Wearing Cultural Styles in Japan: Concepts of Tradition And Modernity in Practice

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Wearing Cultural Styles in Japan

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Wearing Cultural Styles in Japan Concepts of Tradition and Modernity in Practice

Edited by Christopher S. Thompson and John W. Traphagan

State University of New York Press

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2006 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, address State University of New York Press, 194 Washington Avenue, Suite 305, Albany, NY 12210-2384 Production by Judith Block Marketing by Michael Campochiaro

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wearing cultural styles in Japan : concepts of tradition and modernity in practice / edited by Christopher Thompson and John W. Traphagan. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-6697-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Japan—Social conditions—1945– 2. Japan—Civilization—1945– 3. Social change—Japan. 4. Culture and globalization—Japan. I. Thompson, Christopher, 1962– II. Traphagan, John W. HN723.5.W43 2006 952.04—dc22

2005012104

ISBN-13: 978-0-7914-6697-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

In memory of Jackson H. Bailey


Contents

Illustrations

ix

Acknowledgments

xi

Part I The Political Economy of Social Change in To– hoku Japan Chapter 1

The Practice of Tradition and Modernity in Contemporary Japan John W. Traphagan and Christopher S. Thompson

2

Chapter 2

The Social Impact of Rural–Urban Shift: Some Akita Examples John A. Mock

25

Chapter 3

Rice Revolutions and Farm Families in To– hoku: Why Is Farming Culturally Central and Economically Marginal? William W. Kelly

47

Part II Wearing Tradition and Wearing Modernity: Negotiating Paths of Social Change Chapter 4

Young Women Making Lives in Northeast Japan Nancy R. Rosenberger

76

Chapter 5

Negotiating Internationalization in Kitasawa Tomoko Watanabe Traphagan

96

vii

viii

Contents

Chapter 6

Preserving the Ochiai Deer Dance: Tradition and Continuity in a To– hoku Hamlet Christopher S. Thompson

124

Chapter 7

Heartbreak’s Destination: To– hoku in the Poetic Discourse of Enka Debra J. Occhi

151

Chapter 8

Tradition and Modernity Merged in Tsugaru Nuri Lacquerware: Perspectives of Preservation and Promotion, Production and Consumption Anthony S. Rausch

171

Chapter 9

Epilogue: To– hoku: A Place L. Keith Brown

196

Contributors

207

Name Index

209

Subject Index

213

Illustrations

Figures 1.1 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 3.1 3.2 5.1 6.1 6.2

Age Distributions for Iwate, Miyagi, and Akita Prefectures (2000) Population of Japan: Historic and Projected Japan and Akita: Percentage of 65⫹ Population Population of Akita: Historic and Projected Akita Population: Total and 65⫹ Five-Town Comparison The Sho– nai Area The Aka River Drainage Basin The Increase in Registered Foreign Guests in Kitasawa, 1989–2000 In a Typical Shishi Odori Performance . . . Its Ominous-Looking Animal Head . . .

16 27 27 28 28 33 51 53 99 129 132

Tables 3.1 5.1 5.2 6.1 6.2

The Course of Sho– nai’s Two Twentieth-Century Rice Revolutions Breakdown of Registered Foreigners in Municipalities in Kitasawa Organized International Activities in Kitasawa Total Population of Ochiai Hamlet (1955–2002) Total Population of To– wa-cho– (1955–2002)

ix

55 100 101 136 136

x

6.3 6.4 6.5 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6

Illustrations

Kasuga Ryu– Ochiai Shishi Odori Annual Support Funds (2001) Kasuga Ryu– Ochiai Shishi Odori Annual Operating Budget (2001) Kasuga Ryu– Ochiai Shishi Odori Performance Activity (1980–Present) Historical Trend of Tsugaru Nuri Lacquerware Production Principal Activity Areas in Promotion Plan Activity Plans Promotion Plan Budgets and Expenditures by Stages Expenditures within Activity Areas Production by Item Category Production by Traditional versus Nontraditional Craft

136 137 140 176 177 180 181 186 187

Acknowledgments

This volume developed out of a panel organized by Christopher S. Thompson and John W. Traphagan at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) in Washington D.C. in 2001 that examined “Tradition, Modernity, and Globalization in Regional Japan.” We are grateful to AAA for providing an excellent opportunity for exploring the ideas presented here. In addition to the panel participants, many of whom have contributed chapters to this volume, we wish to thank William W. Kelly, who in his role as discussant, provided invaluable insight into synthesizing the panel papers around practical and theoretical issues pertinent to northeast Japan today.

xi


Part I The Political Economy of – hoku Japan Social Change in To

1

Chapter 1

The Practice of Tradition and Modernity in Contemporary Japan John W. Traphagan and Christopher S. Thompson

“What we would like,” said Obuchi Yasuo, the former mayor of a farm town in northeastern Japan, “is for young people and their employers in Tokyo to consider lifestyle alternatives never possible before. Male and female employees could maintain a spacious residence here in the countryside while commuting to work in the city.” Gazing out across the terraced rice paddies visible through the huge sliding windows on the east side of his Japanese style sitting room, Obuchi continued. “We are only an hour by air from Haneda (Tokyo’s first international airport), and less than four hours by bullet train— closer to three on the new Super Express. “A lot of work these days is done by computer over the Internet anyway. If employers in Tokyo could mainstream the concept of telecommuting, be a little more flexible about work hours and weekend leave, their employees and families could live happy, fulfilling lives here, surrounded by nature in a supportive outlying community while earning big city salaries. We could solve a lot of our local social and economic problems this way. Creativity is the key to living well in the 21st century. In whatever ways possible, we need to adopt new ideas and ways of doing things in our everyday lives. If the national government wants to decentralize, so must we in our approach to maintaining our local lifestyle. We must blend tradition with the challenges of modernity in our daily lives and begin creating new cultural possibilities more relevant to our place in time.”

Cultural Styles and the Global Ecumene With the development of modern or even postmodern society in Japan, the lines between tradition and modernity, urban and rural, industrial and agricultural have blurred to the point of being difficult to recognize. One can just

2

Tradition and Modernity in Contemporary Japan

3

as easily encounter seemingly traditional, agricultural scenes in Tokyo, where rice paddies continue to be carefully cultivated aside baseball stadiums and high tech semiconductor factories, as one can experience modern, industrial urban development among the “rural” countryside of northeast Japan, where Toyota factories sprawl amidst mountain forests and wide expanses of rice paddies far removed from the nation’s capital city and metropolitan center. One can find rural products such as nameko (mountain-grown mushrooms) from Iwate prefecture along the Ginza, or enjoy skiing in the Japan Alps where the Winter Olympics were held in venues surrounding Nagano City in locations far removed from the nation’s urban industrial belt. As one experiences and contemplates contemporary Japan, it quickly becomes clear that concepts such as urban and rural, traditional and modern have come to bear only limited connection to place, instead being abstracted into the realm of ideas people use and manipulate as they create and adapt to their contemporary social milieu. Representations of both tradition and modernity in Japan have been closely tied to indigenous conceptualizations of bunka, a notion that translates as culture and which emerged in the popular discourse of modern Japan during the Taisho– era (1912–1926). This idea was employed in part as a means of juxtaposing true culture qua superior, traditional lifestyle to emerging patterns of urban society, such as the increased involvement of women in the working world, that characterized the period (Tamanoi 1998:144). Bunka, however, was not simply the intellectual domain of those interested in preserving a real or imagined traditional society. As Tamanoi notes, the term was polysemic, used to represent not only something rural, genuine, and even modern; yet decidedly not urban. It also represented a spiritual element of the person associated with literature and the arts that was conceptually wrapped in the frame of the urban lifestyle (Tamanoi 1998:145). Indeed, in contemporary Japanese society, the polysemic nature of the term continues to be evident. In rural areas, in particular, bunka is a concept often employed in slogans devised to imaginatively represent a town’s character to outsiders, and to remind residents that their town is at once technologically progressive and democratic, while retaining traditional values associated with the rural countryside. For example, in southern To– hoku, municipal governments portray their towns through slogans such as kagaku to bunka no machi (Science Culture City) or akaruku, kakki afurete sumiyasui (Country Culture Town [that is] Bright, Vivacious, and Easy to Live In). It is common for towns to choose slogans that invoke the bunka concept as a means of indexing both progress and tradition.

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John W. Traphagan and Christopher S. Thompson

One agricultural municipality, for example, uses a code term to evoke notions of a polysemic local culture, advertising itself as kenko– to cho– jyu no machi, Mahoroba no sato (the town of health and longevity, the essence of Mahoroba). The term, “Mahoroba,” has a particularly poignant association with cultural excellence for Japanese both inside and outside the region. Mahoroba was the name given to the territory now known as To– hoku (Northeast Japan) by the authors of the Kojiki (The Record of Ancient Matters) at the start of the eighth century to recognize the sophisticated and progressive culture that existed in the region. Archaeological artifacts dating back to the Jo– mon period (8000–300 B.C.E.), the discovery of a sophisticated irrigation channel system utilized locally prior to the Edo period (1603–1868), the existence of historically significant temples and shrines full of exquisite artwork within the township, and an abundance of local folk traditions that continue to thrive have consistently been used to confirm this point by politicians and others invested in the region’s fortunes. The implication of this catchphrase, then, is that this town and its residents embody a superior blend of tradition and culture in the present, a blend it has inherited from the past and which has now been focused on the issues of health and aging—issues central to well-being in Japan’s contemporary social milieu. Of course, the concept of “culture” has not been limited to emic representations of urban and rural Japan. As an analytic category used by anthropologists and those interested in literature and the arts, the idea of “Japanese culture” has both intrigued and centered the intellectual gaze. William Kelly’s (1991) review of Japanese anthropology, from its beginnings into the 1990s, indicates this quite clearly. Particularly strong, during the latter part of the century, is an emphasis on the separate, but equally real, social realities that coexist in the Japanese context. Allison’s portrayal of corporate after hours entertainment in Japan (1994), Fowler’s account of day laborers in a Tokyo suburb (1996), Condry’s depiction of Japanese Rap Music (1999), Suzuki’s interpretation of contemporary funeral practices (2000), Traphagan’s discussions of aging and religion in To– hoku (2000a, 2004), and Schnell’s account of a politically charged taiko (traditional Japanese drum) ritual in a central Honshu– municipality (1999), exemplify the broad range of such realities. It is important to remember, however, that these perspectives did not emerge spontaneously, but as a product of an intense 50 years or more of postwar ethnographic research. Following a period, during the early postwar years, of wrestling with general concepts such as “culture” and “personality” within the Japanese context, much of the research in the 1960s and 1970s related to Japan occurred


5

within the framework of modernization theory (Knight and Traphagan 2003:6). More recently, many cultural and social anthropologists, in particular, have framed the ethnographic study of Japan more squarely within the deconstruction of anthropological theory and increasing complementarities between history, sociology, and anthropology. These anthropologists have pointed out that for Japan, like many others that have been described or framed from the analytic perspective of Euro-American social science, differences between Western and non-Western societies have become increasing fuzzy (Trouillot 2003:9). In the late 1980s, Japanese anthropology concentrated more and more on regional issues, including life in large cities and outlying regions. One result of this emphasis was a move to consider more carefully specific areas of Japanese life within these environments that, at the time, were conceptualized in terms of antipodal oppositions between urban and rural, modern and traditional. By the 1990s, researchers moved to topics ranging from changing forms of the family and intergenerational relations, to studies of the workplace, education, gender, and patriarchy, which were situated in specific locales within Japanese society (Brown 1996; Kaplan et al. 1998; Kriska 1997; Kondo 1990; McVeigh 1998; Traphagan 2000a). Ethnographies highlighting the plight of women and minorities, cultural tourism, and the anthropology of medicine were also prevalent (Weiner 1994; Fukuoka 2000; Bryman 1995; Raz 1999; Thompson 2004c). Technology use within the home and workplace, town-making, religion, heritage, and festivals were also popular topics addressed by scholars in the field (Hamabata 1990; Clark 1994; Ivy 1995; Long 1999; Mock 1999; Thompson 2004a; Thompson 2004b). This research, when contrasted with earlier work, has produced many significant insights into the nature of Japanese culture since the 1950s, and the processes of change that have been ongoing both within Japan and the community of scholars who study Japanese culture and society (Eades, Gill, and Befu 2000). A major contribution of Japanese anthropology, resulting from studies dating back to the postwar period, has been that previously documented social characteristics have not disappeared in Japan over the past 50 years, but have instead taken on new forms. Undoubtedly, the particularly turbulent decade of the 1990s, marked by events such as the collapse of both the stock market and land prices (Wood 1993), the devastating Kobe earthquake (Terry 1998), the sarin gas attacks perpetrated by Aum Shinrikyo– (Kaplan and Marshall 1996), and the Liberal Democratic Party’s declining influence in national politics (Schlesinger 1997), have had a significant impact on this process. But radical discarding of values and social structures of the past has

6


not been a characteristic of the postwar era; instead, augmentation and improvisation on older themes, the invention of new approaches to social organization, and new ideas about what should be valued by members of society have combined to form the diversity of the current modern moment. Perhaps what we can take away from much of this research is the point Kelly (1991) makes, that, since the 1950s, an abundance of ethnographic evidence demonstrates that for people throughout Japan, there has been a, “striking diversity of lifestyles and divergence of life chances between the genders, the generations, and the occupations” (Kelly 1991:422). The Japan that emerged from the ethnographic corpus is diverse—a heterogeneous culture and society that, like any other, is characterized by aspects of complexity, conflict, and change, as well as elements of uniformity, conformity, and contradiction. As Japan has entered the new millennium, it is arguable that there has been an acceleration of diversity within Japanese local culture (Eades, Gill, and Befu 2000). The increase in life expectancy of senior citizens and a decline in the birth rate have added new dimensions to consider at the local level, particularly in the outlying areas of the country (Jolivet 1997; Traphagan and Knight 2003). The modernization processes, including the global diffusion and creolization of cultural forms and meanings (Hannertz 1992) and the globalization of the world economy, among other international factors have played a significant role in this process. Indeed, this diversity is one of the primary themes that emerges from this book, which provides insight into the broad spectrum of values, behaviors, and ideas within a region of Japan that is often viewed, by Japanese, as quintessentially traditional and, thus, particularly representative of a homogeneous Japan with homogeneous, traditional values. Following the lead of Gupta and Ferguson, who argue that modernization and globalization cause cultures, even within the nation-state, to increasingly become deterritorialized (1997), this book addresses the issue that Japanese culture, while exhibiting general representative characteristics that can be interpreted in terms of culture in the broad sense, also consists of a diversity of separate, smaller societies, each of which might be described as having a derivative culture that both resembles and diverges from these broader themes. Whatever the larger whole that is “Japan” may be, it is itself an expression of these heterogeneous local expressions rather than a homogeneous mass culture that hegemonically shapes, and even dominates, those local realities. The contributors to this book demonstrate how ideas and cultural differences within Japan are being specialized in new and different ways. Each writes from the theoretical standpoint that all associations


7

of people, place, and culture are not given, natural facts, but are social and historical creations and processes that need explaining in terms of both the extension of the national and global into the realm of the local and the extension of the local into the realm of the national and global. The rapidly accelerating global cultural ecumen—the degree to which the world is becoming socially, economically, and politically integrated and interdependent, yet simultaneously able to maintain such a variety of local cultural forms (Hannertz 1992:217)—makes the study of this process an important part of the anthropological agenda precisely because it is this often implicit mosaic of diverse cultural frames that bound the ethnographic object that then make possible a generalization of the whole.

