Saturday schools, at least outside London, is that Japanese children enjoy them and like attending.8 It is easy to understand why. From my experience of being involved in the community of Japanese women in Telford I myself felt a comfortable feeling of being ‘at home’. I saw many people that I knew from my fieldwork, and I felt very natsukashii – a feeling of nostalgia – at being in a school where I felt for a day that I was back in Japan. The school calendar itself has an air of familiarity with its events such as the entry and graduation ceremonies and sports day. In the first class I visited – the elementary school age first year class (Shogakko ichi nen sei) – a mother was reading stories to the ten sixyear-old children from behind a small desk on which she propped open the book for the children to see.9 They sat in two rows in front of her. A teacher explained that this is not just undertaken by the mothers each week, but the fathers often do the reading as well. The purpose of the session was to allow children to hear Japanese and the exercise was not carried out in Japan. In any case, even if it was, it was unlikely that fathers would be involved. Outside in the playground the fathers’ involvement was also clear, as some played football with the boys or just stood around on playground duty. This kind of involvement would be extremely rare in Japan. At the Cardiff Saturday school one day, a father ran in to the classroom at lunch time with a Kentucky Fried Chicken lunch he had collected for his delighted but rather embarrassed-looking daughter. The presence of fathers is felt both inside and outside the classroom.


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At the Cardiff school, four parents are ‘on duty’ each week. Their main role is to ensure safety (anzen). They patrol the playground at break times. They spend the rest of the day acting in a receptionist capacity, available to welcome guests, making tea, cleaning the teachers’ mugs after break time. It is noticeable that while fathers may participate in the former role of maintaining safety, they are unlikely to be seen serving tea to guests. At the annual sports day in Cardiff fathers were very much involved in the organization. This meant a lot of work before the sports day proper. Again, the involvement partly reflected the involvement of the Japanese companies, which was evident on the day itself when families sat in groups depending on the husband’s company. Each year, one of the twenty-eight companies in the Wales Japan Association takes a turn to be the main organizer – Panasonic when I went with my family. Five years ago, the companies compiled a manual in order to make the organization easier. Over 300 people were expected at the sports day we attended, and it was a real family day. It is symbolic that for the opening ceremony, the students in four teams of red, white, yellow and blue were followed by their parents as they paraded round the ground before coming to a halt before the rostrum where the head was standing. Both the head and the head of the committee gave an opening address. Both mothers and fathers joined in the warm-up exercises with the children, with a mother next to me sighing, ‘ah, natsukashii!’10 Both mothers and fathers took part in races with their children. In one race I partnered a Japanese mother blindfolded, with the aim of bursting balloons by sitting on them and getting to the finish by doing the three-legged race. Fathers took part in a rather aggressive game in teams with their sons who were on their shoulders with the aim of snatching the hat off their opponents. It was very competitive and involved teamwork between the fathers and sons. As we sat on the grass together, Japanese fathers played with their children, including mine, in a relaxed and leisurely manner. For children of this age group in Japan, the school sports day is normally held on a weekday, which in itself can prevent fathers’ attendance though it is true that this may not be the case in all regions of Japan. My middle-class informants who were from salaryman families from urban areas reported that in Japan, the opportunity for fathers to relax and spend leisurely time with their children, both in education matters and other events, was a luxury rarely afforded.

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The head teacher herself illustrated the importance of the father’s role, which is in contrast to their involvement in Japan. She said that the school was not just about study (benkyo), but another important aspect is networking (nettowaku o tsukuru). Japanese fathers are able to meet men from other Japanese companies and ‘network’. This introduces an entirely new facet to education during an overseas assignment, which diminishes the role of women and introduces a new role for Japanese men. The Cardiff head teacher confirmed that for many Japanese children at her school, it was the first time they had ever seen their father attend the graduation ceremony or the sports day, which is the mother’s domain in Japan. She considered this to be an advantage (meritto da to omoimasu), and not just for the children but also for the fathers. The increased role of fathers is seen in Shoko’s case. She said that her husband had not been looking forward to his time on the committee. His view was that he was at work all day Monday to Friday and he did not want to be involved. After a while, however, he found that he enjoyed it. His involvement in this way was in contrast to the situation in Japan, Shoko said: In Japan, things like the names of teachers and the names of my son’s friends go in one ear and out the other, but when he was on the Steering Committee he got to know all about everything, and all about the children and their friends. He was able to take my son to school on a Saturday morning, and what is more, he continued to do so even after his term on the committee was done. Now I am quite free on Saturdays. Last Saturday I went to an antiques fair.

The way in which Shoko and her husband found a new shared topic of conversation in the form of the Japanese Saturday school and its pupils and staff, mirrors the experience of those women discussed who are able to discuss their husband’s colleagues and clients as a result of their social role. In fact, when a mother’s husband is on the Steering Committee she does not need to go to the school at all, and can take the day off – as two informants said they did. They did have a role, however, in helping their children with homework, and this was especially stressful at times of school testing, particularly of kanji (characters of Chinese origin). At the time of my visit parents were eagerly and somewhat nervously awaiting the results of the Japanese national


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kanji tests that their children had taken. Each week there is a kanji test at the school. Different women had different opinions on this. Junko said that her daughters were well motivated at the Japanese school and even found that they enjoyed the Japanese homework, so she did not have to push them. Yumi pinned up Japanese kanji characters all round the house in the hope that her son would recognize them. This was a constant worry to her. In conversation with other mothers though, it was clear that because of the worry about difficulties to be faced by children on their return to Japan, some mothers became stressed by the process of Japanese school homework, and some pushed their children hard at the Saturday school. SUMMARY This chapter has examined the role of Japanese wives in the overseas transfer process in the care of young children and in their children’s education during the assignment in the UK. It has shown how fathers contribute relatively little to the daily practicalities of raising of young pre-school children, but that they are often more involved in the education of older children than they would be in Japan. Despite the very real concerns about education of their children when living in the UK, an assignment overseas can present the opportunity for Japanese fathers to share both the work load and pleasures involved, which can be to the advantage of the husband, wife and family relationship as a whole. The following chapter highlights other factors that can make a UK assignment a life-enriching experience for the Japanese women involved. NOTES 1

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Everyday writing in Japanese uses a combination of kanji (characters of Chinese origin) and kana – hiragana and katakana. Hiragana is used for Japanese words to which kanji cannot easily be fitted, words of sound symbolism, endings of words that conjugate, such as verbs and adjectives, particles and auxiliary verbs. Pronouns, adverbs, conjunctions and names of plants and animals are also better written in hiragana. Katakana is used for foreign words and onomatopoeia (‘Japanese For Today’ 1973). Children begin by learning hiragana. In looking at pre-school in Japan, Tobin, Wu and Davidson concluded that music, and physical activities such as tumbling and dance constituting physical well-being and social development were important (1989: 56–57). Hendry (1986) points out that some adults think that kindergartens and other such classes have reduced the amount of unsupervised play away from

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adult supervision. See Eyal Ben-Ari on ‘Structured and Unstructured Play’ (1997: 56–59). The Japanese Bilingual Support Assistant was appointed by the Schools Multicultural Development Service (SMDS) of Shropshire Education Authority for Japanese children in the Telford area. At the time of the research the Bilingual Support Teacher was involved in helping Japanese children at Leegomery, Priorslee, Randlay, Lord Silkin and Apley Wood and Charlton Secondary School in Telford. She began her post when she was asked to help with a Japanese pupil having behavioural difficulties, and who turned out to be autistic – a condition that had not been recognized in Japan. At first the post was voluntary, but later became full time. The assistant, who is thought of highly by the Japanese community in Telford, has since retired but with no one to fill the position continues to help families on a voluntary basis. I came across another case in Cardiff where a child was receiving similar help with his special needs that had not been recognized in Japan. According to British Government guidelines of 1998, five to seven-year-old children should spend one hour a week on homework, increasing to thirty minutes a day when they are nine to eleven years old. For younger children homework usually means reading and spelling; for older children it may involve research or completing English or maths work sheets (see www.dfes.gov.uk/homework/). Higuchi (1975) notes, however, that the chairman of the PTA in Japanese schools is often a man and women today have confirmed in interview that this is still sometimes the case. A non-Japanese informant has suggested that this situation may differ in regions and amongst different types of schools in the UK, but I report from my own experience and fieldwork findings here. 30% of children at the school are from backgrounds that entitle them to free school lunches. The head teacher was unsure as to whether Japanese parents were aware of this, and said that many British families of middle-class background would avoid the school in favour of another nearby. The school meets for forty-one Saturdays a year, in line with schools in Japan as far as possible. I asked Junko whether it was OK to miss a Saturday, for example if the family wanted to go on holiday. She, and subsequently other mothers, told me that their children would not dream of missing a week, and pleaded with their parents not to let them do so. One of the reasons for this is the nature of the friendships they make with other Japanese classmates. This is particularly important if they are the only Japanese in their British school. They do not think of the Japanese school as merely a place for learning, but to speak Japanese freely with their friends. During the week at school they can be quite nervous, but the Japanese school is a place where they can be themselves, where they can borrow books from the Japanese library and even where they can play baseball, which is popular in Japan but rarely seen in British schools. It should be noted that class sizes are significantly lower in the Telford and Cardiff Japanese Saturday schools than they would be in Japan where a class of forty is not uncommon. A teacher said that as well as leading to a more relaxed and friendly atmosphere this gave children the confidence to speak out as they would not do in Japan. This is of course also partly due to the training that children get in this from attending British schools.

Care of Young Children and Education 10

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Natsukashi indicates feelings of nostalgia or happy memories. Here, since the format of the sports day and the exercises followed a typical Japanese format, the parents were probably remembering their own childhood experience as well as Japanese custom itself.

7

Life Outside the Confines of ‘Housewife’: Enriching Aspects of Overseas Transfer

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his chapter shows the ways in which a husband’s temporary assignment to the UK offers women means of self-fulfilment and enjoyment outside their housewife roles. It explains the barriers to making non-Japanese friends in the UK, but shows how many women are successful in doing so, and demonstrates the ways in which women play an important role in volunteer activities. In acting as ambassadors for their country, the chapter agues that Japanese wives play a vital part in the promotion of Anglo-Japanese relations during the overseas transfer process. WOMEN’S ACTIVITIES BEYOND HOUSEWIFE ROLES IN THE UK

It has been suggested that many of the varied and wide-ranging activities that women engage in outside the home – baking, cooking, sewing and handicrafts – are skills that can be justified as being helpful to their housewifely role (Imamura 1987: 89). Yet, since their salarymen husbands are frequently absent from the home, they also have ‘a good deal of control over their lives’ (ibid.: 234) and as such are able to take part in a wide range of activities that are separate from their housewife functions. Pursuing personal skills and accomplishments that provide challenge and personal satisfaction goes far beyond the more immediate role of attending to the needs of the family (Hendry 1993: 235).

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Housewives in Japan, for example, have been involved in grassroots politics (Leblanc 1999) and volunteer activities (Nakano 2000; Bestor 2002), and mothers in Japan commonly look to community activities as a way of channelling energies that are not being used in a workplace outside the home (Sasagawa 2001). They have joined to form cooperative groups, including consumer groups that have resisted pressure to buy goods produced in ways that are harmful to the environment (Hendry 1993: 236). Japanese women living in the UK also enjoy a rich and full life that extends far beyond housewife duties, and many of my informants reported that relatives, friends and neighbours in Japan envy their lifestyle and the opportunities it presents. Though free time may be limited for women with younger children, for others without children, with children at school during the day, or with grown-up children, there is an abundance of opportunity for extra activities that women take up enthusiastically. Women join gyms, play tennis, they engage in a wide range of crafts, such as tapestry, decoupage, cross-stitch, china painting and bead craft. They learn cooking, sugar craft, taking specialist courses in bread making and go to wine-tasting sessions. They learn flower arrangement, play golf, sing in choirs and play the piano and flute. They go shopping, and on outings with their friends, and they lunch together. Women engage in such activities however, not simply to fill their time or for frivolous entertainment. They are an important way of meeting the Japanese friends who are vital to their experience of living in the UK. As in the case of women in Japan (Imamura 1987), women also use the various activities in which they take part as a means of self-fulfilment. They use the opportunity to gain skills that they are able to put to use on their return to Japan, as well as skills for practical day-to-day life in the UK, and to learn more about British culture. This includes the study of English as well as other European languages, and the study of English history and taking part in other activities that will enable them to get the most of their time in the UK. Cookery classes cannot be dismissed as being simply related to the housewife role, since they too can be an opportunity to learn more about the host country and its people. Many Japanese women learn British seasonal cookery such as cookery for Christmas, including traditional Christmas puddings and mincemeat. When such activities are carried out with a British counterpart or teacher, a further social element is also added. Attending cooking classes also enables women to learn how to use British ingredients when Japanese ingredients are