New Models for Understanding the Regional Culture of State Societies Central to our aims in this volume is a recognition of the need in sociocultural anthropology, and the social sciences in general, to give serious attention to the regional dynamics of state societies (Abraham and Waldren 1998). We approach this by examining how people use the concepts of “urban and rural,” “tradition and modern,” “industrial and agricultural,” as ideas to explain and define their existence and experience of living in contemporary Japanese society. In the anthropological literature, the juxtaposition of modern and traditional, in particular, has often been used to depict the dichotomy between a hegemonic West and a traditional non-West. The former juxtaposition of rural and urban has been used to describe the relationship between national centers and peripheral areas (Gupta and Ferguson 1999). This book demonstrates, through ethnographic sketches that portray the lives of the inhabitants of Northeast Japan, why these dichotomies are no longer relevant as analytic categories in the Japanese context, while continuing to remain important in emic frames of thought and central features of how Japanese conceptualize themselves and their nation (Creighton 1997). The northern part of Japan’s main island of Honshu– , known as – Tohoku, is a region where the sociocultural dynamics of local lifestyle, as well as the attitudes and self-perceptions of local residents, are still not thoroughly documented or understood in sufficient detail, even while some important ethnographic research has been conducted in the region (see Shimpo– 1976; Brown 1979; Bailey 1991; Traphagan 2000b; Rosenberger 2001). This book addresses this lacuna in two significant ways. First, we argue that modern Japanese society, featuring interwoven strands of traditional, modern, and

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global influences evident throughout the country, is minimizing the differences that exist between country life and city life, rendering the rural– urban dichotomy prevalent in so much postwar, rural ethnography, obsolete (Dore 1978). Second, we move away from the idea of culture simply as an objectified or reified thing that people engage in as a process of intersubjective construction of cultural realities. Instead, we view culture not only as an intersubjective process, but also as a process through which people adopt different versions of their culture to achieve specific aims. Rather than culture, per se, we are interested in the notion of cultural styles as an alternative model of thinking about the manner in which people represent their world and use the representations they create. By focusing on the uses of tradition and modernity, we demonstrate how life in the To– hoku region, as in Tokyo, is simultaneously traditional, modern, Western and Japanese, local and global. Each author considers how these ideas are used by Japanese in regional centers and small towns, and have emerged in relationship to influences from the past.

The To– hoku Region The To– hoku (Northeast) region is composed of six prefectures— Aomori, Akita, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi, and Yamagata—which collectively constitute the northeastern quadrant of Japan’s main island of Honshu– . As Japan’s ruling families began to emerge out of central Honshu– during the Yayoi period (200 B.C.E.–A.D. 250), the To– hoku region proved to be one of the most difficult territories to pull into the fold. Historically, the Yamato state (350–709), the earliest Japanese government on record, which sent representatives from its stronghold in Nara (central southwest Honshu– ) up the interior river valleys of north central Honshu– and out to the northernmost points of the Japan Sea coast, was the first to introduce mainstream Japanese culture to the To– hoku region, or Mutsu as it was known at that time (Bailey 1991; Lu 1974).1 Even before Yamato expansion northward during the mid–second century, towns and villages existed in the Tsugaru district (Aomori Prefecture), the Hachinohe area (Akita Prefecture), the Sendai Plain (Miyagi and Fukushima Prefectures) and in the Kitakami flats (Iwate Prefecture). Farmland was fertile, and gold, silver, and other valuable minerals were mined in the mountains. Excellent land routes connected inland cities with coastal communities on the eastern, northern, and western coasts. From the northern and western shores, trade with the mainland was frequent. For both


9

political and economic reasons, the Yamato state was anxious to gain control of northeast Honshu– , and embarked on a takeover campaign that lasted several generations (Brown 1979:61–63). Popular images of the To– hoku region are stark. From the second to seventh centuries, it was considered a dangerous frontier land that by the end of the Nara period (784) was still not firmly under Imperial control. The inhabitants of the region consisted of political refuges, pioneer settlers, and religious ascetics from central Honshu– , some of whom intermingled with indigenous peoples who inhabited the area. The conflicting interests of these groups created a climate of perpetual upheaval only exacerbated by the attempt of the Imperial state to control the region. During the Heian period (794–1185), the volatility of Mutsu necessitated that the Imperial state’s propaganda tactics be shifted into full swing. The inhabitants of the region were classified as Emishi: primitive, barbaric, “hairy people.” They were thought to be genetically and culturally related to the Ainu of Ezo Island (Hokkaido), and generally regarded as less than human. Artistic renditions of Emishi, against whom the Yamato state fought many bloody battles, portray them with the physical features of oni (demons), yo– kai (ghosts), and shiryo– (vengeful spirits). These evil images, superimposed from Japanese mythology and Chinese folklore, were used to dehumanize Mutsu inhabitants and to justify Imperial hegemony over of the territory despite the heterogeneity of the population (Kuji 2002; Lu 1974:11). A subtle but persistent prejudice continues to influence mainstream perceptions of the To– hoku people, who are regarded as backward, unrefined, and unsophisticated. History credits Sakanoue-no-Tamuramaro– for subjugating the Emishi (and the Ezo [island] people to whom they are said to be related) around the year 797 (Brown 1979:64; Lu 1974:12). However, Mutsu inhabitants weren’t easily controlled, and resistance to Imperial rule continued for generations. As the region’s native inhabitants were slowly pushed northward, the culture of central Japan came to dominate all of Honshu– . By late Heian times (12th century), To– hoku, as a whole, had begun to be absorbed into the Imperial sphere of influence, but was still considered untamed, exotic, and remote. As Bailey explains, “The establishment of the Fujiwara stronghold at Hiraizumi in [what is now] southern Iwate and the flowering of [mainstream] culture there added romance to the mystery, particularly as legends surrounding the last days of the Minamoto hero, Yoshitsune, took root” (Bailey 1991:37).2 From the middle ages to as late as the 19th century, the To– hoku region served as both a repository of Japan’s rich cultural heritage and a

10


refuge for those defeated in battle or for political, religious, or economic reasons sought to escape the constraints of mainstream society. But as the central government gained control of the territory, it was carved up into a number of smaller fiefdoms controlled by a local daimyo (feudal lord), some more influential than others. Until the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the northern part of the Kitakami Valley (Iwate prefecture) was ruled by the Nambu han (clan). Because the Nambu lords were descendants of the Sewa Genji line of Minamoto—ancestors of Emperor Seiwa, they had close ties to the centers of power in Kyoto and Kamakura despite their remote locale. This made the Nambu fiefdom a political and economic center in the region, focused on the city of Morioka at the foot of Mt. Iwate, the highest volcanic mountain in northeast Honshu– . The southern part of the Kitakami Valley was controlled by the Date han, made famous by Date Masamune, ally of Shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the 1580s, renowned warrior, diplomat,3 and protector of artists and scholars. Date lords, descended from the Fujiwara family also, but were more closely aligned with the shogunate than to the Imperial family. The Date han anchored their economic and political power firmly in the city of Sendai in what is now Miyagi Prefecture. When Masamune died in 1636, his fief was the largest one north of Edo (Tokyo). Due in part to their differing loyalties, the Date and Nambu fiefs were in competition for regional power, land, and rice (used to pay taxes in addition to being a staple food). Coupled with intermittent rebellions perpetrated by remaining native peoples, refugees, and pioneer settlers in the region, skirmishes among these groups and between the ruling han lasted well into the 19th century. Despite the instability, Date and Nambu lords controlled their fiefs without serious challenge until the end of the Tokugawa period in 1868 (Bailey 1991:37–39; Papinot 1972:71, 432). From a Tokyo point of view, the To– hoku region has remained remote, rural, and backward for much of the 20th century as it has fulfilled for Japan the valuable service of preserving an important dimension of the nation’s cultural and historic past. Until after World War II, To– hoku’s cold, snowy winters, rugged interior terrain, and lack of efficient transportation infrastructure made major socioeconomic development initiatives in the region difficult to contemplate. But in the postwar period this slowly changed. Today, each To– hoku prefecture has one large city that comprises its capital and contains prefecture wide institutions such as national and prefectural universities, corporate headquarters, and medical centers. In general, these are small cities, such as Morioka, the capital of Iwate with


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approximately 230,000 people and Akita City, which has a population of roughly 300,000. Aomori City has a population of 297,000, Yamagata City is about 250,000 in size. Fukushima City ranks close to these cities with 289,000. Sendai, the capital of Miyagi Prefecture, is by far the largest with a population of 987,000, and, thus, represents not only the economic and educational center for Miyagi Prefecture, but for the entire To– hoku region (Asahi Shimbun 2002:260). All of these cities are historically important in that they are the locations of castles that housed the main families of the feudal domains that dominated the region prior to Japan’s modern period marked by the Meiji Restoration. The borders between the prefectures do not correspond neatly to the domain borders of the past, but one can still find cultural variations that are connected to the region’s history. For example, indigenous religious rituals and performance arts in the To– hoku exhibit Date, Nambu, and other influences from mainstream culture brought to the Northeast from central Japan during earlier centuries (Tsubohari 1999). Local dialects vary considerably from one prefecture to another and even within prefectures (Hirayama 1968). To this day, the dialect in the Morioka area of Iwate is different form that of the southern part of the prefecture, which during feudal times was connected to the Date, rather than the Nambu, domain (Morishita 1983). Culturally, the To– hoku region, conceptualized by Japanese mainstream society as the nation’s repository of traditional lifeways, plays second fiddle to none. The onsen (hot spring bath) resorts that permeate the region are highly regarded throughout Japan. Tono, a city located in eastern central Iwate is widely regarded as the folklore capital of Japan (Yanagida 1975). In Fukushima, the frontier castle town of Aizu Wakamatsu, and Hongo– , a three-hundred-year-old pottery village, are also well-known. The beautiful Matsushima coastline in Miyagi and the Jo– mon period ruins of a residential fortification dating back four thousand years at Sannai Maruyama in Aomori are visited by thousands of domestic and international tourists each year. Akita’s four-hundred-year-old sugi (chryptomaria) forests, feudal period samurai residential district in Kakunodake, and Kurokawa Noh in Yamagata are also but a few of the To– hoku region’s respected historic resources. All six To– hoku prefectures are known far and wide as production centers for several varieties of Japan’s best tasting rice. Politically and economically, however, the To– hoku, like other geographical areas located away from the nation’s capital, continues to given up much to Tokyo and other urban centers in central Japan, even since the end of World War II.

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During a majority of the postwar period, Japan’s political authority, economic might, a large percentage of its population and major conduits to the global community have been situated in Tokyo or within the Tokyo–Osaka industrial corridor that stretches from the nation’s capital 500 miles southwest (OEDC 1996:11). As a result, To– hoku and other outlying regions have made great sacrifices which have benefited central Japan greatly while receiving little in return. The nation’s basic tax structure demonstrates clearly the politicaleconomic hierarchy that enables urban areas to prosper at the expense of regions located outside the Tokyo–Osaka corridor. Approximately 70 percent of all taxes in Japan are collected from the wealthiest regions of the country where the nation’s economic resources are concentrated. Taxes collected from outlying areas account for only 30 percent of the total (Hashimoto 1996:15). In a nutshell, tax revenues are controlled by national ministry bureaucrats and political parties. At the local level, a fixed percentage of revenue collected by the national government is returned in the form of subsidies and grants to communities that need them. These monies are called, chiho– ko– fuzei, or provincial support funds because this system is designed to redistribute the wealth of the nation concentrated in the chu– o– (nation’s center) to the prefectures, cities, and towns in regions located in the periphery such as the To– hoku, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Okinawa that require the greatest amount of supplementary funding. Annually, a basic level of provincial support funding, based on population figures, is automatically dispersed to all eligible prefectures and municipalities in the nation. The relationship between population figures in Japanese regional municipalities and the national subsidies these communities are allotted to pay for basic city services through their municipal operating budgets is well-documented (Thompson 2003a:95). Simply stated, the amount of subsidy funding is determined by subtracting expected income from the estimated income needed to support public facilities and services. Part of expected income includes funding based on population figures. A census is conducted every five years to determine what minimum subsidies will be. To receive any subsidies above the minimum, prefectural and municipal bureaucrats must travel to Tokyo and meet with ministry officials to make proper application (Hashimoto 1996; Thompson 2003a:95). Competition is fierce. Prefectures and municipalities lobby hard for special subsidies, often spending large sums of money and employing sophisticated political and public relations techniques to win maximum allowable amounts. For this reason, leaders of regional governments spend a great deal of time in Tokyo at ministry offices. Thus, taxes, politics, and


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local and regional economies are inextricably interconnected (Thompson 2003a:98–102). Since the 1950s, at least one-third of Japan’s population has been concentrated in areas surrounding Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya, respectively, the nation’s three largest urban areas. As recently as 1996, Tokyo and the surrounding Kanto Plains Region accounted for 31 percent of the national gross domestic product (GDP) while the Kinki (Osaka) and Chubu (Nagoya) regions combined for 24 percent. Of the GDP produced by Japan’s other four territorial areas, the To– hoku accounted for a mere 6.5 percent, one of the smallest single regional contributions. During the same year, the Kanto, Kinki, and Chubu regions (basically a geographical area encompassing Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya) combined for 47 percent of the nation’s total employment and half of all service sector employment in Japan (OEDC 1996:12). During the postwar period, population figures have played a big role in shaping local expressions of community life particularly in depopulated farming communities with few nonagricultural local industries such as those prevalent in To– hoku by limiting the financial capabilities of municipal bureaucrats to implement local services that support the quality of their constituents’ lives. Prefectures and municipalities located in the most densely populated industrial areas of central Japan have had more money to spend at the local level than their counterparts in the less populated periphery. As indicated by the former mayor at the beginning of the chapter, particularly in smaller To– hoku towns, designing scenarios that give local residents better access to the resources in the nation’s center has become a major concern for bureaucrats situated in the periphery (Thompson 2001). Until the late 1980s, Japan’s state policy initiatives were clearly aimed at utilizing regional resources to strengthen national centers. Historically, the To– hoku and other regions located away from the benefits of Tokyo’s political and economic sphere of influence have supplied Japan’s urban areas with natural resources, labor and food (particularly rice). But during Japan’s income doubling decade spanning the mid–1950s into the 1960s, newly available jobs in city factories also drew large numbers of men and women away from the regions including the To– hoku, depopulating their hometowns and paving the way for the economic hardships to come (Thompson 2003b). Motivated by changing demographics and agricultural market conditions, the state initiated rationalization initiatives starting in 1965—lasting into the late 1970s—encouraging farmers to mechanize, hoping to make agriculture more efficient. However, this only led to overproduction which

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resulted in nationally mandated restrictions on gentan (crop size) and further directives to add fruits and vegetables to the tensaku (crop rotation) in an attempt to help farmers recuperate their lost income through diversification. Instead of streamlining Japanese agriculture, these policies trapped older farmers on their farms and forced their children to commit to jobs in cities far away for financial security. This worsened already existing social problems such as the need for dekasegi (seasonal employment by family members away from home), the difficulty of finiding atotsugi (successors), and the hanayome mondai (bride problem)—the lack of eligible young women willing to marry and build lives with young men residing in rural Japan (Bailey 1991:7). Interestingly, as early as the 1970s, national structural reforms designed to give regional areas more political authority and economic autonomy were already underway. The publication of Nippon rett o– kaizo– ron (Proposal for remodeling Japan), by Tanaka Kakuei, Japan’s Prime Minister (from July 1972 to December 1974) proposed a program of decentralizing government and industries by increasing transportation networks designed to make all areas of Japan more accessible to economic development (Robertson 1991:26–28). But, not until 1983 did the state actually begin implementing industrial decentralization programs such as the “technopolis strategy,” implemented to encourage specific growth sectors such as the electronics industry to build new plants in regions outside the Tokyo–Osaka corridor. As a result of Tanaka Administration policies, each To– hoku prefecture gained a new production plant during the 1980s, which produced a limited but significant number of new jobs (OECD 1996:20). Meanwhile in the agricultural sector, the government urged To– hoku farmers to get involved in the service sector by funding the construction of resorts, while simultaneously urging them to leave farming all together. In 1988, To– hoku gained four more state-funded laboratory and information processing facilities designed to support regional industrial centers; but not soon enough. The population in the six northeastern prefectures of Honshu– continued to decline. In 1989, Prime Minister Takeshita Noboru initiated an unprecedented program called the Furusato So–sei Undo– (Movement to create hometown identity) consisting of block grants of ¥100,000 given to every town and village in rural areas to promote furusato zukuri (hometown-making). As a participant in furusato zukuri, each local municipality could use their grant in what ever capacity they saw fit—to create local jobs, address issues related to health care for the aging, or to fund strategies that might draw


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young people back. While widely popularized in the mainstream media, like other state initiated development ideas, this movement did little to reverse To– hoku’s population slide. In effect, the Furusato S o– sei Undo– was an acknowledgment by the state that it no longer knew how to address issues that had become endemic to regional Japan. In the end, government mandated-agricultural restrictions perpetuated part-time farming by limiting the earning potential of middle-aged farmers, and deterred a generation of their children, who had left the farms for employment elsewhere, from ever coming back. Still, with no clear plan to repopulate and reinvigorate Japan’s periphery, in 1995, the national government passed the Decentralization Promotion Law, designed to pass on to regional governments the responsibility of developing localized strategies to solve their problems. More than ever, national-level bureaucrats encouraged independent local attempts to fund initiatives designed to increase the local tax base. However, the Decentralization Promotion Law, conceived during Japan’s bull market years in the late 1980s and early 1990s, was enacted just as Japan’s bubble economy began to collapse. The ensuing failure of the stock market and the collapse of land prices caused the national government to close their purse strings, which in effect undermined the plan. The political economy of the To– hoku region has had a major influence on shaping local life circumstances. However, and most important, while the state’s multiple (and at times contradictory) policy changes and decentralization initiatives have not solved the socioeconomic troubles that have plagued Japan’s periphery, attempts to address the problem have contributed significantly toward minimizing urban–rural differences. By freeing To– hoku and other outlying regions to develop independently, prefectures and their municipalities have been empowered to create unprecedented domestic and international geo–political, economic, and cultural ties independent of Tokyo (Thompson 2001). One city that stands out is Sendai, which is effectively the metropolitan center for the entire region. With a population slightly under one million, it is several times larger than the other major cities in To– hoku. Sendai is home to one of the top universities in Japan, To– hoku University, and has an international airport. Sendai has been mentioned as a possible site for relocation of the national capital from Tokyo. Sendai is also important because it is one of the major destinations for intra-To– hoku migrants. A quantitative analysis of demographic trends in Miyagi in comparison to other To– hoku prefectures reveals some interesting characteristics of the socioeconomic variables that exist within the region.

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Figure 1.1 shows the age distributions for three To– hoku prefectures, Iwate, Miyagi, and Akita as of 2000. By comparison to the other two, Miygai, in which Sendai is located, shows a much higher proportion of people in their twenties and thirties. As of 2000, in Miyagi, 14.49 percent of the population was between 20 and 29 and 12.68 percent was between 30 and 39. In contrast, in Akita, for example, these proportions were 10.15 percent and 10.3 percent, respectively. Interestingly, this pattern inverts from the age of 40, when Akita and Iwate show higher proportions of people in those age groups. Indeed, Akita has roughly the same proportion of 60- to 69-year-olds (14.87%) as Miyagi has 20- to 29-year-olds. These figures are a clear indication of the migration pattern common in rural Japan, in which following graduation from high school, people move to large metropolitan areas for education and work (Traphagan 2000b). While Sendai is a major drain on rural populations in To– hoku, it is important to also recognize that Tokyo has a similar effect for the entire country, which large numbers of temporary and permanent migrants drawn from the countryside. During the 1970s and 1980s there was a continual outflow of population from the prefectures in the To– hoku region, a pattern appearing to be declining in the 1990s. However, migration data for the late 1990s and early 2000s shows a return to the pattern of annual net loss in migrants for the prefectures in the region, with an average loss of 3,538 people per prefecture in 2001 (Traphagan 2004a).

Fig. 1.1. Age Distributions for Iwate, Miyagi, and Akita Prefectures (2000).


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If we return to figure 1.1, another feature of the population distribution of the region as a whole is its general agedness. As of 2000, almost 24 percent of the population in Akita and slightly over 22 percent of the population in Iwate were over the age of 65. And Miyagi, with the youngest population in the region, still had over 17 percent of its population over 65. At the microlevel, the proportions of elderly in local municipalities is even more extreme. Some small towns, such as one municipality in Akita, have experienced steady population decline for decades. For example, in one town in Akita Prefecture from 1975 to 1995, the population dropped from 10,158 to 8,885. This decline was accompanied by an increase in the proportion of elderly from 10 percent to 21 percent over the same period. Figures such as these have a detrimental impact upon local tax revenues. It is not uncommon to find towns with more than 25 percent of the population over 65. One township in Akita projects an over-65 population of 47 percent by 2020 (Traphagan 2004b; Akita-ken no– gyo– kyo– do– kumiai chu– o– kai 1995:5). The lack of working aged residents drawing full-time salaries in a township with such a high proportion of senior residents only compounds the economic effects of depopulation on the local tax base. The increasing proportion of senior citizens in the To– hoku has broader conceptual ramifications as well. As Traphagan argues (2000a, 2003), the aged characteristic of the population in To– hoku is not simply a matter of demography. Qualitatively, the juxtaposition of the young and old within the socioeconomic context is routinely interpreted culturally by Japanese as a juxtaposition of the modern and traditional. Older people often describe themselves, and are described by others, as furui or obsolete and outdated. The implications of this label rests in the idea that the elderly, particularly the oldest, were educated in a prewar society whose values and ideas were radically different from those of contemporary Japan. Thus, they have difficulties understanding the modern world and integrating themselves into it. These notions are exacerbated by differences in dialect—the old often use local dialects that the young, who are taught standard Japanese in school, have difficulties understanding. The gap between broadly defined young and old generations is sufficient enough that people will sometimes say that true understanding between them is almost impossible. In essence, concepts of tradition and modernity are embodied in older and younger individuals. Drawing on the interpretations of Japanese living in To– hoku, one can view this as being as though there are two distinct habiti coexisting in the same physical space—embodied by both the young and the old. These habiti—the embodied cognitive structures that motivate and limit the range of possible behaviors (Bourdieu 1977)—are

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themselves structured in terms of conceptualizations of modernity and tradition. The habitus of the younger generation is associated with modernity, the embodiment of which is expressed in hair styles, clothing styles, speech patterns, and expectations about life taken on through processes of socialization. These are perceived as radically different from those that existed prior to the end of World War II. The habitus of the old is associated with tradition, the embodiment of which is expressed in ideas that are sometimes longed for nostalgically: clothing styles, speech patterns, and expectations about life that reflect the prewar social milieu. In order to understand the manner in which concepts of tradition and modernity are used in To– hoku and in other parts of Japan, it is necessary to keep in mind notions about a deep generational divide that is evident in contemporary Japanese interpretations of their own social context—particularly in rural areas. Japanese construct tradition and modernity along numerous, often conflicting, lines, but the division between prewar and postwar education and the rise of postwar democratization and socioeconomic development is one of the most important dividing lines between tradition and modernity. Japanese employ these when interpreting the nature of their society and processes of social change. Since April of 2002, the immediacy of social change and the juxtaposition of tradition and modernity has, for To– hoku residents, intensified from a geo–political standpoint, due to the promulgation of the Shicho– son Gappei Tokurei Ho– (The Special Provisions Law for Amalgamating Cities, Towns, and Villages) by the state. By April 1 of Heisei 17 (2005), all Japanese municipalities with populations of 30 thousand or less must amalgamate into neighboring municipalities increasing local population figures to this level or face further cuts to state subsidies necessary for maintaining municipal operating budgets already depleted to minimum levels (Odashima 2002; To– wa-cho– Kikaku Zaiseika 2002). Many local residents fear that this amalgamation law, the second major one of the postwar period, will rob them of their local identities and cultural heritage as residential neighborhoods become urbanized and homogenized. Pressures such as this compose the contemporary political–economic context in which tradition and modernity is negotiated in the To– hoku region.