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hard to find, which was especially the case for women living in London in the 1970s when the infrastructure catering to the Japanese community was far less then it is today. Illustrations of women engaging in practical activities for getting on with day-to-day life in the UK include the woman who took her driving test in order to carry the dishes that she made in cookery classes so that she did not have to travel home on the bus, and another in Cardiff took her driving test in order to take her children to school, but these are just two of many examples. When asked how they could improve their lives, 25.7% of respondents in Japan said that they would choose first of all to teach their hobbies and crafts to a group (Iwao 1976: 63), and during the UK assignment women also engage in pastimes that will enable them to gain qualifications, expertise or experience that they will be able to put to use when they return to Japan. Examples of this are teaching Japanese as a foreign language, or taking a professional qualification in a certain activity, such as flower arranging, which may enable them to teach when they return to Japan. One woman took special bread-making classes with a view to opening her own bread shop on her return to Japan. Just as women maintain a degree of tradition in their homes in the UK, they also maintain some Japanese traditions in the organization of their group activities. This can be seen in the system of weekly payment of subscriptions in brown envelopes, using hanko stamps to sign an attendance register, the End of Year and New Year Party (the bonenkai and the shinnenkai), the group outing (ensoku), and farewell parties (sobetsukai) for those returning to Japan. In all of the above, women craft their activities in the same way that Hendry described in the case of housewives in Japan (1993: 226). The volunteer teachers of Sakura kai, meet before the weekly classes to discuss their lessons and teaching methods and carefully monitor each other’s progress, and all activities are carried out to a high standard and as near perfection as possible. WOMEN AND THEIR JAPANESE FRIENDS IN THE UK The Japanese friends that women make during their husband’s transfer to the UK are vital to the extent that they enjoy the assignment period and, as in Japan, friends are an important factor in enabling women to enjoy their everyday lives. Relationships between close friends (shinyu) have the advantage of being intimate,


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non-hierarchical and without suspicion of the other’s motives (Salamon 1975). This is especially significant for women when their husbands are in the workplace for long hours, and none more so than during an assignment overseas. Japanese women enjoy a wealth of friendship from Japanese friends while living in the UK made through the array of hobbies, groups and activities described above, even if those friends are hard to make at first and especially if a woman has no children. It is ultimately these friends who help to make her stay enjoyable (such as by sharing in social activities) and who act as a vital support mechanism (in helping with exchange of information, childminding, helping pack the house and belongings on repatriation, etc.) during the assignment. A indicated above, an important way of making Japanese friends is through children. Women without children rely even more on hobby groups or classes for meeting others. Those with pre-school children find it harder to make friends than mothers with schoolchildren, especially on initially arriving in the country and especially until their child joins some nursery class or toddler activity. Groups such as Nakayoshi Kai in London and Hiyokai in Oxford and numerous other groups that women set up independently aim to fill this gap. Once a child starts school full time, Japanese mothers form bonds with other mothers of Japanese children of the same school year as their own in the same way that they do in Japan. These relationships are often very strong, with the mothers meeting during school time and during the holidays with children. In long summer holidays during my fieldwork, most mothers had daily plans to fill the days, which included these friends, going on outings together or meeting at each other’s houses. When children are at the age to start the Japanese Saturday School the bond is further increased since they meet at school on Saturday and have another common link and social life surrounding it. Whether women make friends with and gain support from wives whose husbands work for the same company as theirs depends on factors such as the seniority of the husband and the location in the UK. Women whose husbands are in senior management in London reported that they made friends with other Japanese wives through their social role in a way that would not arise in Japan, and they then came across those same friends at other groups such at the Japanese Women’s Association or Nichi-Ei Otomodachi Kai. This does not seem

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to be the case for wives of less senior-ranking husbands in London. Aiko, the wife of a junior banker in her thirties with young children, told me that, while members of her husband’s bank lived in her London neighbourhood, she had no idea where and who they were. Outside the capital however, in locations where the focus is on manufacturing, the situation is different. In Telford, members of the same factory tend to live in the same neighbourhood close by. Wives know each other well, meeting on a daily basis as their main friendship and support network, in which there is far less attention paid to hierarchy amongst wives depending upon their husband’s position than in the capital. Wives living in Manchester noted that while their nakama was other wives of the same company, in Japan they never met at all. Women are resourceful with their friendships, forming groups in each other’s houses to take up interests, such as crafts, especially if one of them has a skill that she can pass on as a teacher. In Telford, for example, women meet in each other’s homes to learn decoupage (a craft that involves cutting and sticking paper or card) and in London learning to make jewellery from beads is currently popular. As already mentioned, those living outside the capital accompany each other to medical appointments in London when required, or to visit Japanese specialist food shops. In Telford, women often jointly visit the fish market in Birmingham where they purchase a large pack of the best raw tuna and divide the cost between them. A further, but not untypical example of the practical nature of friendship is in that of Junko who moved out of her house into a larger one opposite. Since her husband was more senior and his housing allowance was more, they could afford a larger house, leaving their former smaller one free for occupation by the friend and her family whose housing allowance was less. Women rely on their friends to support them in other ways. One of these ways is simply by giving advice, especially by those who have been in the UK longer who can offer a wealth of experience to help other women. When the husband of one informant was transferred to another UK location and the family had to move to another town, it was not long before another woman in the Japanese community introduced her to a friend in the same town, who subsequently helped her build networks and settle in. Since paid ‘babysitting’ is uncommon in Japan, another form of support is in childcare, with other women providing childcare support and acting in a sense as the extended family left behind


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in Japan. When Kyoko wanted to attend her older child’s school concert, Yumi looked after her new baby. Kyoko and Akiko both had a new baby as well as an older son the same age. In order to provide some free time for themselves, they arranged activities for the older children after school each night and took it in turns to accompany them. Women who lived in Manchester in the 1990s spoke of the close friendships they formed, describing them as a form of joho kokan (exchange of information). They met in each other’s homes to read and translate English books together, such as Peter Rabbit, Mother Goose and Agatha Christie. They described this as tanoshii benkyo – fun study. They went to some classes together such as oil painting and pottery, and visited antique markets. Another important point to make about friends is the impact of losing them when they return to Japan. This is an inevitable part of what Befu calls the ‘rotational community’ (2001: 12). Makiko lost two of her closest girl friends within two months. As a result of the shared experience of living abroad, however, friendships made are strong. When I went to Japan in May 2002 I found that women who had spent time together in the UK kept in touch even if geographically separated. It is interesting to note that, except when referring to members of Nichi-Ei Otomodachi Kai, women often translated ‘friend’ (tomodachi) to mean Japanese friends, and in most cases, making friends with English women is a lot more difficult. A comprehensive study of 8,000 ambassadors, attachés and diplomats published within the UK diplomatic community in 2001 showed that 60% found it hard to make new British friends (Diplomat magazine November 2001), suggesting that this is not a unique problem. The following section explores factors that can make the acquisition of non-Japanese friends difficult for Japanese women in particular during their husband’s assignment to the UK. FACTORS MAKING THE ACQUISITION OF NON-JAPANESE FRIENDS DIFFICULT FOR JAPANESE WOMEN While Japanese women in the UK are successful in forming friendships with non-Japanese during the assignment to the UK, this can be difficult for mothers with very young children who do not yet go to nursery, or for older women with no children to make nonJapanese friends. And, in cases where women live in areas of the UK where there are other Japanese, it is, understandably, often easier for

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them to mix with Japanese than non-Japanese people. As an informant told me, ‘It is easier to relax with Japanese friends.’ The largest obstacle to friendship is probably Kotoba no kabe – the language barrier (or literally ‘the wall of language’). Despite the fact that Japanese children learn English at school, the opportunity to practise speaking it is rare for most. Most women told me that they would like to have English friends, but are inhibited by kotoba no kabe. Many informants felt that they were only able to greet Englishspeaking women on a superficial level, or as one informant said, ‘aisatsu gurai’ (merely greetings), and that conversation on any level deeper was difficult. One factor in this is lack of confidence. Mrs Kamakura, who had returned to Japan confirmed, ‘I was embarrassed to speak English.’ Japanese women told me that they fear both not being understood, and not being able to understand. And, as Japanese culture tends to avoid directness, it is difficult to admit outright when something has not been understood. Another factor is the fear of making mistakes, mentioned elsewhere. As Rie told me, ‘We [Japanese] do not like to make a mistake.’ Shoko said that she was always thinking of the most correct way to say what she wanted in her head, but by the time that she had, it was too late. After a while she realized that the best thing to do was ‘Just say it!’ and not worry about whether it was exact or not. Another factor, both in relation to language and behaviour, is the importance of maintaining harmony (wa) in Japanese society where language levels of politeness in human interaction are vital. Language is important in determining relative status and people make judgements about one another depending on their ability to use polite forms appropriately (Hendry 2003: 121). It has been pointed out that the way in which something is said by wrapping it in appropriate language is as important, sometimes more important, than what is said (ibid. 122). One informant asked me, ‘How can I translate shitsurei desuga?’ Literally this means, ‘I am sorry to be rude (or impolite) but . . .’ If used at the start of a sentence it gives the hearer the idea that the speaker wants to ask a sensitive or personal question and smoothes the way for the conversation. Such ‘techniques’ are important in Japanese, partly to avoid being too direct, and women worry about getting such formalities wrong in English. The fear is not just one of linguistic error but of causing upset or ill feeling (i.e. disturbing wa).


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Japanese women also have difficulty with word order, and particularly with particles and with plural forms. Unlike English, Japanese language has neither particles nor plural forms for nouns, meaning that Japanese women often omit both. Sasagawa-Garmory describes how even after ten years in the UK, she still writes her shopping list in the singular, listing the items as ‘egg’, ‘apple’, etc. (1999: 110). Three more points help to explain what makes it difficult for Japanese women in the UK to make British friends. One is that the clearly-defined gendered worlds described amongst middle-class families in Japan in Chapter 1, mean that married couples do not typically socialize together in the evenings. As pointed out in this book, for the wives of more senior managers in the UK, socializing with a husband in the work environment is a new role introduced during the assignment. However, it is rare for a Japanese couple to initiate any social event with a non-Japanese couple that is not related to the husband’s company. Women view the language learning of others with a mixture of admiration and sometimes even with suspicion and a subsequent point is the fear of appearing to speak English ‘too well’ – especially in front of other Japanese. This might be seen as ‘showing off’ and it might ‘show up’ the other women. Disdain for standing out from the crowd in Japanese culture will be explained further in Chapter 7. Another concern is not to be seen to neglect motherly or housewife duties. One women said that she felt it would be acceptable for her to be seen studying at a non-serious conversational level, but not at a serious level with examinations. The suggestion was that she might be neglecting her motherly duties, especially significant in view of the financial allowances from the husband’s company perceived as obligating her to fulfil her housewife roles. The degree to which husbands support their wives in their language learning varies enormously, from ‘Yes, he encouraged me a lot’ to ‘Not so much. He says I do not need to.’ An informant in London said that since her husband worked long hours she was effectively a ‘mother-child family’ and, as her husband was never there, he did not mind what she did, including English lessons. On the other hand, there was a definite feeling amongst women that no activity should result in neglect of housewife roles. As long as it did not, then it was acceptable. Japanese women said that they sometimes found typed documents easier to read than handwritten ones. Even so, confusion often arises. For example, Mrs Tanaka told of the time a note from her daughter’s

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school advised that the children should take ‘Wellingtons’ on a school trip. She finally found out that her daughter was being asked to take ‘Wellington boots’ by a British work colleague of her husband. Another time, she did not understand the word ‘footwear’. She also described how on mufti days1 she would remain in her car with a set of normal clothes, in case she had got it wrong and none of the other children were in fancy dress. Another mother described how when asked to take a ‘recorder’ to school, she sent her in with a tape recording machine rather than the musical instrument required and another was mystified when asked to bring something for the ‘White Elephant’ stall (unwanted goods) at the school bazaar. It is significant that women commonly said that it was easier to make friends with other non-Japanese than British nationals. Probably, since both were making efforts to communicate in a tongue other than their own, they made more effort to understand each other. Another reason is that many Londoners tend to leave the capital during school holidays whereas expatriates were generally around at least for some of the holiday. One of the first people to be friendly with Makiko on her arrival in London was a woman from Singapore and they became good friends. In London, in particular, another group that Japanese women tend to get to know are nannies, firstly because of their link with the children on play dates and so on, and, secondly, because they are often not so much in a hurry as working parents. Becoming more competent in the language gave them more confidence, and allowed them to mix more with British people, which in turn added something to the quality of their stay. And yet, learning English is easier said than done, especially when a woman has young children and other housewife duties to carry out in a foreign country. In addition, finding an English class that caters for mothers rather than young students can be difficult. WOMEN AND NON-JAPANESE FRIENDS IN THE UK This book emphasizes the positive stories of Japanese women in the UK, many of which are inspiring, and there are numerous examples of Japanese women who are successful in making friendships with British women and their families. When children attend British schools, they meet mothers of their children’s English school friends. They also come into contact with non-Japanese mothers at toddler groups or nursery and with women who attend the same hobby