General Content of the Book Understanding the regional dynamics of state societies is one of the most pressing issues for anthropology in the rapidly accelerating “global cultural ecumen” (Hannertz 1992:217). As a rare examination of this process in


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a non-Western advanced industrial society, this book is particularly significant. Contributions to the volume are focused on Japan’s To– hoku region, and are based on each author’s extensive contact with the local contexts they describe. All chapters represent topics common to the To– hoku lifestyle, although the themes explored in the book are applicable to many parts of Japan. The authors of chapters 2 and 3 focus on social change in the region by examining shifting demographic and agricultural patterns that have changed the physical, technological, and organizational landscape of the Japanese countryside. In chapter 2, John Mock examines the social impact of the rural–urban population shift from the vantage point of Akita Prefecture. Arguing that over the past century and a half, this shift has created one of the most urbanized societies in the world, he compares the impact of this phenomenon in five Akita townships. Mock reveals patterns of depopulation, effects of depopulation, and reasons for depopulation, all of which suggest that the cultural styles chosen by local residents to define their identities and lifeways may be more important in explaining depopulation in Akita than mere economic factors alone. In chapter 3, William Kelly examines how three outstanding features of modern Japanese agriculture enhanced equity and efficiency in farming. He discusses the growing preponderance of part-time agricultural occupations that both shape, and are shaped by, the play of domestic and international forces in To– hoku Japan. Kelly concludes with an explanation of why a rural Japan of rice farmers no longer exists, revealing the culturally constructed nature of tradition and modernity in the To– hoku region. Chapters 2 and 3 provide a basis for understanding contexts of social change in the To– hoku region. Part II of the book turns from general discussion to specific case studies aimed at articulating the sociocultural factors identified by Kelly that render the urban–rural dichotomy outmoded for understanding the contemporary experience of To– hoku Japanese. Each contribution illuminates the multidimensional dynamics that make the To– hoku lifestyle simultaneously traditional and modern, Western and Japanese, and local and global. The ethnographic accounts contained within each chapter in Part II, which we discuss in detail in the introduction to that section, demonstrate how and why To– hoku residents direct their lives by choosing from among the many cultural styles now available to them. Each chapter in this book represents what has been described as a new theme in the recent anthropology of Japanese regional society—ethnographies of local life at the crossroads of the mutual effects of agrarian change and industrialization in regional development (see Kelly 1991). By providing dense ethnographic descriptions of the complex and fascinating interplay

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between tradition, modernity, and globalization in the lives of To– hoku residents, this book contributes to a better understanding of regionally specific expressions of life in contemporary Japan. In particular, one can readily see the complexity and diversity of life and lifestyles among the people who live in a region of Japan often presented as homogeneous in the expression of both modern and traditional cultures. This book aims at breaking new theoretical ground by considering the different ways in which people put on styles of culture, such as urban– sophisticate versus rural–down-to-earth, to manipulate and negotiate interactions with others. Rather than considering what constitutes rural or urban, traditional or modern, local, national, or global Japan, this book explores how people construct these ideas and use them to shape identities that are both individual and collective. From a more general theoretical perspective, this book can be useful to the study of contemporary Japanese society because it points out the considerable diversity in the ways lifestyles are culturally constructed. Japanese anthropology during the postwar period has made tremendous progress in demonstrating the multiple, often conflicting dimensions of the Japanese lifestyle. In a new millennium, this book shows how local yet global life in Japan really is.

Notes 1. The name “Mutsu” predates “Mahoroba,” the eighth century name used to describe the To– hoku region as recorded in the Kojiki (The Record of Ancient Matters), completed in 712. Like many ancient territories, the To– hoku has been referred to by multiple names throughout its history. During the Taika reform in 646, the name Mutsu, meaning “land of the interior,” was assigned to the territory that – encompassed the northeastern part of Honshu . This region was also known by its – Chinese name, Oshu meaning, “interior province.” Prior to the fifth century, the same territory was called Michinoku, or simply Michi. The name Mutsu is derived from an alternative reading of the Chinese character compound used to graph Michinoku (Papinot 1972:415). Today the term “Michinoku” is still used by residents of Northeast Japan to evoke a sense of nostalgia for the rich heritage of cultural sophistication and originality associated with the To– hoku region. 2. According to ledgend, Yoshitsune did not die in Koromogawa, located near Hiraizumi in present day Iwate Prefecture. Instead, one theory posits that he was able to escape to the island of Ezo (Hokkaido). Another theory, based on the similarity of the Japanese pronunciation for the Chinese characters used in the name Minamoto Yoshitsune to Gen Gikyo– (a possible variation of the name Gengis Kahan), some scholars speculate that Yoshitsune emigrated to the mainland where he became the famous Mongolian ruler (Papinot 1972:384).


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3. Late in the 14th century, Date Masamune went on an expidition to Korea with Asano Nagamasa, brother-in-law of Hideyoshi. (He is also known for helping to get Franciscan Father F. Luis Sotelo released from prison in 1613 as Shogun Tokugawa Hidetada began persecuting Christians.) Following this incident, Date sent Hasekura Tsunenaga, one of his retainers with Sotelo on a mission to Spain and Rome—to meet the Pope, thus earning himself the reputation as a diplomat (Papinot 1972:71).

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———. 1999. Culture, Community and Change in a Sapporo Neighborhood, 1925–1988 Hanayama. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press. Morishita, Kiichi. 1983. Iwate no Ho–gen wo Tazunete [Gleaning from Iwate dialects]. Morioka: Kumagai Publishers. Odashima, Mineo. 2002. Interview in To– wa-cho– , with To– wa-cho– Mayor. To– wacho– Town Hall. Iwate-ken, Waga-gun, To– wa-cho– , Japan. October 10. OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development). 1996. Territorial Development: Regional Problems and Policies in Japan. Paris: OECD. Papinot, E. 1972. Historical and Geographical Dictionary of Japan. Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle. Raz, Aviad E. 1999. Riding the Black Ship: Japan and Tokyo Disneyland. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center. Robertson, Jennifer. 1991. Native and Newcomer: Making and Remaking a Japanese City. Berkeley: University of California Press. Rosenberger, Nancy. 2001. Gambling with Virtue: Japanese Women and the Search for Self in a Changing Nation. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Schlesinger, Jacob. 1997. Shadow Shoguns. The Rise and Fall of Japan’s Postwar Political Machine. New York: Simon & Schuster. Schnell, Scott. 1999. The Rousing Drum: Ritual Practice in a Japanese Community. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Shimpo– , Mitsuru. 1976. Three Decades in Shiwa: Economic Development and Social Change in a Japanese Farming Community. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Suzuki, Hikaru. 2000. The Price of Death: The Funeral Industry in Contemporary Japan. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Tamanoi, Mariko. 1998. Under the Shadow of Nationalism: Politics and Poetics of Rural Japanese Women. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Terry, Edith. 1998. Two Years after the Kobe Earthquake. In Unlocking the Bureaucrat’s Kingdom: Deregulation and the Japanese Economy, ed. F. Gibney, 231–242. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Thompson, Christopher. 2001. Cyberchomin@To– wa-cho– : Reterritorializing Rurality in Regional Japan. Pan Japan 2(1 and 2):64–99. ———. 2003a. Depopulation in Rural Japan: “Population Politics” in To– wa-cho– . In Demographic Change and the Family in Japan’s Aging Society, ed. John Traphagan and John Knight, 89–106. Albany: State University of New York Press. ———. 2003b. CyberCho– min@To– wa-cho– : An Ethnography of Cyber Residents in a Japanese Rural Township. Journal of Intercultural Disciplines 3:24–52. ———. 2004a. You Are Your House: The Construction and Continuity of Family and Identity Using Yago– in a Japanese Suburban Farming Community. Social Science Journal Japan 7(1):61–81. ———. 2004b. The Ochiai Deer Dance: A Traditional Dance in a Modern World. Journal of Popular Culture 38(2):23–45. ———. 2004c. Self Produced Rural Tourism: To– wa’s Tokyo Antenna Shop. Annals of Tourism Research 31(3):580–600.

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To– wa-cho– Kikaku Zaiseika. 2002. Shicho– son Gappei Tokurei Ho– (The City, Towns, and Villages Amalgamation Law).To– wa-cho– Town Hall. Iwate-ken, Waga-gun, To– wa-cho– , Japan. Traphagan, John W. 2000a. Taming Oblivion: Aging Bodies and the Fear of Senility in Japan. Albany: State University of New York Press. ———. 2000b. The Liminal Family: Return Migration and Intergenerational Conflict in Japan. Journal of Anthropological Research 56:365–385. ———. 2003. Contesting Co-Residence: Women, In-Laws, and Health Care in Rural Japan. In Demographic Change and the Family in Japan’s Aging Society, ed. John W. Traphagan and J. Knight. Albany: State University of New York Press. ———. 2004a. Curse of the Successor: Filial Piety vs. Marriage among Rural Japanese. In Filial Piety: Practice and Discourse in Contemporary East Asia, ed. Charlotte Ikels, 198–216. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ———. 2004b. The Practice of Concern: Ritual, Well-Being, and Aging in Rural Japan. Durham: Carolina Academic Press. Traphagan, John W., and John Knight, eds. 2003. Demographic Change and the Family in Japan’s Aging Society. Albany: State University of New York Press. Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. 2003. Global Transformations: Anthropology and the Modern World. New York: Palgrave. Tsubohari, Osamu. 1999. Waga Michinoku Kyo– do Geino– : Hayachine Kagura, Shishi Odori, Onikembai [Our Michinoku Local Entertainment: Hayachine Shaman Dance, The Deer Dance, The Demon Sword Dance]. Tokyo: Kinseisha. Weiner, Michael. 1994. Race and Migration in Imperial Japan. London: Routledge. Wood, Christopher. 1993. The Bubble Economy: The Japanese Economic Collapse. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle. Yanagida, Kunio. 1975. Ronald. A. Morse, trans. The Legends of Tono. Tokyo: Japan Foundation.

Chapter 2

The Social Impact of Rural–Urban Shift Some Akita Examples John A. Mock

Over the past century and a half, there has been a marked shift in population in Japan from rural to urban settings creating one of the most urbanized societies in the world. Obviously, the basic rural–urban shift started more than a century ago but the modern manifestation, with industrialization, has continued effectively up to the present and shows little sign of decreasing. This chapter seeks to compare aspects of the impact of the rural–urban population shift in five different townships in Akita Prefecture, the next to the most northern prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast of the island of Honshu– . There are three major goals in this analysis. The first is to describe some of the patterns of depopulation, the aging of the population, and changes in the labor activities over the past eight decades. The second goal is to examine some of the apparent reasons for depopulation, particularly the notion that economic factors are always the primary movers in rural–urban migration at least in an industrialized society like Japan. The third goal is to examine some of the effects of depopulation on the social order, on residents’ perceptions and, to a lesser extent, on the environment. Evidence from Akita suggests that while economic factors are undoubtedly important, social factors—notably status, occupational choice, the concepts of “convenience” and “modernity,” how “cool” the location is considered, and indeed, a wide variety of national and prefectural policies—may be more important than simple income. These notions appear to be reinforced by the similarities of the experiences of the Akita townships and the very long term patterns that appear to be holding true in Akita and elsewhere.

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John A. Mock

Background The structure of the machi and mura (current small townships) in Akita prefecture is the result of amalgamation of mura (smaller villages). This process of consolidation has been going on for some time with the previous wave of restructuring occurring about 40 years ago. This consolidation coincided approximately with the postwar population peak which was also the historical high for all of these townships. The term townships is used at the beginning of this chapter because of the structure of the units even though they display considerable variation. While there is usually a sho– tengai (shopping street) in some of the older village structures inherited by the towns, these shopping streets, or downtown areas do not always continue to be central to the consolidated towns and are often deteriorating rapidly. This is the result of the consolidation of villages into towns where there may or may not have a town center. Further, again while quite variable, the area of many of these towns is very large and the population density, figured as the total population as a function of total area, is quite low because a lot of very low density area is included in all of the towns. This is misleading because the vast bulk of the area is much more sparsely settled than the official numbers would suggest. Unfortunately, it is not possible to track density of various areas of the original villages accurately with the township-based modern census data. However, all five of these towns have one or more fairly dense areas surrounded by large areas of very sparse population. Since the previous consolidation, most of the towns and cities in Akita Prefecture have both been steadily losing population and the average age of the remaining population has increased markedly. As a result of the decline and aging of their populations, the towns have been experiencing a number of similar changes, most of which are perceived as negative. All of this is set in a context where the national birth rate of Japan has dropped below replacement rate and the projection, in the absence of any significant migration, is for the population to decline (see fig. 2.1). The projection shown below is a straight-line projection where current variables are held constant, then projected until 2100. Given this premise, a rather spectacular reduction in total population is projected. Similarly, with a very low birth rate and a very long life expectancy the percentage of the population over 65, nationwide, is projected to increase for the next half century, then stabilize at a very high level (see fig. 2.2), almost a third of the total population for Japan as a whole. Akita is projected to have a higher percentage, more than a third of the total population. In addition, the straight line

The Social Impact of Rural–Urban Shift

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Fig. 2.1. Population of Japan: Historic and Projected (Akita 1999, 2001).

projection for Akita has the population declining from a high of about 1.3 million to an end of the century low of just over 200,000, about two thirds of the population of Akita City in the year 2000 (see fig. 2.3). Finally, we can combine the projected population decline and the projected increase in the aging population to create a rather dramatic view of what Akita Prefecture might look like in 2100 (see fig. 2.4). While these straight-line projections are not likely, they do dramatize the situation faced by the prefecture as a

Fig. 2.2. Japan and Akita: Percentage of 65⫹ Population (Akita 1999, 2001).

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Fig. 2.3. Population of Akita: Historic and Projected (Akita 1999, 2001).

whole, with the already sparsely settled areas having the largest impact. The figures showing the populations of Japan and Akita, the percentage of the population that is aging, and the projected ratio, for Akita, of total population and the population over 65, can be considered as the demographic background for the examination of these five towns. The five towns in the southwest quarter of Akita share many elements but each also brings its own unique characteristics into the discussion. Therefore, these towns can be seen as at least somewhat representative of

Fig. 2.4. Akita Population: Total and 65⫹ (Akita 1999, 2001).


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situations found in other townships, not only throughout Japan but also in other areas such as North America and Western Europe, where industrialization and urbanization have led to the depopulation of the countryside including small towns.

The Towns Cho–kai (2000 population 6,740; area 322.53 km2; density 20.90 people/km2) As the density figure of 20.9 people/ km2, indicates, Cho– kai Town is both very large and sparsely populated. Located on the inland (east) side of Mt. Cho– kai, directly across the mountain from Kisakata, Cho– kai is a huge section of mostly forested mountainside with rice fields built only along the relatively few narrow alluvial valleys. Road connections are very limited, consisting primarily of a single two-lane road running through Yashima Town northwest to Honjo– City. To the southeast, the road runs to Ogachi Town, allowing access either to the small cities of Yuzawa, in Akita Prefecture, or Shinjo– , in Yamagata Prefecture.

Higashiyuri (2000 population 4,891; area 150.17 km2; density 32.57 people/km2) Higashiyuri is another sparsely populated mountain town. Higashiyuri borders on Honjo– , the nearest major city, that is accessed through tunnels in the dividing mountains on its western side. Like Cho– kai, Higashiyuri is dominated by rice fields but in a broad, central alluvial valley. Higashiyuri also has a main connection of a two-lane road but no railway line. However, its proximity to the city of Honjo– and the improved transportation afforded by the tunnels make it an “in-between” example. Higashiyuri has the second highest degree of aging in Akita Prefecture. Almost 30 percent of its population is already over 65.