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groups. British women who teach those hobby groups, such as English or tennis, are another source of contact. Japanese women also make friends with their non-Japanese neighbours. Informants described how their neighbours take in mail when they are away and watch over their house when they are on holiday. Non-Japanese neighbours also give gardening tips or in some cases teach Japanese women skills such as tapestry or help them with their English. As already mentioned, one Japanese woman in Telford took her English neighbour to visit Japan, and several established lasting friendships. Many more continue to send Christmas cards to their English neighbours long after returning to Japan. In contrast to the situation described by Kawai (2000) in America, all of my informants in the UK took English lessons at some point during their sojourn, to varying degrees. Some women take language learning seriously. Ryoko, in London, took the Cambridge English exam. She considered this a more difficult exam to pass than the Japanese run ‘Eiken’ test, which consists mainly of multiple-choice questions and not of essays and oral examination. Junko who lived in Telford took classes twice a week at the local college, and twice a week she had a teacher come to her home. She was successful in passing the Cambridge exam, which is a great achievement. Most women in Telford attended classes at the local college, and many had a tutor who came to the home. This can also provide an opportunity for many for one-to-one contact with a non-Japanese person on friendly terms that does not require the effort of actually going out and seeking the friendship. One interviewee admitted that she found learning English too time consuming when she would rather be reading Japanese books, and she relied on her daughter’s good English. In fact she even paid for her daughter’s assistance when needed! It is also interesting note is that relatives in Japan sometimes think that women will be pera pera (fluent) after a year – ironically some Japanese women joked that they started to study English hardest just before returning to Japan! Women sometimes use English lessons as a way of getting to know their neighbours. Several in Telford and Manchester told me that they had done an exchange with a neighbour – an English lesson for a Japanese lesson. The prime motivation for a significant number of mothers however, is to be able to help their children with their English schoolwork, and to communicate with the school. I found several mothers who employed a home tutor who taught both

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mother and child. For others, learning English is quite simply seen as a necessity for day-to-day living. Other success stories include a woman who learnt English in Sainsbury’s Supermarket by listening to and repeating the store announcements, and by asking members of the public to reach things off shelves for her! Another Japanese woman struck up a lasting friendship after she met a British woman at a concert. In this case, the British woman made the first move, emphasizing, I believe, an important role that host country members have to play in making the first contact. So, while there are barriers to making non-Japanese friends, many Japanese women living in the UK are successful, especially those with children attending non-Japanese schools. In fact they may have more contact with non-Japanese than Japanese fathers working in the business world, who are in daily contact with the head office in Tokyo and who are still working in a Japanese environment. Furthermore, while the English ability of Japanese fathers may seem more advanced, mothers learn more practical vocabulary for use in day-to-day life. VOLUNTEER ACTIVITIES AND AMBASSADOR ROLES In Japan, volunteer activity is an important area of activity engaged in by Japanese women whose childcare commitments allow (Nakano 2000; Bestor 2002). According to Nakano (2000) and Bestor (2002) this is quite a new concept in Japan, though in the late 1980s when I worked for Nara Prefecture this was already happening. The local government office in which I worked sent a team to research the matter in Europe. Nakano (2000) and Bestor (2002) suggest that it was the volunteer help provided during the 1995 Hanshin-Awaji earthquake that brought volunteer activity to the forefront and show how volunteering in Japan is currently experiencing rapid growth. Bestor shows how women in Japan gain personal satisfaction from being a borantia (volunteer) and feel that it can be an opportunity to obtain more status than they would from part-time work. Unlike many other activities, it allows women to fulfil the values of selfexpression and commitment to the larger group (ibid.). Women’s volunteer activities in the UK range from Sakura kai, in which volunteers teach Japanese language, to helping in a charity shop once a week. Others offer volunteer help at Day Care Centres and nurseries, or volunteer at one of the Japanese schools.


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A committee made up of members of the Japanese Women’s Association in Great Britain has produced the Rondon kurashi no handobukku (A Handbook for Living in London) on a voluntary basis. This is written in Japanese and is a useful guide to Japanese women.2 Another volunteer organization showing the wide range of activities is Fruit Punch, established in April 1994. This is a small voluntary group of parents of children with special needs. They hold regular meetings to share information, issue quarterly newsletters, publish a handbook in Japanese explaining the British medical, educational and social welfare systems, and hold social events in which children with and without special needs can participate together. A further important group of volunteers are those Japanese women who work on the Japan in Your Classroom (JIYC) scheme. This is as an important part of the JFET – The Japan Festival Education Trust – a registered charity that was set up in 1992 in response to the interest shown in Japan by British schools following the Japan Festival held in the UK in 1991. As of 8 January 2002, there were 206 volunteers in the scheme. Of these 205 were women and there was only one man. Many of the 205 were Japanese women living temporarily in the UK for their husband’s job, while others are Japanese women married to non-Japanese and living here, students or university teachers. The volunteers visit primary schools to provide first-hand experience of Japanese culture, and they demonstrate activities such as calligraphy, soroban (abacus), origami (paper folding) and a few words of Japanese. They take Japanese artifacts with them such as kimonos, soroban and Japanese paper. The majority of visits take place in the London area, but there are volunteers available in Brighton, Cheshire, Manchester, Derby and Nottingham as well as the North East and South and North Wales. In 2005, JIYC visits took place in ninety-three schools, and some 7,600 students were introduced to Japanese culture by the volunteers. Since JIYC started there have been over 2,300 visits to over 1,500 schools (On Japan, 737). It is not just on the said programme that women carry out such a role however. During the Japan Festival 2002 numerous matsuri festivals were held nationwide, and at many of them Japanese women volunteered their skills in koto playing, calligraphy, origami and other activities. They also do so at the local level, in their own children’s schools in Telford, for example. A similar programme, Club Taishikan (The Embassy Club) allows schools to visit the Japanese Embassy for similar hands-on activities with Japanese volunteers,

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some of whom are women who are temporary residents as well as those Japanese who have become permanent residents in the UK. A further initiative of the Japan Festival in 1991, and jointly organized by the Nihongo Centre,3 was Homestay UK, a programme that gave UK-based learners of Japanese between the ages of nine and nineteen the chance to stay in the home of a Japanese family in the UK. This provided the opportunity to enhance both their language skills as well as giving an understanding of Japanese culture. Between May 2001 and February 2002 a total of 105 home stays took place, and according to the Japanese Embassy in London some of the friendships formed as a result of home stays were maintained afterwards (Japan no. 702). Both the Japan Festival in 1991 and that in 2001 generated a huge amount of interest in Japan in the UK, and the volunteer activity of Japanese women goes a long way in carrying on this interest and plays an important part in promoting an understanding of Japan and of Anglo-Japanese relations. In many of the volunteer activities in which women take part, they may be said to act as ambassadors for their country. By ambassador, I mean an individual who represents her country favourably, and I draw also on the definition of diplomacy as the skill or tact in dealing with people and in conducting relations with other nations in a peaceful manner (Collins English Dictionary 1986). Even women who are not involved in high profile events and organizations play an important role. Japanese women act as ambassadors in the way that they present both themselves and Japan to non-Japanese neighbours and non-Japanese parents at schools. At the local level, women are keen to promote an understanding of Japanese life whenever they are asked to do so. For example, Japanese mothers at a state primary school in Telford organized a Japan week. Parents at a North London independent school sold Japanese food at the annual school fête, setting it out to look as authentic as possible and wearing Japanese dress. Other mothers make Christmas cards with origami inside and take trouble to write greetings in English and Japanese. Such activities very much emphasize the importance of grass roots activity, on which the Japanese Embassy currently places much emphasis in developing AngloJapanese understanding. There are also examples of individuals who act as ambassadors for Japan during or as a result of the experience of their assignment. A clear example of this is in the case of Mrs Masako Kidani who was awarded the Japanese Foreign Minister’s commendation in March


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2002 for her contribution to promoting friendly relations between Britain and Japan through her leading involvement in Momiji, an organization that grew ‘out of my wish to build a bridge between my own country and the countries I was living in’ (Japan no. 702). The organization arranges visits between Japan and the UK for young people with special needs, accompanied by volunteer carers from both the Japanese and British Red Cross. Many of my informants also contribute to this and other organizations, through donating time and money and in activities such as charity bazaars. SUMMARY This chapter has shown how women make the most of their stay in the UK by participating in a wide range of activities from hobbies to volunteer activities as a source of enjoyment, self-fulfilment and as a way to make friends who play a vital role in their lives. It has shown how women make Japanese friends, and the importance of doing so as a support network and sense of belonging. In outlining some of the difficulties encountered in making non-Japanese friends, it has highlighted obstacles for women to integration. However, a significant group of women take on ambassadorial roles that positively encourage Anglo-Japanese relations, not only through high profile events and activities but also individually at the local level in the neighbourhoods in which they live and the schools their children attend. Referring to her stay in Manchester in the 1990s, Mrs Oi told me: Of all our family members, we wives could enjoy it the most. Our children had to go to school. Our husbands had to go to work, but we could enjoy it! . . . I couldn’t play golf when I got back to Japan (like I did in Manchester) . . . I felt like I was really living (ikite iru) and I did all sorts of things (ippai shite).

Such comments also emphasize the significance of the temporary nature of the stay and the feeling that it should be made the most of while it lasts. Throughout my research I have concluded that the majority of Japanese women living temporarily in the UK do just that. Furthermore, women’s activities are not merely frivolous entertainment, but serve an important role, not only for the individual women in their everyday lives, but most significantly, Japanese women who accompany their husbands on overseas transfer to the

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UK play a vital role in representing Japan favourably, in promoting Anglo-Japanese relations both in the United Kingdom and on their return to Japan. NOTES 1

2

3

Mufti day is a day on which children do not have to wear school uniform. They are allowed to wear ordinary clothes or fancy dress. Sometimes they are asked to pay a small sum for doing so for school funds or some other charity. Kawai’s (2000) research on Japanese wives in New Jersey, found that there was a lack of literature of help to women in settling down in the US. The handbook produced by the Japanese Women’s Association in Great Britain is important in this respect. Japanese Language Centre, established by the Japan Foundation in 1997 to provide support for Japanese language teachers in the UK. The Japan Foundation is a non-profit organization set up by the Japanese Government to promote cultural exchange between Japan and other countries.

8

Effect of Overseas Transfer on Wives

C

hapter 2 indicated what overseas transfer might mean to a male professional in terms of his career progression, but how does the experience of overseas transfer affect his wife? This chapter shows how a husband’s overseas transfer to the UK provides women with the opportunity to view Japan from ‘the outside’, causing them to reassess certain aspects of their own culture. At the same time, however, it leads to a heightened sense of their own Japanese identity and to the development of a group of women who, appreciating the positive and negative aspects of both countries, learn to adapt their behaviour accordingly and to navigate skilfully between the two. APPRECIATION OF THE POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE ASPECTS OF THE UK AS HOST COUNTRY The idea that one can understand one’s own culture by stepping outside its boundaries is not, of course, new (Cohen 1985: 69). According to my informants, a temporary residence in the UK leads to the development of an appreciation of both the positive and negative aspects of the host country, which in turn leads to a heightened awareness of home. Some of the positive aspects of the UK as a location which are appreciated by Japanese women have already been mentioned in Chapter 4. These attractions included the British countryside and gardens, English tea and other British traditions that are highly respected in Japan. Informants also said that on returning to Japan they would miss

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their gardens with squirrels, foxes and flowers, and ‘going for weekend drives to visit old cities in beautiful rolling countryside’. In a sense an ideal image of the UK is held onto which turns into a feeling of natsukashisa (nostalgia) that makes women want to return to visit the UK after their repatriation. As also indicated in Chapter 4, much that is related to the UK is fashionable in Japan, which puts women who experience it first hand in a privileged position. Consider for example the ‘street cred’ of the group of informants now repatriated, whose husbands’ company was sponsor of the Manchester United football team. They regularly attended matches, met and were photographed with players, including David Beckham. Following the World Cup in Japan in 2002, Beckham was so popular in Japan that he is unable to go out onto the Tokyo streets alone without being mobbed by fans. He and his wife were said to be Japan’s highest paid foreign advertising icons, earning at least £10 million by lending their names to six firms (The Times, Wednesday, 18 June 2003). There are of course also negative aspects of life in the UK, some of which come as a shock to Japanese women. Not least of these is customer service, or rather lack of it. For anyone who has spent any length of time in Japan, where customers are greeted at the entrance to shops and restaurants, and where the customer most definitely comes first, it is not difficult to understand how it feels to encounter blunt, off-hand or even rude service in Britain. It seems that this is particularly bad in the capital, where there tends to be less of a personal relationship between customer and, say, a shop assistant or waiter. Japanese women who have sought maintenance work on their property have experienced first hand the difficulty of getting a good job done, that is if they can even find someone to do it, and if they turn up when and where they say they will. Similarly informants were amazed that they had to go and collect their car from the garage themselves after repair, when in Japan the garage would typically both collect and return it. British commuters frequently lament the lack of punctuality in train services, but this is a particular shock to anyone coming from Japan where trains run like clockwork. What is more, apparent resignation to the fact by the British public was incomprehensible to my Japanese informants. One informant was clearly disillusioned with London life and complained of the pollution and lack of manners amongst its people. Another spoke of the litter on the streets and the lack of basic customer service. She also said that she felt that some British people


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‘thought they were better than everyone else’ and, as already mentioned, another said that she found the British ‘cold’ (tsumetai). Other informants, however, spoke of the kindness they had received, with one from Cardiff saying, ‘I think I will want to return favours to foreigners who come to Japan that I have received in Britain,’ and another, ‘I’ve been blessed with wonderful friends like I could not have had in Japan.’ A NEW AWARENESS OF POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE ASPECTS OF THE HOME COUNTRY The experience of living in the UK leads women to appreciate both good and bad points about Japan in the same way it does with regard to the UK. The heightened sense of the positive aspects of Japan that develops during an overseas assignment will be discussed at the end of this chapter as a particular characteristic of expatriate Japanese woman. This is in contrast to the case of younger women described as seeking international experience by looking to the foreign as a way of circumventing aspects of Japanese culture (Kelsky 2001). Of Japan’s ‘bad’ points, women cite ‘busy-ness’ and noise. As one returnee now living in Tokyo told me, ‘The pace of life was better in the UK – it is quicker in Japan’ (Muko no pesu ga yokatta – Nihon wa hayai). Japan is only slightly larger than the UK in terms of landmass, but as of the 2001 census, the Japanese population stood at 127.3 million, compared to 58.8 million in the UK (Embassy of Japan, www.embjapan.org.uk and UK Government Statistics, www.statistics. gov.uk/). The population density in Japan is 340 per square metre compared to 242 in the UK, but since a large part of Japan is actually uninhabitable the density of inhabited areas is actually much higher (Embassy of Japan www.embjapan.org.uk). Furthermore, approximately one quarter of the Japanese population – a massive 30,527,856 people – live in the Tokyo area alone (Japan Almanac 2002). Comparing the size and population of London – 7,172,036 according to the 2001 census – gives some idea of the crowds of people involved, for example in a daily Tokyo rush hour. Women in Telford mentioned this as something they would not be looking forward to on their return. Noise from neighbours in Japan was also frequently mentioned, due to the close proximity of homes. Returnees interviewed in Nara said that they had not really been aware of this before their experience of living in Manchester. Though she had not noticed it before

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she left Japan one informant said that when she returned she was annoyed by the noise of her neighbours, even the sound of the neighbouring housewife as she beat the dust from her futon bedding on the neighbouring balcony. This noise from neighbours in small apartments, and in shataku (company housing) in particular, was a concern for women who were contemplating a return to Japan. Another commonly cited disadvantage of life in Japan was its unbearably hot and humid summers – with the exception of July 2006, not usually a problem combination in the UK! The summer months of June to August in Japan, however, are dominated by warm, moist air currents from the Pacific, producing the high temperatures and humidity that are common throughout most of the country. In the early part of the summer there is also a rainy season, and further heavy rain can be expected in the late summer when typhoons are also likely. Spring and autumn are generally pleasant months, mild with low rainfall and clear skies. This is a pattern that can be expected annually, unlike the situation in the UK, which in contrast strikes the Japanese as giving ‘three climates in one day’ (Conte-Helm 1996: 70). INFLUENCE ON WORLDVIEW Possible explanations for the Japanese view towards countries outside Japan have already been suggested in explaining the difficulties that my informants encountered in making non-Japanese friends. While there is diversity in Japan, demonstrated by the presence of Koreans, Chinese, Filipinos, Ainu, Nikkeijin (Latin Americans of Japanese descent) and burakumin,1 there has also been a widespread ideology of cultural homogeneity and purity. By the mid-1980s, this was actually thought by many Japanese to be inextricably related to the nation’s economic growth (see Goodman, Peach, Takenaka and White 2003: 2) and has also been expressed as an explanation for Japan’s lack of immigration (ibid.).2 A significant number of Japanese – notably those outside urban areas – will have had little contact with others from outside Japan, apart from what they have seen or read in the media. Furthermore, only a relatively small percentage of the Japanese population travels overseas each year. In 2000, 14% of the population (17,818,590 Japanese) travelled overseas, 81.8% of these for sightseeing, 15% for business, and the remaining 3.2% for ‘other reasons’ (Japan Almanac 2002: 272).


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The experience of an overseas transfer, however, presents women with the opportunity not only to live temporarily in one country but also to visit others during an assignment. The countries of Europe, on the opposite side of the globe to Japan, become close and accessible to families living in the UK. Informants frequently used a quote borrowed from the Disneyland theme park saying that they began to feel that ‘after all’, it really is ‘a small, small world’. One woman said, ‘Living in the UK has made me more interested in overseas,’ and another, ‘My interest in foreign countries has increased.’ An overseas assignment can also provide the occasion for contact with individuals of other nationalities, which, as suggested above, would be more difficult in Japan. Despite the very real difficulties in making friends with non-Japanese outlined in Chapter 6, through the process of overseas transfer, women spoke of losing fear of people who spoke English or who had a different colour skin. Shoko, who has now returned to Japan, spoke about the experience as a chance to be exposed to people of different nationalities and the effect this had had on her: I learnt about different religions from my (non-Japanese) friends. For example my daughter made friends with an Arabic girl from school and we spent a lot of time with her family. Before that I was so ignorant about Middle Eastern countries. I did not know about Islam at all, but I became interested in Arabic culture. We went to their house almost every Friday and sometimes we had dinner with them. I also had Indian friends and Irish friends and I got to learn about different cultures.

When I asked Ryoko if she felt that she had changed as a result of her experience: ‘Yes, I have changed. For example now I don’t mind other people.’ Another informant said, ‘I have gained confidence through speaking English, being with British people and studying with them. I have no prejudice against foreign people now.’ Informants said that they also felt more tolerant of other people. One informant told me, ‘I have had time to think about other people and other people’s standpoint.’ Many women spoke of their horizons or outlook being broadened (shiya ga hirogaru) and said that they felt they had become more flexible in terms of being able to see things from other angles (monogoto to oomen kara kangaeru/miru koto ga dekiru). An example of a Japanese woman reassessing her view of Japan and how others saw her country through its history was illustrated by an

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informant after she was faced with what she saw as a form of discrimination towards the Japanese at the time of the Japanese Emperor’s visit to London in 1990. The woman said: I experienced hostility towards the Japanese at the time when the Japanese Emperor came to London while we were there. I did not know that the problem of prisoners of war was still such a big thing for English people. I was so shocked because the newspapers carried items about it every day, and there were films or documentaries about the mean Japanese every day. I was shocked because I did not know about that at all. After that, I felt that I needed to be aware of the issue. After I came back to Tokyo, I sometimes talked about it to my friends and I found an important thing – almost all Japanese believe that we were also the injured party in the war. Every Japanese person thinks like this, that almost none of our young men wanted to start a war, they wanted to go to college. They did not want to leave their girl friends and family. If there were some people who did take a positive attitude towards the war, it was because they were brainwashed, but they should still have our sympathy. Women were also poor during the war. Their husbands or boyfriends died. Japanese people lost everything because of the war, so they cannot understand at all why others blame us for it. There are a lot of Japanese films and documentaries about the war, but they are uniform. They are not political at all – they just show tragedy. I watched a documentary about a Serbian girl. When NATO bombed Yugoslavia she opened her diary to the public on the Internet. She was in constant fear of the bombing. Her diary aroused sympathy from many readers. But, at the same time, some people said that she did not deserve any sympathy because her country caused the situation. I watched an Englishman on the TV who said, ‘She should not open her diary to the public. She should just make a protest about her country’s act. If I was her, I would go out into the street to protest and if I was arrested I would continue the protest because I believe it would be my duty.’ When I watched this Englishman, I thought he was very English and I began to understand the British attitude and why English people stick to the issue of the prisoners of war.

Experiencing what she saw as discrimination towards the Japanese in London presented this informant with the opportunity to think


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deeply about such questions, and what is more, to discuss them with friends in Japan and to come to a different understanding of the issues involved. HOW SEEING JAPAN FROM THE OUTSIDE CAUSES WOMEN TO REASSESS ASPECTS OF THEIR OWN CULTURE AND BEHAVIOUR Overseas transfer presents the opportunity to experience how others see Japan, or how Japan is seen from the outside. As one woman told me, ‘As a result of living in an overseas country I am strongly aware of the Japan that can be seen from the outside.’ Another said, ‘I think that I have come to be able to see Japan, my own country, from different angles.’ Women reported that this experience makes them question some aspects of their culture and reassess their own behaviour or adherence to it. Many of the aspects that they reconsider are related to the way in which individuals present themselves and in relation to themselves as individuals and as part of a group, the importance of which was stressed in Chapter 6. An example of this is seen in the idea of ki o tsukau whereby an individual should try to consider the feelings and desires of others. This is a notion held very strongly in Japan and reflects a notion that is clearly instilled into Japanese children from an early age, that it is better to put self-interest second. The principle is important throughout school life, and also in adult life for many Japanese in personal relations, in the workplace, or in the local community (Hendry 2003: 57). Japan is very good at training children, and therefore adults, to put their own needs second to those of the wider group (ibid.). The notion of ki o tsukau expresses the idea, for example, that a Japanese woman should anticipate the needs of others before they are verbally expressed, and she should consider and be aware of how her actions affect others. Shoko gave an example: If a guest comes to my house and asks for an ashtray, then it is too late. He should not have had to ask for it. I should have provided it before he asked. That is a very shameful thing for Japanese women. It is a difficult thing, but it is very important.

A housewife should possess omoiyari, or ‘empathy’ – ‘the ability and willingness to feel what others are feeling, to vicariously experience

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the pleasure or pain that they are undergoing and to help them satisfy their wishes’ (Lebra 1976: 38). She should not therefore ask a guest whether they want tea or coffee, but should guess what they want, and this should be done without verbal communication (ibid.: 40). Furthermore, placing a guest in the position where they would have to make a choice bluntly and directly, between say tea or coffee, to the Japanese way of thinking, puts them in an awkward position. If a European housewife were to find all of this exasperating and tiring, fieldwork suggests that in many instances my Japanese informants feel this increasingly so after an overseas residence, if they did not feel it before. During their stay in the UK, my informants implied that they felt a sense of release from paying constant attention to others – so essential for shudan seikatsu. Although they still paid attention to such matters among the community of fellow Japanese, to some extent living in the UK provided some relief from this. Many informants also mentioned relief from paying attention to ningenkankei – which requires individuals to pay attention to the complex network of human relations, with hierarchy representing an important dimension of relations in Japanese social life. This hierarchy has been referred to in terms of vertical relationships (Nakane 1970) and children are made aware of their relative ages from an early stage (Hendry 2003: 51). Hierarchical distinctions are made in speech, including polite terms of address and verbs, and in order to maintain harmony, it is considered important to pay attention to such matters. The ability to understand such subtleties and how one relates to them is in fact considered to be a mark of social maturity in Japan (Backnik 1994; Hendry 1992; Markus and Kitayama 1991). Yukiko who had been back in Japan after six years in London said, ‘In the UK there was no ningen kankei (ningen kankei wa nai). We were all fellow Japanese (onaji nihonjin doshi).’ Yukiko was a middle-aged mother living in London, who associated primarily with other mothers, amongst whom there was little attention to hierarchy. She was not party to membership of fujinkai (women’s groups) in which she might have to respect the hierarchy amongst more senior wives. Outside the groups of more senior or elite wives in London, I found that mothers paid less attention to hierarchy compared to in Japan. While Japanese mothers said that they felt a sense of relief from observing ningen kankei during the assignment, they are not released


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totally from this obligation. Observation of senior Japanese wives social events where other Japanese are present clearly illustrates the attention paid to their seniors and notably those of their husband. There seems, however, to have been a marked change in this both for women in Japan and during the overseas transfer process during the last forty to fifty years. Informants commonly described the strict hierarchy, which dictated that at meetings for company wives, junior women should stand and clap on the entrance of the most senior wife and repeat the process at the end as she made her way to her chauffeur driven car, and that the most junior wives should be seated at the back of the room. While this has been the case for company wives both in Japan and while on an assignment to London, some women said in fact that in the past women acted ‘more Japanese than in Japan’ during the overseas transfer process to London. In recent years, however, it seems that within some companies, wives now protest at such meetings, which has prompted at least one bank to cease them. Another aspect of Japanese behaviour that women question is the feeling that the individual should not stand out from the crowd. In emphasizing the cultural ideal of harmony, Japanese culture tends to look down on any behaviour that might foster conflict or that indicates deviance (Bestor 1996; Johnson 1993; Lebra 1976). As the Japanese saying goes, ‘the nail that sticks up should be hammered down’. Ryoko told me, ‘In Japan everyone looks the same, and mostly acts the same, but here it’s OK to be different.’ Again, this is something instilled into children at an early age in Japan. Children in kindergarten for example, learn that they can either cooperate with the activities of the group and be happy, or be left out and laughed at and thought of as ‘peculiar’ (Hendry 2003: 59). A further illustration of this is 1 June, which marks the day when clothes should be changed according to season. As Tamako told me, ‘Anyone who does not change their clothes – for example if they go to work in long sleeves after 1 June – will be thought of as very strange.’ Another informant said, ‘I don’t care about fashion now [that I am in London] so I am worried about keeping up with fashion when I go back to Japan. I don’t like to be the same as everyone else so I am worried about standing out.’ Talking in Tokyo a year after her repatriation, Yukiko remembered her time in London with affection saying, ‘We didn’t have to worry about what we wore, and we did not