Kawabe (2000 population 10,525; area 301.41 km2; density 37.0 people/km2) Kawabe Town is located two local train stops from the capital and major city of Akita Prefecture, Akita City. The old shopping area and the railroad station are in the southwest corner of the very large township. The major west–central to southeast and east highway also runs through the

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southwest section. The largest city in Akita Prefecture, Akita City, is directly adjacent to Kawabe to the west. Because of improved connections between this area and the population center of Akita City (first the hill road was improved with tunnels, then improved again with deep cuts and a four-lane road), the southwest corner of Kawabe is increasingly becoming a “bed town” for Akita City. To the north and east, the land quickly rises to low mountains. The southwestern flat areas are covered with rice fields while the hilly parts to the northeast are heavily forested. There are a number of small hamlets in the northeast part of the town but the total population is very sparse. There are two recognizable village centers that were the cores of two of the three older mura that were combined to make up Kawabe.

Kisakata (2000 population 13,392; area 124.02 km2; density 107.98 people/ km2) This is the only town well-known in Japan as a whole because the village of Shiyokoshi was the northernmost point of the poet Basho’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Ironically, having made it to the warmest area of Akita, Basho reversed his course and went back south. Situated between Mt. Cho– kai and the Sea of Japan, Kisakata was known for a spectacular lagoon and was named after the lagoon and the shellfish in it, but the lagoon was destroyed by an earthquake causing a rise in the level of the sea bed. The main train line running along the Sea of Japan has a station in Kisakata, and Highway 7, the main highway along the Sea of Japan, also runs through the town. The old village of Kisakata’s shopping area has become a substantial downtown, partly because larger city centers are 50 km away. The two old component villages on the side of Mt. Cho– kai are still very sparsely settled. Even more so than Kawabe, the concentration of population is along the transportation routes with the vast majority of the town seeming almost empty. This is also where most of the agriculture and all of the fishing industry occurs with the upland primary industries being forestry and farming.

Yu–wa (2000 population, 8,215; area 148.51 km2; density 55.32 people/km2) Yu– wa lies directly to the south of Kawabe and the northwest corner of Yuwa touches the outer sprawl of Akita City. The Prefectural Airport is in Yu– wa and the major highway leading to the airport has developed into an –


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artery for increasing housing, allowing the area to become a minor bed town for Akita City. There is no train station in Yu– wa and the town is quite long from north to south, making the southern part of the town quite a distance from the Prefectural Capital. Yu– wa has a relatively large amount of rice paddy running along the Omono River Valley, the dominant topographical feature of the town. Unlike the other four towns, there is no dominant center. Instead, Yu– wa has several old centers from the four component villages, the largest having a somewhat famous shugendo, mountain ascetic, shrine. Also, unlike Cho– kai, Kawabe, and Kisakata, the train station, Yu– wa’s town hall was built in a relatively undeveloped flood plain—clearly not in any of the four component village centers but on neutral ground.

Similarities and Dissimilarities All five towns were primarily rice agricultural centers until fairly recently. Like all of Japan, the shift to part-time agriculture (Jussaume 1991; Knight 1994; Moore 1993; Goto 1993) has changed the rural patterns with the population in transition from a system of primarily full-time farmers to one which is, at best, part-time for almost all farm families. The government sponsored process of mechanization of rice agriculture has been a major part of this change, but the social shift, perhaps best exemplified by the processes of urbanization, has also played a role. With the reduction of rice production supports and the enforced reduction of hectares under rice cultivation, the role of rice agriculture will continue to decline. Therefore, there will either be a shift to a different system or systems of agriculture or there will be a continued decline of rural families and probably a concomitant deterioration of the status of rural people. The current initiative, at the national level, to push consolidation of villages, towns, and cities to reduce the number of total administrative units appears to be just another one of many policies that will accelerate these processes. The Special Provisions Law for Amalgamating Cities, Towns, and Villages (Shicho– son Gappei Tokurei Ho– ), largely went into effect in April, 2005 but the final plans were due in April, 2003. Under this initiative, virtually all cities, town, and villages are combining, in some form or other, with one or more other cities, towns or villages to reduce the total number of administrative units in Japan. The economic incentives for these mergers are such that it is likely that almost all civic units will comply. What precisely this means in terms of administration, social welfare, and a host of other issues is unclear. It appears that the primary motivation is to increase centralized administrative control, not to deal with other issues.

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All five of these towns have experienced similar and continuing declines in population combined with a clear trend toward a higher percentage of aging residents. All five towns are quite aware of this situation, which has received a lot of popular press and various kinds of governmental (national and prefectural) interest. These towns have been using one or a combination of strategies that have evolved in response to these declines. 1. Growth at any price: Following what might be thought of as the Japanese model during the “Miracle” period of economic growth at any price. Some of the townships have embarked on various ventures to attract immigrants, particularly younger couples with children. As might be expected, this strategy tends to be rather expensive and the results appear to be inevitably mixed. 2. Avoidance: Ignore the problem and function as if the social, economic, and political conditions of Akita Prefecture have not changed over the past several decades and are not likely to significantly change in the future. This strategy appears to be working fairly well for townships with minimal population decline, at least insofar as it postpones any potential problems to the future. However, for those towns with major population decline, this strategy, coupled with an apparent lack of substantive prefectural and national level planning for the changes, has allowed the problems to become more severe. 3. Acceptance: Try to cope with individual difficulties as they come up but do not try to attain growth at any price. Recognize the decline in population and the increase in aging as a broad national, and even international, pattern and try to adapt as well as possible. Number 3, Acceptance, appears to be the most successful strategy, partly because it avoids the negative aspects of the other two options and maximizes positive aspects. Although all five of the townships have a relatively low birth rate, a very low immigration rate, and a relatively high emigration rate, that fuels population declines across the board, adaptive strategies differ. Furthermore, because the emigrants are likely to be young, an increase in the average age of the inhabitants is increasing. The rate of net emigration is a combination of factors, including ease and speed of transportation to a nearby city, occupational choice available within the town, relative “cool-


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ness” of the towns and, a bit later in the life cycle, perceived educational opportunities. Three townships (Kawabe, Yu– wa, and Highashiyuri) border on a city but two of them (Yu– wa and Higashiyuri), with higher population losses, have no train line. Of those two, the one (Yu– wa) with the better highway connection has less population loss. Thus, we find Higashiyuri with the highest population loss and the greatest degree of aging. Cho– kai is also a high population loss area with difficult transportation to a city and restricted occupational opportunity. Cho– kai has no dominant employer, and it is considered a remote, rural backwater. Kisakata, with a main road and a train line running south to Sakata and north to Honjo– and on to Akita City, somewhat compensates for its distance from either. Kisakata is relatively well-known and perhaps not quite as “uncool” as the other towns. It is considered to have the best climate in the Prefecture, and its dominant employer, an electronics company, provides some range of employment. However, should the dominant employer move “offshore,” as is quite likely to happen given shifts in international markets and manufacturing, there could be rapid and catastrophic consequences.

Fig. 2.5. Five-Town Comparison (National Census 1927–2001; Akita 1999, 2001).

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In addition, in all five towns there has been a major shift in labor patterns from primary industries (fishing, forestry, agriculture) to secondary industries. Except for Kisakata, where there is, in effect, one major manufacturing company, secondary industries are disproportionately in construction. Most of this shift, particularly to construction, seems to have occurred in the postwar period. Although it is difficult to track, with census data missing from 1940 and 1945, there appears to be a very significant jump from 1950 to 1960. This was also the period wherein the effects of postwar land reform and repatriation, particularly from Manchuria, would have been the greatest. In addition, this was the period when the Liberal-Democratic Party consolidated the political power they have wielded ever since. Even here, however, the experience has not been identical. Kisakata, with its manufacturing base and continuing, if declining, fishing, forestry, and agricultural industries, seems to have had the smallest proportion of the population being considered primarily construction workers. On the other hand, all of the towns have experienced very substantial growth of construction as an occupational category. Much of the funding for the various construction projects has come from the national Ministry of Construction and much of the focus has been on very large projects rather than the smaller scale improvements to the local infrastructure which could be seen as directly beneficial to the local populations, primarily by making life be perceived as “more convenient.” As might be expected, the effect of the postwar population boom of the 1950s and 1960s, followed by the relative depopulation at the end of the century, has produced a number of stresses on the social order. For example, having scrambled to provide elementary, middle, and secondary schools for a baby boom, the towns now face declining populations of children and find they have more elementary and middle school spaces than are needed. This has led (in two cases so far) to incorporating two elementary schools into one. Similarly, the increase in average age has shifted medical and social needs from young people to the elderly. The overwhelming response, in informal interviews, has been that the dearth of young people is distinctly negative, that there is a loss of energy and a lack of interest in activities now. The lack of young people is seen as critical but perhaps unavoidable. Typical comments include the following: The town is losing energy and it causes people to worry about their survival later in life because the young people do not care for their parents. (Policeman, 54 years old) The town is becoming an old people’s town and the young people who stay have to pay a large amount of tax. (Gas station attendant, 19 years old)


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We are losing energy from the town. Having young people leave loses creativity. (Mayor, 62 years old)

However, there is also a second cluster of opinions that, while recognizing the shortage of younger people, note that massive improvements in communications and transportation have, in effect, increased the range of each individual’s life. The individual towns and villages are no longer the operating unit, rather it is the larger cluster of nearby towns, villages, and cities. Hence, the mayor of Higashiyuri, when asked specifically what he would like his town to receive from the prefecture, responded that an improved main road between his town and the adjacent small city would be the best thing possible. In the prewar period when he was young, he pointed out, his “daily range,” the distance he could easily go on a regular basis, say to and from school, was only about 5–10 km, depending on whether he had to walk, could ride a bicycle (most roads were not paved), or could take the local (and infrequent) bus. Now, as a quite elderly man, his daily range is nearer to 50 km or more. Not only are private cars far more common, but there are more buses (but now decreasing in the face of private car competition) and much better roads, allowing easy access, for example, to the neighboring city where virtually all high school-age students attend school. As in almost all towns and villages, there is no high school. Thus, he argues, the social unit is not just the town but includes all the neighboring towns as well. There are some interesting responses concerning why people continue to live in the town, even given the “loss of energy.” While some answer, “I was born here” or “I have to live here,” most said that family connections, quality of life, and a variety of other relatively positive factors were reasons for staying. It seems that while small towns are almost invariably denigrated, there are some strong positive reasons for living in them. There is also a noticeable return migration: U-turns or, as it is stated in Akita, A-turns. People return to Akita for a variety of reasons; children, family, jobs, and quality of life issues. Perceived clean air and water are high on the list. There is also a small but noticeable immigration of foreign nationals marrying Japanese, particularly from China and the Philippines.

Depopulation The reasons for the loss of population of all of the towns in this study, and almost all of the cities, towns and villages in Akita Prefecture as well as many other parts of Japan are fairly obvious. While farm household incomes remain relatively high, often because of government subsidy and

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multiple job holders in a given household, the attraction of farm work has declined rapidly in the postwar period. At the same time, the attraction of other occupations has increased. Furthermore, the image of farming areas as unattractive, uncool, inconvenient, and far behind the times to the point of socially oppression, has made marrying into farm families markedly unpopular with young Japanese women. The image of the agriculture areas, as being extremely conservative with a cloying social environment, is also something that young folks express a need to escape. It seems that the combination of the decline of agriculture, the absence of status of rural areas, the lack of occupational choice for highly educated young people, and the perceptions (and reality) of the countryside being inconvenient increases the attractions of moving into cities such as Honjo– , Akita, Sendai, and Tokyo (in increasing order of distance, size, and relative status). In addition, the lack of infrastructure support and the constant denigration by the media and by the government contributes to the negative image and therefore to emigration. In talking to both residents and emigrants, it is obvious that the lack of occupational choice is an increasingly important factor. Young Japanese are more likely to have postsecondary education of some kind. Returning to the farm, a career as a bureaucrat in the local town hall, or working in one of the small local shops, has become less and less satisfying as a career choice, particularly as many of the middle-aged farmers, civil servants, and shopkeepers have a lot less formal education. Graduating from a university, yet having to work in a rigid hierarchy where one’s superiors may have no more than a high school education, is not a terribly attractive prospect. Moreover, for young people who have completed only a secondary education, the situation may be seen as even less attractive since their long-term career prospects are not very high and the “enjoy it now” syndrome suggests that small rural towns are just not much fun. In addition, staying with or near a conservative extended family clearly is not seen as attractive. While things are said to be changing, the long folk history of the dominating mother-in-law and dictatorial father-in-law repels most young women. Similarly, there is a very interesting use of the term benrisei or benri (convenient) and fuben or mendokusai (inconvenient) that comes up repeatedly in interviews. This point will come up again below in a specific context but here it is the more general application that is interesting. Big cities are repeatedly cited as being convenient while small towns are labeled as inconvenient. The major factors cited, that seem to constitute convenience, are transportation, access to shopping, and the range of shopping available. Specifically, not having to own a car is seen by some young people, particu-


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larly young women, as an advantage. While many may see big cities like Tokyo, with their crowds, noise, cramped housing, and high costs, as inconvenient, young Japanese, at least in Akita, consistently ignore these factors to talk about entertainment, shopping, transportation, and social freedom. Interesting exceptions found in these interviews are young Japanese who are automobile enthusiasts of various kinds. Some young men, with relatively low educational levels, who have expensive automobiles describe middle-sized cities, such as Akita and Morioka, as a good compromise because they can maintain their cars without prohibitive costs.