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have to change our clothes according to season.’ My informants said that they felt a constant concern about how they present themselves in Japan and worry about what others think of both their appearance and behaviour. A year or so after her return to Japan, Yukiko sent me a photograph of herself and her two children outside a temple near Tokyo. I was immediately struck by the fact that suddenly, she looked ‘more Japanese’. When I examined the photograph I realized that the reason she did so was her attire. It is hard to define what was different about it, but she was definitely dressed in a style considered suitable for a woman of her age in Japan. She wore a denim dress and straw hat that would have looked quite out of place in North London, but that might be described as a kind of ‘uniform’ for Japanese housewives of her age. Clearly, Yukiko had adapted her dress in order for it to be acceptable in Japan. This contrasts with descriptions of second and third generation Japanese Brazilians who stand out from the crowd when they return to Japan precisely because of their dress and demeanor despite their Japanese phenotype (Tsuda 2003: x). Another aspect of Japanese culture that women reappraised while living in the UK is making mistakes, the fear of which has already been discussed as a barrier to speaking English. After Rie had returned to Japan, she gave me three illustrations of Japanese women’s fear of ‘making mistakes’. The first involved Japanese mothers: At the children’s school in London, when they gave us a letter that said, ‘please bring something by tomorrow’ sometimes it was only the Japanese mothers who remembered to bring it the next day. They never forgot. They would never make such a mistake. They are so organized – sometimes too organized.

The second illustration involved her (Japanese) friend’s son who was at school in Japan: My friend’s son is the same age as my daughter and started school this April. The day before his first day at school my friend told him very strictly, ‘When you need the toilet you have to tell your teacher.’ When my friend was a first year student herself, a friend of hers wet his pants and what is more had diarrhoea. After that incident he was bullied at school for six years until he finished primary


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school, and was called ‘Gary Cooper’ because diarrhoea is ‘geri’ in Japanese. The incident stuck in my friend’s mind and she told her son the story again and again, and advised me to tell my daughter about it too. I accepted her advice without objecting, but after I talked to her I really regretted it because my daughter became very nervous and was frightened of making a mistake at school – just like Japanese grown-ups. What I should have taught her was, don’t be afraid of making mistakes, or don’t bully a weak friend. I realized that almost all Japanese discipline their children like my friends, saying, ‘Don’t make a mistake or you will be bullied at school.’ And, at the same time, children think that if their friends make a mistake they can bully them.

The third incident involved Rie and an Australian mother who came to her house for tea after nursery. When visiting in Japan it is common to take a small gift, and when visiting another mother with children it is usual to take a food item that can be shared. Rie said: The Australian woman planned to bring a present – some sweets or something – but left it behind at the nursery by mistake. She wanted to go back and pick it up and I said, ‘No no, please don’t do that’ but she said the same thing over and over again. So, in the end, I asked her, ‘Why do you want to go and get it so much?’ She said that she had watched a Japanese soap opera on Japanese TV that is about the life of mothers of Japanese nursery children. In the soap opera, one mother did not bring anything when she was invited to someone’s house and said sorry. All the mothers there said, ‘Don’t worry about it’ very kindly, but after the mother left, they all spoke ill of her. I discussed this with the Australian mother and we decided that after a while even some non-Japanese are frightened of making a mistake in Japanese society. We are not allowed to make a mistake. The Australian mother said, ‘That’s right, Japanese society is so stressful and kibishii (strict).’

During fieldwork I joined a Japanese women’s group day trip and we travelled by coach. The driver made an error that resulted in the coach arriving late at its destination. My Japanese companion explained how in Japan this would be seen as a shameful act and in fact, I doubt whether it would happen. My companion however, expressed the incident in terms of her own changed attitude, which

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was much more relaxed than it would have been in Japan. In contrast to how she might have reacted in Japan, she now felt the incident had happened and there was nothing she could do about it. During her UK assignment, she had perhaps acquired the same sense of resignation that informants had found so incredible in British people as they wait for their delayed trains. The results of interviews with women who had returned to Japan after living in the UK showed that even in spite of difficulties they undoubtedly encountered, when they looked back on their UK assignment, they did so favourably and with nostalgia. Mrs Kojima said, ‘Although it has been over twenty years ago that we lived in England, it had an immense impact on me.’ A phrase commonly used in retrospect, was the somewhat ambiguous, ‘keiken ga dekita’ or, ‘it was an experience’. As Yuri said, ‘If you weighed up all the problems – like our children speaking strange Japanese – you might say it wasn’t so good, but it was “an experience”.’ Another woman simply said, ‘Yokatta to omo!’ (I think it was a good experience), and another, ‘Through travelling overseas I’ve been able to have an otherwise unobtainable precious experience.’ In terms of personal development, through coping with situations from childbirth to illness to simply living in a foreign country, there is little doubt that women gain confidence both in themselves and in their abilities. One informant said: After dealing with getting used to speaking English, the children’s education and childbirth in England, I think I will have more self confidence from now on in Japan.

One Japanese woman said that, through coping with the difficulties she had encountered, she had learnt how to tackle things head on (nani gotoni mo maemuki ni torishimeru you na shisei o moteru), while another commented, ‘I think I will be able to go anywhere and do anything in Japan from now on.’ Head teachers of schools in Telford with Japanese students were amongst those to speak of change they witnessed in Japanese mothers from the time they arrived in the UK to the time they went back to Japan. They described how, when a new Japanese family arrived at the school, it was typically the husband who did all the talking while the wife said nothing. They reported a gradual change in mothers as they appeared to become more carefree, confident and more tactile.


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For some women, the process of overseas transfer and access to the British education system caused them not only to question aspects of Japanese culture such as those mentioned above, but also the intense motherhood role considered so essential to womanhood in Japan. Yukiko claimed that her worry about returning to Japan was for herself as much as for her children. Since both her son and daughter were born in the UK she had had no experience of bringing up children in Japan, and she wondered how she would fit into the accepted role of a housewife and mother. She told me: In Japan, mothers work for the nursery or school very much. They always stay together and their lives are uniform. After school they and their kids go to someone’s house for tea and chat and besides that they chatter about frivolous topics. I do not think I could do that everyday.

On her return to Japan Yukiko decided to train for a career that would enable her to cease being a full-time mother. While other women did not take such drastic measures, many used what they learnt through volunteer or learning activities in the UK that they then put to practical use on their return. Mrs Taniguchi used the teaching skills and confidence that she had learnt through Sakura Kai to teach when she went back to Japan, while another informant used the National Certificate in Flower Arranging gained in the UK to do likewise. Inaba’s (2000) research on women in the US suggested that problems arise when women who felt empowered by the sojourn, become disempowered on their return to Japan. There is no doubt that for many women, returning to life in Japan, to company housing and to the full-time PTA mother role can be fraught with difficultly after the life enjoyed in the UK. Even Sachiyo, who said that she and her children had looked forward to their repatriation, found that life in Japan was not always as idyllic as they had imagined while living in the UK or on returning to Japan for two weeks of fun each year. Other women on the other hand settle back into life in Japan quicker than they thought possible, emphasizing the point not only that the assignment was always understood to be temporary, but that through the experience of living overseas they had become even more aware of their Japanese identity and Japan as home. In addition, as the conclusion will suggest, women do not always see the end of a husband’s overseas assignment as the end of their connection with the UK.

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The Japanese Housewife Overseas AN INCREASED AWARENESS OF AND PRIDE IN JAPANESE IDENTITY

As Befu states, ‘sometimes expatriates are the most ardent patriots’ (2001: 16). And. while as described above women come to question aspects of their own behaviour and Japanese culture, a typical feature of this group of expatriate Japanese women in the UK is that they become even more aware and proud of their Japanese identity than before the assignment, and grow to appreciate aspects of their home country all the more.3 An overseas assignment often encourages women to want to learn more about their own culture. Anyone who has lived overseas for any period will also be aware that being asked probing questions about one’s home country, from its geography to its history, can in itself represent a steep learning curve. One informant told me, ‘I want to know more and better and deeper about Japan and things Japanese.’ Another said, ‘It took living in the UK for me to realize important aspects of Japanese culture.’ A third informant said, ‘I have rediscovered Japan’s good points.’ A member of Nichi-Ei Otomodachi Kai said that since she had been transferred overseas she now makes more of a point of acquainting herself with sites of historic and cultural interest in Japan, whereas she might not have bothered before. For women, an increased awareness of one’s own Japanese identity is of further significance since they feel an increased burden to pass on a knowledge and awareness of Japanese identity to their children. This was expressed by Yumi who said that she felt she had a duty to teach her children about their identity in the same way that her own mother had in Japan. As implied in earlier chapters, mothers said that they want their children to be aware of Festivals such as Girls Day and Boys Day and Obon and all that is associated with them, such as dolls and carp fish and dancing, that they learnt themselves as children in Japan. Most important of all, since to be Japanese is to speak Japanese, they want their children to speak the language well, and they also want them to know how to behave in what is an acceptable fashion in Japan, including the notion of life in a group. They are scathing of any returnees who have spent childhoods outside of Japan through a father’s job who do not apply appropriate Japanese behaviour and who are seen as too forthright and direct, and seek to avoid this for their own children at all costs. While women therefore may seek oversees transfer for their husbands as a way of gaining some personal satisfaction and fulfilment


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for themselves, they do not reject all that is Japanese in the same way that Kelsky (2001) describes in the case of young women who look to the foreign as a way of circumventing aspects of Japanese culture, and the temporary aspect of the assignment is an essential feature in this. Furthermore, in coming both to reappraise aspects of Japanese behaviour, and in becoming even more aware of their Japanese identity, this group of Japanese women is skillful at adapting its behaviour to fit in with that of the host country or of Japanese compatriots and is skilful at moving between the two. At a reception for both Japanese and non-Japanese senior managers and their wives, women may greet non-Japanese acquaintances tactilely and openly, but will pay special attention to their husband’s Japanese seniors, using suitable honorific language and acting accordingly. Such women are in fact, as described in Chapter 7, skilled diplomats, able to adopt the appropriate behaviour for the appropriate circumstance and to have an understanding of both. SUMMARY This chapter has shown how a husband’s transfer to the UK leads Japanese women to develop an appreciation of both the positive and negative aspects of the host country. When living in the UK, they become aware of negative aspects of Japanese culture, and come to see how Japan is viewed from the outside. The overseas assignment also influences women’s worldview in providing the opportunity to travel and to come into contact with different nationalities. This is especially significant coming from a country, which in comparison to many others, has been described as relatively homogenous. Women develop in various ways personally as a result of their experience outside Japan. In learning to deal with the various adversities of overseas life, they become more confident as they are forced to face situations head on. They also develop skills as a result of the many activities in which they take part, some that are put to practical use on return to Japan as discussed in the last chapter. At the same time, however, women develop an even greater awareness of their Japanese identity as a result of the assignment overseas, and mothers come to believe that they have an even greater responsibility to pass on this sense of awareness to their children while living abroad. They are skilful at adopting their behaviour as

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appropriate to the company they are in. This is a theme that will be developed further in the following chapter, which concludes that a husband’s overseas assignment generates a class of women who come to travel with ease between Japan and the UK, which is an important long-term effect of the overseas transfer process on women. NOTES 1

2

3

Burakumin refers to people of certain communities in Japan who were previously assigned occupations deemed ‘undesirable’, such as burying the dead and tanning the ‘undesirable’ hides of animals (see Hendry 2003: 105–106). The former was considered polluting from a Shinto viewpoint and the latter from the Buddhist point of view (ibid.). This remains a sensitive subject in Japan (see Davis 2000). See Goodman, Peach, Takenaka and White (2003: 2–5) for a more detailed discussion on homogeneity and the ideology in relation to immigration in Japan. See also Mouer and Sugimoto (1986) for an overview of the debate on whether Japanese homogeneity was ‘real’ or ‘invented’. For an overview of the sources of Japanese identity see Hendry 2003: 5–24. See also Kobayashi and Kaner 2003; Fawcett 1996; Dower 2000; Yoshino 1992; Ohnuki-Tierney 1993; Befu 2001b; Eades, Gill and Befu 2000; Mathews 2000; Asquith and Kalland 1997; Cox 2002; Frewer 2002.