National and Prefectural Policies Added to occupational, psychological, and social factors are a series of national and prefectural policies that appear to have the effect of promoting immigration from the small towns into cities of various sizes. The intention of these policies, and their resultant projects, is not the depopulation of the small towns, but the overall effect seems to be just that. National policies with this impact include a focus on major highway construction as opposed to improving local road quality. In Akita, there are huge expressway projects in progress while local communities have to make do with a basic road network that is sparse and of low quality. There are many examples of this, but Cho– kai Town, whose most major road is the narrow, twisting two-lane Route 108, is the best example. The major highways of Southwestern Akita, Route 7 (running along the Sea of Japan coast), and Route 13 (running from Akita southeast through the Yokote Basin and down into Yamagata), are both slightly better, but are mainly narrow two-lane roads right through the middle of population concentrations carrying enormous commercial traffic. Although it would raise complex problems, the improvement of local roads could be done at far less cost than the major expressway construction projects. Further, improving local infrastructure would make economic activities easier and more effective and also increase the convenience level of the countryside. However, the national emphasis has been on the megaprojects, not the local ones. Prefectural policies and projects may also have a negative effect on rural communities. In Akita, almost all major medical centers are in the cities. While this is clearly “putting the hospitals where the population centers are,” it means that small towns with increasingly aging populations are caught in a real dilemma. Again, we come to the concept of “convenience.” Driving or finding a ride to a hospital a significant distance away can be extremely awkward and time-consuming. Given hospital culture in Japan,

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where stays are quite long and relatives actively participate in hospital care, it becomes almost prohibitive. Similarly, almost all of the high schools in the prefecture are in cities. Of the five towns in this study, only Kisakata has a high school. This is clearly a compromise effort; the high school is just barely within the boundaries of the township of Kisakata but nearest to the train station in the neighboring township of Konoura, and it is named for yet another neighboring township, Nikaho. This means that all high school students in the four other towns have to either commute to high schools in other towns or cities or live in boardinghouses near their high schools. With more than 97 percent of Japan’s population graduating from high school, this means that almost all young people in these townships are, in effect, pushed out of their hometowns to go to high school. It also means that parents concerned about their children’s education will tend to move toward the cities because the “best” high schools are all in the cities. In fact, it is arguable that the best high schools are concentrated in Akita City. This means that any students wanting to attend one of these high schools, but living away from Akita City (approximately 70 percent of the total population), would either have to commute into Akita City or live in a boardinghouse. Clearly, this puts students in small towns at a disadvantage. It also sends a pretty clear statement of relative importance; while all public academic high schools are equal, at least in theory, some high schools are considerably more equal than others.

Effects of Depopulation The effects of the decrease in population and an increase in average age are much as might be expected. Looking first at age-related elements, the reduction in the number of elementary schools is perhaps the most dramatic. There are simply far fewer children than there were in the past. This is also reflected in the reduction, adaptation, and in some cases disappearance, of features of the local festivals, which depended on young people. One example would be the carrying of mikoshi, the palanquin of the gods. In many local festivals, this used to be only males but has now been broadened to include females. At the other end, there are an increasing number of homes for the elderly. One of the most visible of these has been the florescence of gateball and gateball courts. One element of this has been the shift from multigenerational families to nuclear families. This process has been somewhat slower in Akita than in other regions of Japan, partly because of the size of living units, partly because of the allegedly stronger family ties. However,


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there are now Silver Areas and Silver Centers where previously elderly residents had lived with their children. There has also been an increased focus on children and the elderly. Town publications stress the very old and the very young, having regular features on birthdays and overall population statistics. This reflects the fact that children are becoming a precious commodity, while the aged are becoming the mainstay of the population. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues when the towns and villages are consolidated into cities. The overall effect is one of deterioration. Where previously, every available space was cultivated, now fields remain fallow, overgrown with weeds and seemingly neglected. In all of the five towns, a substantial numbers of houses are empty, contributing to the overall air of neglect and abandonment. While some of these houses are carefully maintained, in other cases, attractive houses are simply allowed to rot. This is also true of vacant shops on the old shopping streets. The tax structure, with a huge inheritance tax, does not make it financially feasible to preserve many of the old buildings, no matter what the aesthetics or even social value. Exactly why is not clear. While it seems unlikely that the demolition of rural families is the intent of the existing tax structure, this is clearly the effect except in some special cases, like rice farming, where the fields are protected. Finally, there seems to be a sense of change, which is not necessarily for the better. Many small town shopkeepers know that their children will not want to maintain the family business, just as farm children move away from the farms. Much of this is seen as inevitable, something no one can really do much about. While some festivals and other events are stubbornly maintained, others are disappearing bit by bit. The problem, of course, is that once festivals and other folk events die out, they are cultural elements that are gone forever. This process is not only continuing, it may well be accelerating. As an example, Lee (2001) describes the disappearance of bangaku troops in Akita.

Environment This is an area of some improvement and thus warrants special comment. In addition to national trends toward using less chemical fertilizers, insecticides, and herbicides, overfarming of rice land is decreasing. As of the summer of 2003, the government agricultural policies have forced the reduction of rice land by as much as 30 percent. Usually, unused rice fields (or sections) are just left empty but they could be shifted into other products, such as fruits and vegetables, which command a

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fairly high price; restructured to revive preexisting wetlands to help water quality and restore wildlife; or reconfigured to provide space for housing. Given the legal structures intended to protect rice lands, it appears, unfortunately, that the most common response is to do nothing, just to leave the fields fallow. The second most common is the development of wetlands, particularly near growing cities such as Akita City, with North American style urban sprawl and strip development. However, with the decline of the human population, there has been an increase in some indicator species, such as bears and Japanese grey herons. This can be seen as positive evidence of a cleaner and healthier environment. Negative elements include the continued shift to monocultural cryptomeria (Japanese cedar) production with all its concomitant problems. Also, there is a trend toward deforestation, without replanting, in spite of the decline of the forestry industry. Individuals are simply harvesting timber without replanting because they cannot afford to. The result is an increase in bare hillsides and the resultant erosion. This could be more actively counteracted by prefectural or even national policies but does not seem to have been done yet to any great extent. Where replanting does occur, it seems to be almost exclusively Japanese cedar. While this may seem strange, in a modern industrial society, it is consistent with the Ministry of Construction sponsored and funded projects to cover river banks with concrete and destroy enormous sections of the natural coastline, apparently to provide construction jobs.

Most Recent Scheme for Consolidation In an attempt to reduce the number of civic units, cities, towns, and villages to more efficient levels, an initiative (Shicho–son Gappei Tokurei Ho– , The Special Provisions Law for Consolidating Cities, Towns and Villages) has been started to give units that combine certain economic advantages over the next several years. The biggest advantage comes to large cities that combine, to make special cities with a population of more than a million. The idea is that by reducing the number of city, town, and village offices and other structures, less duplication will mean better services for the same cost. The proposed time frame is to have the consolidations in place by 2005 in order to maximize the economic benefits, mostly guarantees of continued tax revenues. The basic idea, to create administrative units minimizing overlaps and duplication of services, sounds like a reasonable way to make governments more effective. However, the smaller towns and villages in particular have some very serious concerns about the possibility of consolidations which may be worth noting in some detail because of the connection with


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other concerns about their communities. A community publication (Yu– wa 2002) from one of the target towns lists the advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are fairly obvious and the disadvantages reflect cultural and emotional insecurity as well as economic and social concerns. Advantages: • Higher availability of services at the window (at administrative offices) • More flexible arrangement of school zones • Higher accessibility to public facilities • More varied development such as city planning, internationalization programs, and information technology • Employment of specialists • Better services and lighter burden • Stable and substantial services based on a strong administration • Competition among staff members (competing for fewer positions) resulting in capable personnel • Investment in large-scale projects • Integrated administration of a large region • More efficient and effective staff Disadvantages • Wouldn’t longer distance to the public office cause inconvenience for residents? • Wouldn’t the voices of people be hard to reach the public office? • Wouldn’t the outskirts decline while only the center area would flourish? • Wouldn’t local history, culture and tradition disappear? • Wouldn’t consolidation with villages, towns and cities in different financial states make things worse to those that are well off ? Notice that all of the potential disadvantages are framed as questions and full sentences while the advantages are listed in a shorter format and

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not interrogative. Further, in the text, there is another concern expressed. The choice of consolidation depends on each civic unit. With fewer children and more elderly, however, there is a concern about insufficient services because of the drop in revenue. The policy from the national government has a very substantial economic incentive. Merged civic units will have their current level of funding maintained for ten years (starting in 2005 when this project is slated to begin). Since funds from the national government are a very large portion of the budgets, particularly for the smaller towns and villages, this is very important. For many towns and villages, which carry very large loans, it becomes critical. There is also no clear sense that the major problems of the more sparsely inhabited areas will be addressed any better, or as well, under the consolidated structures. Cho– kai-machi, for example, will become part of a consolidated city with a huge geographical area. The current population of what is now Cho– kai will still live far away from anything resembling the jinko– misho– chiku (densely inhabited district, DID) where the services are concentrated. There is apparently no plan to improve local infrastructure within the new consolidated cities. In other words, it is difficult to see any evidence of a serious approach to making the countryside more convenient. Conversely, there is a real chance that the consolidation will further obfuscate the situation in the sparsely inhabited areas by defining them as part of a city.

Government The push, from the national government and, to a lesser extent, from the prefectural governments, appears to have been primarily major showpiece projects and other activities to maintain construction employment in the smaller towns and villages. This tends to lead to large construction projects, such as superhighways, and small items, such as flood control projects but not necessarily any projects that would directly benefit the small communities, aside from the wages that are paid. There seems to be very little interest in improving local infrastructure, like transportation and communication systems. Local providers of internet services, for example, are allowed to service only the population centers and simply ignore less densely inhabited areas, even those in close proximity. Local roads tend to be inadequate and poorly maintained. In the case of more than one of the towns under discussion, the major connection with other communities is a single, narrow, winding, poorly maintained road which has to support all traffic and is clearly not adequate for the population’s needs.


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On the other hand, there appears to be very little interest in “spreading out” things like occupational choice or educational opportunities. In fact, many of the policies are directly the opposite, forcing start-up companies, for example, which might have provided some occupational choice and variety, to locate in major cities in order to get prefectural support. Similarly, the concentration of high schools and medical facilities, while clearly following—at least to some extent—basic demographic patterns, has the effect of pulling population, particularly younger people, away from smaller towns and villages and into major cities. On a broader scale, the regional cities are not really competitive with the national cities. Cities such as Sapporo or Sendai, for example, are said to have international airports but their flights are extremely limited compared to the Kanto, Kansai, and Chubu airports. Further, even shipping and other forms of transportation are far more limited away from the core than in the center. Looking at the time it has taken to expand the bullet train from one end of the archipelago to the other is another case in point. The major city of Sapporo built a new station for the bullet train years ago, but the expansion has, as of this writing, only made it to Aomori Prefecture, several hundred kilometers away. It will take more than 30 years to complete the original design and that will still leave out almost all of the Sea of Japan side of the islands. Finally, there is the element of young people who want more social freedom (or at least out from under social pressure) than is available in many small communities. This is not surprising and has been documented elsewhere as well (Mock 1999; Traphagan 2000). In some cases, this has been so extreme that there have been well-publicized efforts to bring in brides from countries like the Philippines and China to marry into the rural families because it is so difficult to find Japanese women who are willing to do so. In Akita, there is now quite a substantial number of women who are from the Philippines. There are, in fact, so many that there are specific social events, like Christmas parties, held for and by this group and their families. Thus, the flow, especially of younger people, from the less populated towns and villages, into the more populated cities, Akita City, Sendai (the regional center) and of course, Tokyo, can be seen as a clear result of a combination of forces including national and prefectural policies. Young people, in effect, are told that the more sparsely settled areas of the country are uncool and worthless. Evidently, they tend to believe their elders and move into the cities. Making a broader comparison, industrialized areas, notably in North America and Western Europe, have many of the same forces operating.

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Urbanization and the processes of industrial development are certainly not limited to Japan. Yet, the balance of forces in other areas seems to have ameliorated the processes. In the United States, for example, states wield far more relative power than prefectures do in Japan. States such as Wyoming and Alaska have very small populations; however, they are represented by 5 percent of the Senate, just like every other state. In countries with multiple “core areas,” power is balanced far more than in Japan. While regional cities, such as Sendai, have some of those balancing functions, it is not clear that the same is true for the smaller cities, like Akita City and Morioka. The process of forced consolidation, a process that was supposed to have been decided a year ago but is still ongoing, may well exacerbate the differences between the smaller civic units and the larger ones but it is unlikely to do anything about the tremendous imbalance between the periphery and the core. Given that, it seems unlikely that the habitus of the younger generation will change.

References Cho– kai Town Office. 1985. Cho– kai-machi Shi [History of Cho– kai Town]. Cho– kai: Town Office. Bailey, J. 1991. Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives: Political and Economic Change in a Tohoku Village. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Goto, Junko. 1993. Rural Revitalization (Chiiki Okoshi) in Japan: A Case Study of Asuke Township. PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles. Jussaume, Ray. 1991. Japanese Part-Time Farming: Evolution and Impacts. Ames: Iowa State University Press. Kawabe Town Office. 1985. Kawabe-machi Shi [History of Kawabe Town]. Kawabe: Town Office. Kisakata Town Office. 1996. Kisakata-machi Shi [History of Kisakata Town]. Kisakata: Town Office. Knight, John. 1994. The Spirit of the Village and the Taste of the Country. Asian Survey 34. Lee, William. 2001. Japanese Folk Performing Arts Today: The Politics of Promotion and Preservation. In Japanese Theatre and the International Stage, ed. Stanca Scholz-Cionca and Samuel L. Leiter. Boston: Brill. Mock, John. 1996. Mother or Mama: The Political Economy of Bar Hostesses in Sapporo, Japan. In Re-imaging Japanese Women, ed. Anne Imamura. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 177–191. ———. 1999. Culture, Community and Change in a Sapporo Neighborhood 1925–1988 Hanayama. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press. Moore, Richard. 1993. Resistance to Japanese Rice Policy: A Case-Study of the Hachirogata Model Farm Project. Political Geography 12(3):278–296.