9

Conclusion

T

his book set out to analyse the overseas transfer process within Japanese companies and financial institutions from the point of view of Japanese women rather than their working husbands, as has been the focus of other studies. In view of the clearly-defined gender roles that developed in post-war Japan, which meant that husbands concentrated on the workplace while their wives focused on the home, it examines what it means for contemporary Japanese women to leave all that is familiar in Japan to live in the United Kingdom for a husband’s job with which women have little connection. The book has attempted to answer questions that arose for me while working at a Japanese bank in London about the wives of my Japanese colleagues; what were they doing day to day, where were they living, where were their children going to school, and how were they coping without the family members whose support they could rely on in Japan, especially with childcare. Women’s responses, however, showed that far from merely following husbands in the overseas assignment as trailing spouses, they frequently encouraged their husbands to request a transfer, and, as illustrated in Chapter 4, the United Kingdom is a particularly favoured location. The enthusiasm of these middle-class educated women to experience overseas transfer may partly be put in the context of the lack of real career opportunities available in Japan for such women once they leave the workforce to have children. Rather than being a burden, or a devalorization of productive functions and a relegation to the domestic sphere suggested in the case of expatriate wives from other coutries (Yeoh and Khoo 1998: 159), a husband’s overseas

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transfer can represent a personal opportunity for Japanese women, albeit a temporary one. SIGNIFICANCE OF TRANSIENCE FOR WOMEN That overseas transfer assignments are temporary is a defining feature of this type of professional expatriate experience and a factor perhaps of more significance to women than their working husbands. While men may be affected by transience in the workplace when colleagues return to Japan and new ones take their place, the company and its attachment to the Head Office in Japan remains constant, no matter where individuals are working. Transience presents particular difficulties with regard to children’s education due to the nature of the Japanese education system and the examinations that must be passed in order to enter good high schools and subsequently universities. And, as shown in Chapter 5, despite increased input from fathers during the assignment, this creates huge responsibility for Japanese mothers during the transfer process. Furthermore, company policy means families rarely know exactly when they will be returning to Japan. This creates uncertainty, not only in planning children’s future education in Japan, but since husbands are often assigned to their new posts with short notice, it is women who are usually left to pack and to deal with practical issues before leaving the UK. This, in fact, becomes an important function of wives during the overseas transfer process. While the impact within this ‘rotational community’ (Befu 2001: 12) of losing friends who return to Japan is clear, another aspect of the transience is when new women join the community from Japan. Wives play a vital role in helping their successors, which is especially important since, as shown in Chapter 3, companies typically provide little practical support in this respect. Another aspect is the tension that new members of the community can cause. Shoji’s mother was not pleased when a new Japanese boy joined his London class, explaining that she was worried that he would talk only Japanese to the detriment of his English. What this further illustrates, however, is that mothers see overseas international experience as an opportunity for their children, which will be discussed further below. In the final analysis, however, the transient nature of overseas transfer represents an advantage to women, rather than a hindrance. It is the temporary nature of the assignment that makes women determined to

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take advantage of it while it lasts, and this book has highlighted the many ways in which they do so. At the same time, while individual women come and go, there is a permanence to the community entered into. Furthermore, as this chapter will conclude, the end of a husband’s assignment does not sever a woman’s ties to the UK. UK AS A WELCOMING HOST COUNTRY TO JAPAN As shown in Chapter 4, the UK is highly favoured by Japanese women as a transfer location, and the UK as a welcoming host country is a common determining factor of women’s experience of the transfer. While negative associations of Japanese related to the Second World War may linger with some of the older generation in the UK, Japanese women rarely report having encountered direct discrimination while living in the UK. Reports that exist are often hearsay, though of course, not insignificant. One woman for example said that she had heard that Japanese had been refused entry to a public bar, and studies of Japanese wives in the United States encountered similar rumours (Saint Arnault 1998; Kawai 2000: 179–184, 260). Another common occurrence is confusion between Japanese and Chinese nationals, because ‘to Europeans they all look the same’. Japanese women and their children often heard themselves being called ‘Chinks’ (meaning Chinese) or names like ‘Karate Man’. Mothers at an independent school in London complained that their children were discriminated against by being placed in the same class as other children whose mother tongue was not English. They claimed that the class made up of native English speakers formed a kind of elite. From the point of view of the school, there may have been practical reasons for this – to allow the non-British children to work at a slower pace and the British children at a faster one – but what is perhaps significant is that, as in the case of Shoji’s mother above, mothers want their children to mix with British children, and they are keen for their children’s English language ability to improve. With regard to discrimination however, the middle-class, professional and somewhat elite status of the Japanese women in question is significant. It means that they tend to live in middle-class areas where other non-Japanese professionals reside, many of whom will have themselves had experience of travel, living or working abroad. But even in exceptions such as Leegomery School in Telford described in Chapter 5, the head teacher reported that discrimination against

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Japanese pupils was rare, despite playground incidents directed against pupils of other nationalities. According to head teachers of two British schools in Telford, Japanese pupils were, on the contrary, extremely popular amongst their classmates, teachers and others who encounter them and this was expressed constantly throughout my fieldwork. Another important factor in relation to the status of Japanese women in relation to overseas transfer and a husband’s company is that they are welcomed for the employment that they bring to the areas in which they live. Japanese businesses are an important source of employment in towns such as Telford, and cities such as Cardiff. In 1998, the sixteen Japanese companies in Telford for example, provided jobs for 6,521 local people.1 As well as providing employment, Japanese companies also contribute to the community in other ways, such as in contributing to local charities. The Maxell cherry garden in Telford Town Park for example, was paid for by the Japanese company of that name, and gives a significant amount of pleasure throughout the year as a focal point in the town centre. Entering Priorslee, another area of Telford, notices announce ‘[Name of Japanese company] and Telford: Working for a Better Community’.2 Furthermore, events such as the nationwide Japan Festivals held in the UK in 1991 and 2001 have gone a long way in affecting the image of Japan in the UK, especially among younger people, further illustrating the significance of voluntary participation of Japanese women in them as already described. Action Agenda 21, an agreement between the Japanese and UK governments for closer and a wide-ranging cooperation between the two countries in twenty-one areas, emphasizes the importance of people to people links. Japanese women should be recognized as particularly efficient providers of such links. The Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme mentioned in Chapter 1 has also contributed a great deal to promoting the good relations between the two countries amongst a younger generation of British youth. The popularity of Japanese animation and popular culture also plays a part, not to mention ubiquitous Japanese computer games and technology. A further defining feature of the Japanese community in the UK, therefore, is that its members are commonly welcomed for the various economic benefits, including employment that they bring. Furthermore, within the overseas transfer process of Japanese (male) professionals, Japanese wives play an important role in creating the positive image of Japanese residents in the UK as will be concluded below.

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JAPANESE WIVES AND LONG-TERM POSITIVE INFLUENCE ON BRITISH ATTITUDES TOWARDS JAPAN An important conclusion of this book is the long-term positive effect that Japanese wives have on Anglo-Japanese relations and the British people with whom they come into contact. Japanese wives play a significant role in this respect when accompanying their husbands to the UK and, in many instances, perhaps more so than working men. In addition, they promote Britain on their return to Japan, making them effective ambassadors, not just during the assignment, but beyond it. Chapter 7 showed the many ways in which Japanese wives contribute to Anglo-Japanese relations during their husband’s assignment to the UK, such as the ‘Japan In Your Classroom’ scheme or in home stay programmes. However, it is not just women involved in high profile activities such as those organized through the Japanese Embassy in London who play such a role. Chapter 5 demonstrated that in other locations women play an important role in the image they convey of Japan through their relations with their non-Japanese neighbours. While husbands are typically rarely seen in Telford neighbourhoods, since they are at work during the day, Japanese women are singled out. Their kindness and generosity in taking gifts to their neighbours is mentioned, or simply their appearance – that they are well dressed, polite and always smiling. They are also complimented and credited for the behaviour of their children. This is also frequently the case in the local state schools attended by Japanese children, where head teachers and other staff hail them as ‘model mothers’ for their active participation in the life of the school and for the attention they give to their child’s academic progress. While housewives in Japan have been said in the past to represent their husbands to the outside world (Hendry 1993; Imamura 1987), while living in the UK, Japanese wives, whether intentionally or not, represent Japan. Moreover, they do this favourably and with longterm effect, and in this way play a vital role in the overseas transfer process. OPPORTUNITY FOR OTHER FAMILY MEMBERS AND FRIENDS It is not just the Japanese families who live in the UK that get used to travelling across national boundaries with ease during their overseas assignment. Other family members and friends in Japan are

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provided with the opportunity to travel overseas that might not otherwise occur, and in hosting such visits, wives play a major role. This in turn, as a continuation of the ambassadorial role, introduces a wider circle of Japanese family members and friends to the UK, that might not otherwise be possible. Yumi’s parents in their late sixties and early seventies had come to stay with her in London many times during her stay. Her mother had originally been sad at her son-in-law’s transfer but as time went on she became more and more interested in England, and eventually visited several times without her husband, including one occasion to look after Yumi when she broke her leg. She started to learn English and was hailed as the oldest student at her Tokyo language school. Keiko’s mother and sister-in-law visited her in London. Neither had even been abroad before. Mrs Honda told me that even in the 1970s, when travel took longer and was even more expensive than today, she still had many visitors from Japan who took advantage of her being in the UK. There are many instances of British friends made during the assignment who subsequently visit Japan. A British friend that Mrs Noda met at calligraphy classes in London visit her in Kamakura, and the neighbour of a Japanese woman in Telford was also inspired to visit Japan as already mentioned. During a visit to Tokyo in September 2006, I found that Japanese children had returned to London during the summer holidays to visit non-Japanese friends they had made during their father’s transfer to London six to ten years earlier. In fact, most of the mothers at the North London school where I carried out research maintained links with non-Japanese friends in this way, and Japanese mothers play a significant role in facilitating such exchanges. WOMEN’S LONG-TERM VIEW OF BENEFITS FOR THEIR CHILDREN Japanese mothers commonly reported that they see the opportunity for their children to experience life overseas – including, significantly, their daughters – as a positive one. This reflects a change in attitude in Japan towards overseas transfer since the 1960s. In the 1970s in particular, there was a plethora of literature and media attention on the problem of returnee schoolchildren (kikokushijo), and the title of books such as ‘The Japanese Overseas. Can They Go Home Again?’ (White 1988) indicates some of the problems involved.

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However, far from being at a disadvantage, it was suggested that by the 1990s returnee school children had in fact become an ‘international elite’ (Goodman 1990). Further recent research has highlighted the continually changing attitudes over the past two decades towards young Japanese nationals with foreign university degrees who have returned to the Japanese workplace (Mori 2004: 167). Even though they may be expected to adapt to Japanese organizational culture and the Japanese management system based on seniority, these graduates have become not only employable, but also ‘sought after’ for their international experience and skills (ibid.). The study also significantly suggests that, unlike in the past, returnees and other young Japanese are now ‘on the same side’ against older generations (ibid.). The head teacher of a school in Telford also told me that on a study tour to Japan, her party had met kikokushijo (returnee school children) who told her that it was a good thing to be in their position, and that their skills are in demand.3 It is not only skills in English that are deemed important, but also the fact that they had learnt to think differently. The teacher said that a phrase often used during the tour was ‘thinking outside the box’, which was now considered to be a positive attribute. She was told that Japanese educationalists were looking at different ways of problem solving, and children who had been abroad were thought to be good at that. This has also been suggested by Goodman, who showed how employers in Japan have increasingly seen returnee schoolchildren as ‘inventive workers’ (1990: 228). A survey carried out in the early 1980s, showed that six out of ten successful career women were in fact returnees (Lebra 1981). A young Japanese student in Leeds in 2004 also told me that she and her female university classmates in Japan envied kikokushijo for the skills they obtained and for their perceived job prospects, and that studying in the UK, even if only for one year, was her attempt at emulating their experience. The reality, however, needs to be put into the context of the current situation for women with regard to work outside the home. From the 1970s, opportunities for part-time or temporary work for lower-class women developed with the growth of supermarkets, convenience stores and fast-food chains and since the mid-1980s the number of women managers has been increasing (Iwao Japan Reference Series 8: 7). However, career opportunities for middle-class educated women in Japan that are on equal terms to those of men remain elusive,

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especially for women returning to work after childbirth, when so called part-time work actually seems to mean full-time but with lower pay and fewer benefits, including those relating to tax. Thus, while my informants spoke of overseas experience for their daughters as an advantage in helping their daughters to develop both language and other skills that would make them attractive to employers, the reality for educated women in Japan is complex.4 And, the question remains, will young educated bilingual female returnees be able to use their skills on their return to Japan, or will they be forced to look overseas? Will ‘the Superwoman Elite’ (Iwao Japan Reference Series 8) referred to as ‘bright and filled with ambition’ (ibid.) really be recognized as an ‘invaluable resource for firms who are likely to become a force that cannot be ignored’ (ibid.)? Do the changing attitudes towards graduates returning to Japan after studying abroad (Mori 2004) refer to women as well as to men? This leads to a further significant point in relation to women, their children and any long-term impact of overseas transfer – the growing number of informants whose children stay in the UK for work, study or even marriage after their parents are repatriated. This in fact results in another positive consequence for wives by encouraging them to cross readily between the national boundaries of the two countries in order to visit their children, and, in a sense, providing the ‘excuse’ to do so. It also allows them periodically to step back into the life that they enjoyed during the overseas transfer and the opportunity to maintain strong ties with the UK. Of the older women whose husbands were in senior or top management, a significant pattern emerges of children who pursue British university degree courses, and who remain in the UK after their parents are repatriated. Mrs Kamakura’s daughter studied here and is now a university lecturer in Scotland. When Tamako went back to Japan, her daughter remained at a London university where she was studying economics. The same is true of both the son and daughter of another informant, to give but a few examples. It is also noticeable that in studying subjects such as architecture and economics, some daughters are breaking from norms in Japan, which usually mean that these subjects are reserved for male students. Mothers indicated that this fact was not lost on them. The number of talented children who have also become professional musicians, and in one case a dancer specializing in Indian dance having won a scholarship to study in India. The relationship between such opportunities and overseas transfer is noteworthy.