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No Author. 2003. Akita Shinjidai (Akita New Age). Akita: Akita Prefectural Office, June. Pp. 3. Traphagan, John. 2000. Taming Oblivion: Aging Bodies and the Fear of Senility in Japan. Albany: State University of New York Press. Yu– wa Town Office. 1976. Yu– wa-machi Shi [History of Yu– wa Town]. Yu– wa: Town Office ———. 2002. Yu– wa Towns Com [Yu– wa Town Magazine]. March, No. 542, pp. 2–3.

Appendix Population Statistics—Akita Prefecture 1958 1999

2001

Akita Shinfudoku (Akita Culture and History). Akita: Sakigake Shinbun (Sakigake Newspaper). Akita-ken No– gyo– Kyo– do– Kumiai Chuokai (Akita Agricultural Association [JA] Central Committee. Kennai Shicho–son Betsu no No–ka Jinko to No–gyo– Ryo–do–ryoku no Do–ko–: Ko–ho– to Ho– ni yoru Yosoku (Prefectural Cities, Town, and Village Changing Farming Population and Trends in the Agricultural Workforce: A Cohort Analysis). Akita: Akita Agricultural Association. Sho– shi-Kosodate Taisaku Tokubetsu Iinkai (Special Committee for Considering Countermeasures for Raising Fewer and Fewer Children. Cho–sa Ho–kokusho (Report of Research). Akita: Akita Kengikai (Akita Prefectural Assembly).

Population Statistics—National Census 1927

1934

1938

Taisho– 9-nen: Kokusei Cho– sa Ho– koku: Akita-ken (Population Census of 1920. Report by Prefecture, Akita Prefecture). Tokyo: Zaidan Ho– jin Nippon Tokei Kyo– kai (Japan Statistics Committee). Showa 5-nen: Kokusei Cho– sa Ho– koku: Akita-ken (Population Census of 1930. Report by Prefecture, Akita Prefecture). Tokyo: Zaidan Ho– jin Nippon To– kei Kyo– kai (Japan Statistics Committee). Showa 10-nen: Kokusei Cho– sa Ho– koku: Akita-ken (Population Census of 1935. Report by Prefecture, Akita Prefecture). Tokyo: Zaidan Ho– jin Nippon To– kei Kyo– kai (Japan Statistics Committee).

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1953

1962–1960 1966–1965 1971–1970 1987–1985 1992–1990 1998–1995 2002–2000

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Population Census of 1950, Volume 7, Report by Prefecture, Part 5, Akita-ken. Tokyo: Bureau of Statistics, Office of the Prime Minister. Population Census, Volume 4, Part 5, Akita-ken. Tokyo: Bureau of Statistics, Office of the Prime Minister. Population Census, Volume 4, Part 5, Akita-ken. Tokyo: Bureau of Statistics, Office of the Prime Minister. Population Census, Volume 3, Part 5, Akita-ken. Tokyo: Bureau of Statistics, Office of the Prime Minister. Population Census, Volume 3, Part 5, Akita-ken. Tokyo: Bureau of Statistics, Office of the Prime Minister. Population Census, Volume 2, Part 5, Akita-ken. Tokyo: Bureau of Statistics, Office of the Prime Minister. Population Census, Volume 4, Part 2, 05, Akita-ken. Tokyo: Bureau of Statistics, Office of the Prime Minister. Population Census, Volume 6–1, 05, Akita-ken. Tokyo: Bureau of Statistics, Office of the Prime Minister.

Chapter 3

Rice Revolutions – hoku and Farm Families in To Why Is Farming Culturally Central and Economically Marginal? William W. Kelly

It may strike the reader as odd that in a volume on Japan’s most archetypal rural region this is but the single chapter on agriculture. Where are the farmers and what happened to agriculture? To be sure, the agricultural output of the region remains nationally prominent and economically important: Aomori apples, Yamagata cherries, and other fruits and vegetables; poultry and pork production; and above all the region’s rice brands (Koshihikari, Haenuki, Hitome-bore, Akita-komachi). But as a proportion of prefectural and regional economy and as a contribution to individual household incomes, even in To– hoku, agriculture falls behind manufacturing, construction, and service industries. Therein lies a crucial feature of contemporary To– hoku: it remains agrarian in its imagery and identity but not in its political economy. Rice paddies and farm villages remain crucial to regional cultural style, but as elsewhere in Japan, the routines of farming no longer calibrate household and community social relations and economies. Farmers are few in number and agriculture is profitable for only a small number of them. How this has come to pass over the twentieth century is the subject of this chapter. Twentieth-century Japan was distinctive as the only advanced industrial society whose primary agricultural sector was irrigated rice. To me, there have been three outstanding features of its modern agriculture, and I take their mutual entailments as my starting point. The first is a muchremarked constant, the enduring farm family. Even today, the Japanese agricultural sector, in To– hoku and elsewhere, is characterized largely by

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small-scale, family-labor farming operations committed primarily to irrigated rice cultivation. The farm population remained stable for the first six decades of this century at about 30 million people in 5.5 million families. By 1975, farm family numbers had dropped below five million, by 1990, they had dipped below four million, and in 2000 they had shrunk to just over three million. Even in 1990, however, 99.7 percent of all Japanese farm enterprises were classified as family farms. And the average cultivation acreage per farm family remained at roughly one hectare for much of the century. The tenacity of the farm family is bemoaned by some and celebrated by others, but it cannot be disputed (although I will later argue that it can be misunderstood for what it is and is not). A second feature of modern Japanese agriculture is a much less appreciated cyclical dynamic: the enormous strides in both equity and efficiency that have been concentrated in two indigenous Green Revolutions. That is, major Japanese farm regions have experienced two Rice Revolutions in the past hundred years; two periods of radical organizational reform and technological innovation. The earlier of these was around the turn of the century, roughly from 1895 to 1920; the more recent was in the years, 1965 to 1980. I do not mean to imply that in other times there was no change; government policies and local practices have never been stable for long. It is more precise, then, to speak of gradual development punctuated by two intense periods of accelerated change, but it is important to emphasize the condensed event-chains of those brief periods and the enormous transformations they wrought on the Japanese countrysides. A third feature of Japanese agriculture has been the growing preponderance of part-time operations. Official statistics divide farming households into three categories: “full-time farmers,” “Class I part time households” (whose farm income exceeds its non-farm income) and “Class II part time households” (whose non-farm income predominates). Since 1950, the total number of farm families has declined only moderately. The real shift has been from full-time farming to part-time farming. In the early 1950s, full-time operations were in the majority; Class I part-timers became the numerical plurality in the 1960s and 1970s, and Class II part-timers became the statistical norm in the 1980s and 1990s. In 2000, 81.8 percent of Japanese farm families had only part-time involvement in agriculture. Thus, a hundred years of Japanese farming may be characterized as a constant of family farming, a repetitive cycle of Rice Revolutions, and a linear growth of part-time farming. Each of these three characteristics deserves extended treatment, but here I emphasize how they conditioned one another.

Rice Revolutions and Farm Families in To– hoku

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Agrarian reform has changed much of the physical, technological, and organizational landscape of the Japan countryside—except for the preponderance of farm families. In hindsight, this is understandable, but it was certainly not intended. In both Rice Revolutions, powerful state and local interests held small holdings to be the root problem of Japanese agriculture and did their best to encourage large-scale production. The consequences of these Rice Revolutions for local and national society and economy were profound yet largely unanticipated by either participants or planners; if anything, smallholders emerged more emboldened and entrenched. And despite concerted efforts in recent decades to make agriculture a full-time occupation, parttime farming has become the agricultural norm—and agriculture has become a smaller and smaller component of the Thoku economy. In the first of these two periods, from roughly 1895 to about1920, landlords in several major rice regions exercised prerogatives granted them by national legislation to create irrigation cooperatives and agricultural societies that sponsored extensive technical and procedural reforms in all phases of irrigation and drainage. This was done to facilitate new laborintensive cultivation methods and improved rice seed varieties. There were immediate gains in crop yields, but the labor intensification and the assessment of tenants for project costs bred levels of discontent and forms of counter-organization that eventually discouraged most subsequent landlord investment in agriculture. Instead, leverage in regional agrarian affairs shifted to smallholder owner-tenants. The sweeping land reform in the years immediately following World War II consolidated these smallholders as a countryside of owner-cultivators. The second Rice Revolution, roughly in the years 1965 to 1980, was spurred by the state’s vigorous promotion of a second round of irrigation reorganization. Enabling legislation was passed, engineers were dispatched to local areas, and most project costs were heavily underwritten by the government to create the irrigation networks, procedures, and organizations it felt necessary for a complete mechanization of rice agriculture. Mechanization was intended to encourage outflow of excess labor from farming to industry, farmland sales, and a consolidation of holdings into a small number of larger, more efficient farming operations. Instead, most farm families held on to their land and used the new machinery—and the generous government rice price supports—to continue small-scale farming on a part time basis at production costs four to five times the world market price of rice. National ministries remain mired in policy confusion and beset with rising surpluses while the subsidized and

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over-mechanized farmers persist, if not prosper. Rice agriculture, which contributed mightily to the country’s early industrialization, has become one of the most technologically advanced yet economically inefficient farming systems in the world—a world leader in rice yields but a substantial drag on the national economy. This chapter offers an interpretation of the linkage of family operations, Green Revolutions, and part-time farming in modern Japan through the trajectory of experience in one particular To– hoku region: Sho– nai Plain in Yamagata Prefecture. This requires some details—a local narrative—but my aim is not to wallow in the minutiae of a field site. Rather, historical ethnography is essential to show that the unstable trajectory of change and the contingency of the continuous are produced by the play of forces over a particular field of time and space. Sho– nai’s experience demonstrates how politics and culture, as much as economics and technology, determined surprising and ironic outcomes. At the center of each Rice Revolution was a language of directed change—slogans of “improvement” in the first period and of “rationalization” in the second period. These were broad rubrics, and in an important sense, the course of each period was largely set by those who could impose particular meanings on these slogans. After some necessary background on Sho– nai Plain, I examine each of these periods to identify the political and economic structures that framed these cultural idioms of technological and organizational change. While some of these particulars vary across Japan’s major rice areas, the contours of Sho– nai’s experience are broadly representative of To– hoku’s major rice regions, indeed of Japan’s modern farming experience.

Sho– nai and the Aka River Basin The region of Sho– nai is centered on a small, low-lying coastal plain in the To– hoku prefecture of Yamagata that is one of Japan’s remaining rice bowls. The plain itself is about 50 kilometers in length, north to south, and about 15 kilometers wide in its southern half, narrowing to about six kilometers wide in its northern half (see fig 3.1). The broad Mogami River bisects the Sho– nai plain midway as it crosses to the Japan Sea from its long course in the Yamagata interior. However, until only several decades ago, the Mogami River proved too wide in channel, too variable in discharge, and too prone to flooding to be controllable for Sho– nai irrigation. Rather it was the smaller rivers, dropping out of the mountains around Sho– nai Plain, that were exploited. Of these, the Aka River, whose drainage basin includes most of the southern portion of the plain, is by far the most important.

Fig. 3.1. The Sho– nai Area.

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The basin geomorphology of the Aka River (fig. 3.2) is a very common one in Japan. Its headwaters fall about 35 kilometers at a steep grade through the forested mountainous upper basin. Where the river meets the plain, it slows sharply, and the sediment it deposits there has built up an alluvial fan of moderate grade about ten kilometers in length. The river flows off this alluvial fan midsection and traverses, about 20 kilometers, across a very flat downstream plain (the center of Sho– nai Plain) to the break in the coastal dunes that is its outlet to the Sea of Japan. This tripartite basin environment proved less than hospitable to the cultivators who began to open up the plain in the early 17th century. The melting of winter snowfall in the headwaters could create severe spring flooding and damage to weirs and canal intakes, but the steep river grade and consequent fast runoff brought long periods of low water in the summer. There was high water consumption in the alluvial fan paddy fields as water percolated quickly through its large-particle, gravelly soils. Yet subsurface layers of the heavy clay soils in the downstream plain were often waterlogged, seriously affecting rice yields and field work. These, and other features of the basin environment, rendered water use and water control as problematical as it was essential. By the early 19th century, nine canal networks used Aka River water. Their intakes were all close together on the alluvial fan. Each was a multilevel, dendritic layout. An unlined main canal, ranging in length from 3 to 20 kilometers led water from the river intake to a number of branch canals, which supplied even smaller tertiary canals, and finally, the capillary-like field ditching. Some of the bunded paddy parcels (whose acreage varied widely from less than 0.1 hectare to nearly 1.0 hectare) were directly connected to the field ditches, while others were irrigated with water from adjacent parcels. There was a reversed, agglomerating pattern for water drainage as the parcels drained back into the canals and, eventually, to the river in its downstream reach. By 1800, these networks served approximately 8000 water-user households in about 250 administrative villages. From 1623 to 1868, virtually the entire Tokugawa period, Sho– nai Plain and its surrounding mountains were enfeoffed to a single line of domain lords, the Sakai family. The 10,000 hectares of Aka River basin paddy lands were central to domain fortunes. In sum, this was a basin laced with multilevel, multivillage canal networks, sharing a common source and common drainage, and so favoring some potential coordination. It was also a basin of political and economic importance with serious water control and supply problems that would seem

Fig. 3.2. The Aka River Drainage Basin.