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Amongst the Japanese families whose children were at school with my own daughters in the late 1990s and now approaching their teenage years, are a new generation of Japanese youth returning to London to visit former non-Japanese school friends, to take part in English language summer schools and who dream of returning to the UK for their university years, with sights set on Oxford, Cambridge or prestigious music or dance schools. Once repatriated, Mrs Kimura returned frequently to the UK, first for the marriage of her daughter to an Englishman, then for the birth of her grandchildren and subsequent visits, and her son also came back to London for study. Tamako returned to visit her daughter at university, and Mrs Ito even bought a flat for her son and daughter who remained in London, which further cements her links with the capital. And, since the rate of interest paid by Japanese banks is relatively low, some families with university or other educational fees in the UK to pay open UK bank accounts. This is a further example of ties with the UK that remain as a result of children, and of the cross-generational permanence of the Japanese community in the UK. The contribution made to the permanent community of Japanese in the UK is another aspect of the long-term effect of overseas transfer. Women make up the majority of permanent Japanese expatriates and among these, many who have become local employees of Japanese state agencies and other firms are the offspring of company migrants who had ‘been socialized to London life’ (White 2003: 95). There are also senior members of Nichi-Ei Otomodachi Kai who have chosen to make London their permanent home after their husband has retired. THE ROLE OF THE JAPANESE WIFE IN THE OVERSEAS TRANSFER PROCESS The fact that Japanese women view their husband’s overseas transfer to the UK as an opportunity for themselves does not mean that they neglect their housewife duties. Far from it, as studies have shown for women in Japan, they take their roles seriously and carry them out to perfection. Providing a home environment which subsequently becomes an important point of reference to Japan and taking care of the family and its health are undoubtedly seen as the most important duties of accompanying Japanese wives, both by husbands and the wives themselves. In doing so, their role is vital to the overseas

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transfer process. While some women suggested that in London their husband could survive for a short period with the help of the infrastructure available, they believed that his health would eventually suffer and that he could not survive long without the family home to return to. The role of representing her husband’s company by membership of committees of certain women’s groups in the UK that was a wife’s obligation from the 1960s has changed significantly in recent years as women’s stories have demonstrated in this book. However, the wives of more senior managers, government officials and diplomatic staff play an important social role within the overseas transfer process. In this capacity they attend functions with their husband and even travel abroad with him. For Japanese women, not only does this role provide personal satisfaction, but it can also provide shared acquaintances and topics of conversation between husband and wife that contrast with the clearly-defined worlds between work and home that normally exist in Japan. Wives’ roles are important in other ways, but, as this study has shown, they experience freedom in certain areas. While one important role is overseeing the education of children during the overseas assignment, the significance and difficulties of which were illustrated in Chapter 6, in the Japanese education that children receive from both supplementary Japanese schools and local British schools, husbands tend to take a more active role than they would in Japan. Compared to in Japan, mothers in the UK are also free from active participation in the PTA. And, while they are not free from worry about elderly relatives left behind in Japan, they are temporarily free from the physical burden of taking care of them. They are also free from the burdens of neighbourhood and Residents Associations in which they are obliged to take an active role in Japan. In a reversal of roles, the husband frequently takes control of the family finances or at least shares the task with his wife unlike in Japan in the past. Gift giving, which has been a major responsibility for women is adapted to UK norms, such as Christmas, and by taking gifts back to Japan, empowering women to give at a time convenient to them. The change in the way that Japan views individuals with overseas experience over the past forty to fifty years along with the increased infrastructure catering to Japanese women’s needs in the UK and the fact that trips home to Japan are now so much more accessible makes a husband’s overseas transfer even more attractive than ever,

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especially in the context of the lack of career opportunities for middle-class women in Japan after childbirth. Chapter 1 asked, when tanshinfunin is a regular part of working life in Japan, why uproot a wife thousands of miles for her husband’s job in which she has no relation, and if, in fact, they would be leading separate lives? Yet, as this study shows, the irony is that an overseas assignment can actually enable husbands and wives and their family to spend more time together than if they were in Japan. Furthermore, the overseas transfer process serves wives just as much as they serve their husband and his company during the assignment. NOTES 1

2

3

4

Source: Employment Survey, Wrekin Council, Telford Development Corporation. According to a non-Japanese informant in Oxford, this is not always the case since the Japanese were blamed for destroying local industry (cars) in the area. I refer however, to findings in my research locations. The tour was organized and sponsored by local Japanese businesses in Telford for British teachers in the town having Japanese pupils at their school. See Creighton (1996), Lam (1992, 1993), Hunter (1993), Roberts (1994) and Matsunaga (2000) on women and work in Japan and the complexity of issues relating to the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Law of 1986 (revised 1999).

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Index

‘Action Agenda 21’ 138 Acton, West London 25, 28 Aiwa 22 Allison, A. 1, 9, 60, 84 Allowances and financial benefits 39–43, 69; for education 451–42; medical 42; travel 42; tax 42; for car 43 amae (dependency) 76 America 70, 83, 86 ANA (All Nippon Airlines) 42, 44 Ariyoshi, S. 13 Article 897, Civil Code 15 Asahi Newspaper 8, 18, 27 Asquith, P. 134 assistance: practical from Japanese companies to wives 44–46 Assistant English Teacher (AET) 8: see Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme babysitters 58, 108–9 Bachnik, J. 11, 126 bankers 50–51, 52, 53, 59 banks 20–21, 26, 32, 46, 70 BaySpo newspaper 27 Beckham, David 119 Beck, J. C. 29 Beck, M. N. 29 Befu, H. 25, 86, 109, 132, 134, 136 Ben-Ari, E. 68, 76, 79, 102 bento (lunch box) 81, 84 Bernstein, G.L. 11 Bestor, T. 127 Bestor, V. L. 105, 114

Bilingual Support Assistant 85, 88, 95, 102 Black, J. S. 39, 42, 49, 67 Bond Street, London 26 boshikate (mother and child family) 53 Bridgend, South Wales 22 Brighton 115 Brinton, M.C. 17, 34, 36 Brother 22 BR:Z magazine 27 burakumin 122 Calpol (children’s medicine) 65 Cambridge 143 Camden, North London 28 Cardiff 3, 6, 22, 27, 28–29, 30, 40, 43, 51, 57, 96, 98, 99, 100, 102, 106, 121, 138 career: progression for men 10–11, 31; lack of opportunities and obstacles to for middle-class women 33–34 cheque book 70–71 Cheshire 115 Chinese 137 Child Care Family Leave Law (Ikuji Kaigyo Kyugyo Ho) 77 Child Care Law (Ikuji Kyugyo Ho) 77 chonaikai (neighbourhood association) 67, 68, 144 Clark, S. 48 client entertainment (settai) 50 clubs and organizations 26–27, 30, 104–117: see also participants and methodology 3–8 Club Taishikan (Embassy Club) 115

Index Cohen, A. 119 Colindale, North London 26 Confucian values 12–13 Conte-Helm, M. 1, 28, 122 cookery classes 105 Coordinator of International Relations (CIR) 8: see Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme Copenhagen 48 correspondence 13 Cox, R. 134 credit cards 70–71 Creighton, M. R. 145 Croydon, South London 28 Daiwa-Anglo Foundation 4 Davidson, D. 78, 79, 81 Davis, J.R. Jr. 134 Denso Manufacturing UK 22, 41 Derby 30, 115 Devon 5 Diplomat magazine 109 diplomats 5, 109 discrimination 137 Disneyland 123 Doi, T. 76, 79, 82 Dore R.P. 68 Douglas, M. 47 Dower, J. 134 driving test 106 Eades, G. 134 Economic recession in Japan 52, 85 Edinburgh 30 Education 75–101; Fundamental Law of Education and the School Education Law of 1947 8; concerns about 36–37; spoken and written Japanese 36; allowance for fees 41–42; mothers’ roles in 96–101; involvement of fathers 85, 96–101 Edwards, W. 65, 66, 74 Ehara, Y. 16, 76 Eikoku Bunka Senta (British Culture Centre) 27 Eikoku Fujin Kai (Japanese Women’s Association in Great Britain) 27, 70, 115

157

Eikoku News Digest 27, 39, 58, 63, 64, 80 Emperor 124 England 3 English: study of in Japanese schools 32; as a concern 36–37, 90; mothers’ desire for children to learn 86; ability of mothers compared to fathers 95; as a barrier to making non-Japanese friends 109–112; Eiken test 113; housewives’ study of 112–114, 140; husbands’ support for wives in study of 111 Enzeru Plan 77 Epson Ltd 22 Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Law 145 Exeter, Devon 24 family friendly firms 77 Family Law 12 family life; quality of 49–53 family members 4, 139–140 fathers: involvement in family life 49–53; involvement in choice of school 85; involvement in PTA 91–96; increased involvement in Japanese education 96–101: see also Ikujiren Fathers Day 67 Fawcett, C. 134 Field, N. 85 Finchley, North London 25 Finchley Road, North London 63 First World War 20 Food From Britain 32 Ford, H. 83 4LDK apartment 46 France 86 Frewer, D. 134 friends 106–114, 139–140 Fruit Punch group 115 Fujin Koron (Women’s Public Opinion magazine) 17 gakureki shakai (society in which exam results and academic record are all important) 85

158


GAPPITAS 36 gender roles 11, 76–77 genkan (entrance hall) 47 Germany 86 gift giving 16 Gill, T. 134 globalization 26 Golders Green, North London 5, 25, 41 Goodman, R. 28, 29, 35, 83, 87, 122, 134, 141 Green Chorus 5 Gregerson, H. B. 39, 42, 49, 67 Hamabata, M. 11 Hamada, T. 1, 2, 10, 11, 21 Ham & High newspaper 41 Hampstead, North London 41 Hanshin-Awaji earthquake 114 Harrods (London store) 73 Hastings, S.A. 19 head hunting agencies 11 health: concerns about 37–38; caring for 64–65 Hendon, North London 41 Hendry, J. 1, 9, 11, 12–13, 15, 17, 29, 44, 47, 60, 66, 67, 69, 71, 76, 77, 78, 83, 90, 96, 101, 104, 105, 110, 125, 126, 127, 134, 139 Higuchi, K. 91, 94, 102 hiragana 78, 90 Hisatake, A. 18 Hitachi 22 Hiyoko kai, Oxford 80, 107 hobbies 104–106 holidays 52 home in Japan: concerns about 38; rented while away 38; loss of roots 38 homesickness 36 Homestay UK 116 homework 90–91 honne (‘real feeling’) 66 honsha (parent company)10 hoshoko/hoshogakko : see Japanese Saturday School Hospital of St John and Elizabeth, St John’s Wood, London 26 Housewife Debate 17–18

housewife roles: perceptions of 55–59; creating home environment and maintaining traditions 59–64; preparation of food 60– 61; care of property in UK 62; gift giving and managing husband’s personal and business relationships 65–67; health 64–65, relations with neighbours 67–68; managing family finances 68–71; care of elderly relatives 74–74; care of pre-school children 75–84; choice of school 84–90; school run and homework 90–91; PTA 91–96; in the overseas transfer process 143–145 Hunter, J. 1, 145 husbands: contribution to housework 58; support for wives in learning English 111; see also fathers ie (household) 11–17 ie-toji (oldest woman of household) 14 ikigai (purpose in life) 75 IK Precision Co Ltd 22 Ikujiren (Childcare Hours for Men and Women Network) 77 Imamura, A.E. 1, 9, 36, 40, 60, 68, 69, 80, 81, 92, 94, 104, 105, 139 Inaba, H. 1, 131 independent schools: see private schools India 142 infrastructure catering to Japanese community 25–29 inkyo-ya see retirement homes Inoue, T. 16, 76 international marriages 2, 5 Internet Journal 27 Invest in Britain Bureau, Dept of Trade and Industry 21 Ishigaki, A. 17 Ishii-Kuntz, M. 76 Iwao, S. 11, 16, 69, 75, 106, 141 JAL (Japan Airlines) 42, 44 Japan Almanac 121, 122 Japan Centre, Piccadilly, London 27 Japanese department stores 26

Index Japanese Embassy in London 3, 4, 21, 24, 25, 121 Japanese Estate Agents, London 26 Japanese investment overseas 20–21 Japanese Ministry of Education 28 Japanese recruitment offices 26 Japanese Residents Association in the UK 27 Japanese Saturday School 6, 27, 28, 30, 88, 96–101 ‘Japanese Strategy’ 21 Japanese television 28, 63 Japanese Women’s Association in Great Britain: see Eikoku Fujin Kai Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme 2, 8, 138 Japan Festival 115, 138 Japan Festival Education Trust (JFET) 115 Japan Foundation 118 Japan in Your Classroom scheme 88, 115, 139 JJ (Jewish Japanese) area, London 25 jichikai: see chonaikai job agencies 11 Johnson, T. 127 journalists 4 juku (cramming schools) 84 Junior College 2, 8 kaigai kinmu teate (overseas service allowances): see Allowances and financial benefits 39–43 Kalland, A. 134 Kanda, M. 1, 9, 16–17 Kaner, S. 134 kanji 100–101 kanpo (system of Japanese medicine) 64 kaigai shukko (overseas transfer) 10: see also personnel transfer katakana 101 Kawai, M. 1, 113, 118, 137 Kawasaki Precision Machinery (UK) Ltd 24 Keeping Up With the Children scheme 93 Kelly. B. 1, 10, 11 Kelsky, K. 33, 133

159

Khoo, L.M. 1, 135 Kidani Masako 116 kigyo senshi (‘corporate warriors’) 9, 53 kikokushijo (returnee schoolchildren) 37, 87, 140–141 ki o tsukau 125 Kitayama, S. 126 Kiyokuni (Europe) Ltd 22 Kobayashi, T. 134 kogaisha (subsidiary company) 10 Kojima, K. 21 kokusaika (internationalization) 87 Kondo, D. 11 kotoba no kabe (language barrier) 110–111 kouen debyo (Park Debut) 80 Kumagai, F. 28, 36 Kurotani, S. 1, 44 Kuwayama, T. 12, 15 kyoiku hi: see Education; Allowances for fees kyoiku mama 84 Kyushu 12 Lam, A. 1, 34, 145 landlords 47 Leblanc, R. 105 Lebra, T.S. 11, 12, 76, 79, 126, 127, 141 Leeds 30 Leegomery, Telford 41, 92, 93, 102, 137 Le Tendre, G. 76, 79 local hires 2 London 3, 4, 5, 11, 20, 21, 25–29, 43, 44, 49, 50, 51, 53, 57, 58, 59, 64, 68, 72, 80, 81, 83, 93, 94, 108, 116, 120, 124, 127, 128, 140, 143 Madoka, Y. 1, 9, 18 Makino, K. 77 Makita Manufacturing Europe Ltd 22 Manchester 6, 30, 43, 49, 51, 52, 72, 93, 108, 109, 113, 117, 119, 120, 121 manufacturing 20–25 Markus, H. 126 Martin, R. 3, 29, 82 Mathews, G. 77, 134

160


Matsunaga, L. 1, 34, 145 Matsushita 22 Maxell Europe Ltd 22, 138 MMR (measles, mumps, rubella vaccination) 65 medical services 26–27 Mendenhall. M. E. 39, 42, 49 Mercer Human Resources 48 merchant wife 13 methodology 3–7 Midlands Japanese Association 28 Milton Keynes 21 Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Monbu kagaku sho) 97 Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare 76, 77 Mitsukoshi department store 26 Momiji 117 Morgan, G. 1, 10, 11, 25 Mori, S. 35, 141, 142 motherhood 75–77 Mothers Day 67 Mouer, R. 134 M shape pattern of employment 16 Murata 24 my home-ism 15, 19 Nagoya 46 nakama (group) 79, 92, 94, 108 Nakane, C. 11, 126 Nakano, L.Y. 105, 114 Nakano, M. 13 Nakayoshi Kai (Japan Friendship Group) 5, 27, 80, 107 nakodo (matchmaker) 65, 66 Namie Amuro, singer 77 Nami no Kai 27 Nara 6, 43, 114, 121 NATO 124 National Childbirth Trust (NCT) 5 NEC Technologies (UK) Ltd 22 neighbours 67–68; 113–114; 121 nengajo (New Year cards) 55, 66 networking (men) 100 Newbridge, Wales 22 Newhall, P. 1, 20, 21 new family 15 new middle-class 15

New Year cards: see nengajo New York 20 Nichi-Ei Otomodachi Kai (AngloJapanese Friendship Group) 5, 27, 107, 109, 132, 143 Nichi-Ei Times (Japan Anglo Times) Nihongo Centre (Japanese Language Centre) 116 Nihonjin gakko: see Japanese Saturday School Nikkeijin (Latin Americans of Japanese descent) 122, 128 ningenkankei (network of human relations) 126 Nippon Club 26, 64 Nolte, S. H. 19 North East of England 1, 30 Northern Ireland 3 North London 4, 5, 6 Nottingham 115 nuclear family 15, 19 obon mid-summer festival 72, 74, 132 Ochiai, E. 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 ochogen (mid-year gifts) 16, 65–66 Office Ladies 2 Ogihara Europe Ltd 22 Ohnuki-Tierney, E. 83, 134 okozukai (allowance given to a husband) 70 omiyage (gifts) 66, 67 omiyamairi 83 omoiyari (empathy) 125–126 oseibo (year-end gifts) 16, 65–66 Oslo 48 osozaiyasan (‘person who makes everyday dishes’) 16 Oxford 80, 143, 145 Paignton, Devon 24 Parents Evening (in schools) 95 Parent Teacher Association (PTA) 6, 81, 91–96, 131, 144 participant observation 4 participants 3–7 part time work for women 34 Peach, C. 122 Peak, L. 79, 84–85 permanent residents 4

Index personnel transfer 9–11 Piccadilly Circus, London 26 Plymouth 3, 6, 24–25, 65 population figures 3–4, 21, 24–25, 121 post-graduate study 55 pregnant women 5 private company staff 4 private schools 28, 84–90, 92 Red Cross 117 Regents Park, London 4 Regent Street, London 26 renai kekkon (‘love marriage’) 66 rent 41, 62 reizo shokuhin (frozen foods) 16 researchers 4, 25 retirement homes (inkyo-ya) 71 Richards, B. J. 93 Richmond, Surrey (west of London) 41, 46 Ricoh Products Ltd 22 Roberts, G. 77, 145 Rohlen, T. 76, 79 Royal Opera House 49 Russo-Japanese War 20 ryosai kenbo (good wife and wise mother) 14 Saint Arnault, D. 1, 137 St John’s Wood, North London 25, 26 Sakai, J. 1, 11, 31, 32 Sakura Kai 4, 35, 106, 114, 131 Salamon, S. 1, 9, 107 salaryman 1, 15, 16, 17, 46 Sam Campaign 77 sanshoku hirune tsuki (three meals and an afternoon nap) 18 SARS outbreak 26 Sasagawa, A. 17, 18, 19, 75, 76, 105 Sasao, M. 21 satellite television 28, 63 sato gaeri (return home) 42, 54 SATS tests for seven year olds 93 school fête 4, 93, 94 school run 57, 90 Scotland 3, 142 Second World War 9, 12, 15, 124 self-employed 4 sengyo shufu (full-time or ‘professional

161

housewife’) 3, 16, 18, 55: see also housewife roles senzo (ancestors) 12 settai: see client entertainment Sharp 22 Sharpe, D. 1, 10, 11 shataku (company housing) 38, 46, 68, 122 shinkansen (bullet train) 43 shinseki (close relations) 65 shodan seikatsu (life in a group) 79, 80, 126 shufu (wife/wife of head of household) 14, 16, 55 Shufu no Tomo (Housewife’s Friend magazine) 14, 18 shufu poto (housewife part-time jobs) 34 Shufu Ronso (Housewife Debate) 17–18 Shufu Shokogun (Housewife Syndrome) 18 shukko 9, 10: see personnel transfer Smith, W. 11 ‘Sociological Survey 2001’ 56, 58 Sogo department store 26 Sony 22 soto (outside) 47, 82 Stroh, L. K. 39, 42, 49 students 4, 25 Sugimoto, Y. 134 supermarkets 60, 114 ‘Superwoman Elite’ 142 Taiwanese manufacturers 22 Takashimaya department store 26 Takeda, K 18 Takenaka A. 122, 134 Takiron 22 tanshinfunin (living and working away from home) 2, 59, 145 tatami 15 tatemae (‘public behaviour’) 66 teachers 4, 25 teaching Japanese as a foreign language 106 Telford 3, 5, 21–22, 25, 27, 28, 40, 41, 46–47, 51, 59, 68, 82, 83, 85, 87, 91, 92, 95, 96, 102, 108, 113, 115, 137, 138, 140

162


tenzoku 9, 10: see personnel transfer terai mawashi (to be moved from one place to another in personnel transfer)10 The Times newspaper 119 TK Trading Company 29 Tobin, J. 78, 79, 81 Tokyo 6, 28, 43, 44, 48, 50, 52, 81, 83, 94, 119, 124, 127, 128, 140 Toshiba 24 Toyota 22 TP Mouldings Ltd 22 transience 136–137 Tsuda, T. 128 Tsurumi, Y. 21 2DK apartments 15, 46 Turner, V. and E. 43 UBS 41, 48, 49 Ueno, C. 1, 9 uchi (inside) 47, 82 United Kingdom: as a desirable transfer location 32; image of 32; similarities to Japan 33: see also population figures Uno, K.S. 11 Vertovec, S. 63 Vickers Systems 24 Vogel, E.F. 15 Vogel, S. 1, 9, 38, 65, 76 volunteers 4, 5, 105, 114–117, 139 wa (harmony) 110 Wah Wong, H. 29 Wakisaka, A. 2 Wales 3, 22, 115

Wales Japan Association 99 Welsh Development Agency 22–23 White, M. 1, 10, 28, 78, 140 White, P. 122, 134, 143 Whitely, R. 1, 10, 11 Wiltshire, R. 54 Women: reactions to husband’s transfer 31–35; obstacles to career opportunities for middle-class 33–34; more than one assignment in the UK 34–35; concerns about transfer to UK 35–39; perceptions of housing in the UK 46–48; perceptions of the cost of living 48–49; newly married 36; middleaged with children 36; individual personality 39; post-graduate study 55; in the labour force 76; as ambassadors 139; study of English 112–114,140: see also sengyo shufu and housewife roles Wu, D. 78, 79, 81, 101 yachin: see rent Yamada, M. 12, 14, 17 Yamada-Yamamoto, A. 93 Yaohan Plaza, London 26 Yeoh, B.S.A. 1, 135 yochien (kindergarten) 80– 82, 101 Yokohama Specie Bank 20 yoshi (son-in-law married into a family) 14 Yoshida, N. 16 Yoshihara, H. 21 Yoshino, K. 134 Yoshino, M. 21. Yugoslavia 124

Japanese mothers help at a London school fête

Participating at a London school fête

Area for PTA shoes at the entrance to a school in Tokyo

Housewives in Telford

Women who had lived in Manchester reunite in Japan

Sports days at the Japanese Saturday School in Cardiff

A Japanese mother in London

Young Japanese housewives enjoy a day out in London

Former Otomodachi Kai members reunite in Tokyo, September 2006

The Japanese Housewife Overseas

The horny housewife

Overseas

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The housewife went wild

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Overseas

Eager beaver housewife

The Actor and the Housewife

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Hung, strung housewife

The Actor and the Housewife

The Actor and the Housewife

The Sage And The Housewife

Diary of a Mad Housewife

Only A Housewife

Opportunities in overseas careers

Opportunities in Overseas Careers

Napoleon's Overseas Army

Napoleon's Overseas Army

Bastard Assistent The Bastard Assistent Goes Overseas

The Doctor's Guide to Overseas Training

Overseas Research: A Practical Guide

Companion to the Overseas Nurses Programme

Companion to the Overseas Nurses Programme

The Japanese Tattoo

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The Imperial Japanese Navy

The Japanese economy

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The Japanese Housewife Overseas

The horny housewife

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Overseas

Eager beaver housewife

The Actor and the Housewife

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Hung, strung housewife

The Actor and the Housewife

The Actor and the Housewife

The Sage And The Housewife

Diary of a Mad Housewife

Only A Housewife

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The Doctor's Guide to Overseas Training

Overseas Research: A Practical Guide

Companion to the Overseas Nurses Programme

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