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to have invited a high level of management. In fact, Aka River irrigationdrainage represented a form of Tokugawa water management in which there was neither decisive elite control nor strong, local water user organization but rather management by a loose amalgam of domain officials, peasant cultivators, and large landholders. Of course, there were procedures and roles for building and repairing irrigation facilities, allocating water, resolving conflicts, et cetera—roles filled by domain officials, large landholders, and peasant cultivators. Yet their limited participation was striking. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, domain officials remained reluctant and reactive in their exercise of authority in irrigation affairs; large landholders seemed disinclined to intervene; and peasant cultivators were unable to assert any general control over basin irrigation. As a result, there was no centralized configuration of authority among irrigation roles—no clear articulation to the domain, no large landholder manipulation of irrigation, no effective, self-regulating associations of water users. It was a limited, cautious, divided management of the key agricultural resource, water.

Two 20th-Century Rice Revolutions The burden of my argument in an earlier study of Tokugawa-period rice farming and irrigation in the Aka River basin (Kelly 1982) was that this 19th-century organizational stasis resulted from certain local features of land tenure, taxation, and political administration in which water use was embedded. I left unexplored the implication that changes in the Sho– nai political economy would precipitate water management reform. The subsequent course of Sho– nai’s two 20th-century rice revolutions seems to bear this out. Table 3.1 charts their paths in a highly schematic way in order to emphasize some intriguing parallels and contrasts. At the center of each revolution was a radical change in water use and management—both a reconstitution of physical networks and a procedural and organizational reform. Yet these were embedded in more thoroughgoing agrarian change that redrew the paddy landscape and brought new cultivation techniques and technology. And in both periods, this rice revolution was preceded and made possible by national land reform and, behind that, state reorganization. Contrasts between the two periods are equally significant. The first was largely a revolution from below: the initiative, planning, and execution was local, with only modest financial subsidies solicited from the state. The second was a revolution from above, proceeding from vigorous government policy initiatives, technical inputs, and financing. It is true, of course, that both periods demonstrate how people at the local level can select and


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Table 3.1. The Course of Sho– nai’s Two Twentieth-Century Rice Revolutions Background

Background

new central government (1868)

reorganized central government (late 1940s)

national Land Tax Reform (1874–1875)

Land Reform/Land Improvement Law (late 1940s)

formation of irrigation cooperatives (1880s)

formation of land improvement districts (1950s) construction of multipurpose headwaters dams (1950s)

Period One: 1895–1920

Period Two: 1965–1980

new cultivation methods: drainage, dry tilling, and horse plowing (1890s–1900s)

construction of river headworks & reconstruction of main/branch canal net works (1960s/1970s)

paddy land adjustment projects, terminal ditching, land exchange (1902–1920)

paddy land adjustment projects, terminal ditching, land exchange (1970s)

facility construction and new procedures at river and canal levels (1910–1920)

mechanization of cultivation, hybrid variety monoculture (1970s) improvements in regional infrastructure: road network and utility grids (late 1970s–1980s)

adapt programs and resources of the larger society. For example, the postwar land improvement districts successfully exploited jurisdictional squabbles between the Ministries of both Agriculture and Construction to maximize local modifications of the nationally standardized master plans of each ministry. It is equally true that in both periods, state bureaucrats and political leaders have been able to shape and mobilize local efforts in the service of broader policy objectives. In recent decades, for example, prefectural officials and extension service technicians have played on intergenerational

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tensions within farming households to gain acceptance of a complete line of crop machinery. Nonetheless, local initiative versus central direction stands as an appropriate first-order contrast between the two periods, which are briefly sketched in the following sections.

Ploughs, Rectangles, and Cement: 1895–1920 One of the first acts of the new Meiji government that replaced the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868 was a national land survey and land tax revision. For Sho– nai as for many regions, this was the first comprehensive cadastre in 250 years, and it had several results of mixed consequence (see Kelly 1985:230–32, 252–53, 270–72). It doubled the registered paddy land acreage on the plain, yet political unrest forced new tax formulas that actually reduced total tax burdens below previous levels in villages. On the other hand, final ownership assignments of paddy parcels in the late 1870s and, even more seriously, the induced recession of the early 1880s drove many smallholders to mortgage tenancy while allowing some largeholders to increase their holdings. By 1885, about 45 percent of the basin paddy lands were tenanted. However, the Land Tax Revision had also largely equalized tax rates across the plain. The remeasuring and regrading of parcels narrowed the tax advantages of lands opened after the seventeenth-century cadastre, which were the bulk of most large holdings. With little or no tax obligations to the domain, these largeholders had tolerated the waterlogged soils and unstable yields of such paddy fields. Now, with fixed and (for those parcels) higher tax duties, they were less able and willing to ignore their liabilities. It was an impetus for organization. The 1890 Irrigation Cooperative Ordinance offered a legislative basis for associations of tax-paying, paddy landowners within a common irrigation area (Naganuma 1983:180–499; Sato– and Shimura 1966:202–55, 328–59; Sato– and Shimura 1974:237–453). By 1892, such cooperatives were formed in the Aka River basin at three levels. There was an Aka River Irrigation Cooperative of landowners throughout the basin, which concerned itself with river conditions and flood control. Most of the main canal service areas organized into cooperatives, and a number of the branch canal areas also instituted formal associations. Most of these organizations were managed internally by small standing committees selected by and from larger councils of member representatives. Analysis of committee rosters reveals a preponderance of landlords and cultivating largeholders. However, the charters of most of the cooperatives limited their jurisdiction to


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intake maintenance and allocation by customary proportions. The cooperatives were mobilized for more fundamental water reforms only after two other sets of measures around the turn of the century had transformed rice work and the basin landscape. The first of these was the region-wide adoption of the so-called Meiji no–ho– (Meiji Agricultural Methods), a package of rice cultivation methods that included new higher-yielding seeds, better nursery bed construction, linear transplanting, and, foremost, an autumn tilling after harvest and a spring tilling with a horse-drawn plow (see Francks 1984:55–63). These were refinements of techniques developed in scattered regions during the 19th century, and recently promoted by several prominent farmers in western and southern Kyu– shu– . Sho– nai cultivators immediately labeled the Meiji Methods the kanden bako– (drained field–horse plow) program, reflecting their special interest in the package. That is, their longstanding problem had been the waterlogged soil over much of the flat central plain. They quickly realized that a plowing in the autumn after harvest could aerate the soil and improve field drying. Because this stiffened the paddy soil, it was less amenable to hoeing in the spring, and thus, horse plowing was required again. The kanden bako– techniques spread rapidly across the plain in the late 1890s (Jinno’uchi 1977; Oba 1977). They were vigorously promoted by local no–kai (agricultural societies), companion organizations to the irrigation cooperatives. Landlords visited sites in Kyu– shu– , and hired those proficient in the techniques to return to Sho– nai with them to establish demonstration plots and offer training sessions in various villages. By 1908, 94 percent of Sho– nai’s fields were dry-tilled by plow. Adoption of the Meiji Methods brought some stabilization of yields and improvements in the market reputation of Sho– nai rice by the turn of the century, but there were complications as well. The deeper plow depth required increased quantities of fertilizer, but rice varieties more responsive to increased fertilizer proved less resistant to certain common diseases. Plow handling proved cumbersome and inefficient in the variably and irregularly shaped paddy parcels, and greater quantities of water were needed for the spring work. This strained the capacities of the irrigation–drainage networks. These complications provoked largeholders to initiate a second round of reforms during the first two decades of the 20th century: largescale rearrangements of paddy lands and water channels known as ko–chi seiri jigyo– (arable land adjustment projects). These were financed largely by assessments to the registered owners (with only minimal state subsidies),

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coordinated by the local agricultural societies and irrigation cooperatives, and carried out by the off-season labor of villagers. In village after village across the basin, with backbreaking labor with hoe and shovel and straw basket, existing bunds were leveled and water channels filled in. Field areas were re-carved into blocks of uniform, rectangular, 0.1 hectare parcels. Bunds were reformed and water channels were re-dug so that each parcel was directly accessible by path, fronted by a water delivery channel, and backed by a drainage ditch. These projects had significant consequences for landholdings, water use, and work relations. The 1874–1875 Land Tax Revision survey had uncovered most but not all of the underregistration that provided a margin for the parcel holder against tax demands and for the tenant against high rents. Erasing existing field boundaries now eliminated any remaining excess. The rectangularization also reduced the total number of parcels as well as the acreage required for the perimeter bunds. The result was an increase in actual rice acreage of about 10 to 25 percent (divided among the landowners of the project area in proportion to previous holdings), but a loss for cultivators who grew catch-crops of beans and other vegetables along the bunds during the growing year. Land leveling and improvements in terminal ditching allowed marginal lands to be brought into rice cultivation, and the basin was even more extensively rice-monocropped as a result (Jinno 1977). The projects also provided landlords with an opportunity to revise tenancy agreements by shifting the measure of rents and land values from rice volumes to acreage. Previously, rent standards (in effect, the rent maximum before the customary reductions) were expressed in bales of expected yield; a parcel for which rent was one bale was known as a ippyo–-ba (onebale parcel), regardless of its size. With a landscape of 0.1 rectangles, landlords could use acreage as a meaningful measure of their holdings. The increases in total acreage and in water use per parcel greatly inflated water demands—by a factor of about 1.4. Thus, while main and branch canal layouts were not directly affected by the paddy projects, it was now necessary to improve and reorganize them in what became the third phase of this rice revolution. Turnouts from main to branch canals were rebuilt in stone or cement to reduce leakage and damage, and enable more precise allocation. With mixed success, several of the cooperatives used this as an opportunity to adjust existing allocation formulas along the main canals. The basin cooperative undertook construction along the river itself to straighten and train the river course by high embankments. One result was to increase the speed of the river across the plain and further exacer-


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bate the longstanding drainage problems of the downstream areas. Some relief was obtained by digging a new river channel through the coastal sand dunes to permit a direct outlet to the Japan Sea, a six-year construction project in the early to mid-1920s. The new river embankments also necessitated rebuilding the intake gates to the main canals, and although the original dimensions were replicated, the use of cement for the first time proved to increase the efficiency of gate intake. Protests by downstream canal cooperatives against the most upstream (and largest) network led to a procedure for negotiations during the dry summer months that prevented violence but did not defuse simmering dissatisfaction. Not only were procedures of water management standardized, but rights to water use were also affected. By the early 19th century, water rights in the basin distinguished between rights to receive yo–sui (irrigation water), that is, Aka River water delivered through one of the canal networks along the river, and rights to receive a certain volume of irrigation water. The former water rights attached to land parcels were registered as paddy land in an administrative village that was within the official service area of a branch canal which had a formally acknowledged intake along an established main canal. Allocation rights, on the other hand, attached to intakes by either of two standards of division—by customary intake dimensions or in proportion to the registered yield of its service area parcels. Neither standard promoted an equal allocation of water among the tens of thousands of parcels with yo–sui rights. The reconfiguration of land and ditching did little to alter the notion of yo–sui, although it did increase the service area acreage of the basin networks. But it also diminished the distinction between the right to receive water and the right to receive a certain volume of water by making allocation per unit of land area more plausible, and allocation by customary intake dimensions more problematical. By 1915, irrigation cooperative dues and project fees were assessed on a per acreage basis, and that fueled demands for per acreage water allocation. In sum, this three-stage, landowner-led rice revolution was generally successful in Sho– nai. It stabilized yields and rents; improved rice quality; and ameliorated poor soil conditions. It established a network of local irrigation and agricultural improvement organizations and systematized the procedures of property rights, land use, and water management. The benefits of the reforms accrued initially to those who sponsored them—the landlords and largeholders. The demands of the new methods and the standardization of parcels into uniform rectangles greatly heightened competition among cultivators. Visible and invidious comparisons could now be

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easily drawn between work in adjacent parcels. This allowed landlords to draw quick conclusions about the diligent and the careless. However, their preeminence was short-lived. Evidence from several villages suggests that these competitive pressures, together with other aspects of the reforms, in fact consolidated and advanced the position of the smallholders, both owner-tenants and tenants (Francks 1984; Smethurst 1986; and Nishida 2003) detail how sequences of agrarian reform in other major regions eventually worked to strengthen smallholder positions. The assignment of project labor to village units created feelings that they were literally making their land (e.g., Isobe 1977:208). Re-digging the field ditching required village households to negotiate new and different water use procedures. And redrawing village boundaries and reassigning its parcels fashioned a closer coordination among village households that reasserted cultivator rights vis-à-vis landowner rights. Villages now demanded a role in overseeing land exchanges, protecting ceilings on rent levels, and mediating tenancy disputes. By the 1920s, many villages had framed these demands as written compacts between all resident smallholders (Isobe 1977:728–750; 1978:211–212). Often the most assertive group within the settlement was not the community assembly of senior male household heads, but a new association of young adult males—the successors, who were the head plowmen and field managers of their households. They took easily to the idiom of improvement, and in the plowing contests and harvest competitions forged ties of cooperation and plans for joint action as residents, cultivators, and tenants. Their plowman associations pressured the irrigation cooperatives for procedural and facility reforms that gave smallholders a de facto voice in water matters. By the 1920s, reinvigorated village units had checked landlord powers and secured permanent tenancy rights in the now more profitable rice farming system. The familiar thrust of agrarian capitalism by improving landlords had been parried in the midst of a rice revolution that produced more equity and efficiency than initially seemed likely.

Dams, Permits, and Tractors: A Second Rice Revolution, 1965–1980 If the direction of change in the early 20th century was from cultivation methods to field layout to water networks, the more recent period of change has moved in the opposite direction. It began with a reorganization of basin irrigation, which facilitated another paddy field readjustment, which enabled a full-scale mechanization of rice work. Yet these, too, have


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served to strengthen smallholder rice monoculture, against the intentions of the sponsoring state. Their revolutionary outcome has proved to be rural prosperity and farm crisis. Three state initiatives laid the basis for postwar agrarian reorganization. The first was the land reform legislation in 1946, which virtually eliminated tenancy and set limits on landholding and conditions for renting arrangements. The second was the Land Improvement Law of 1949, which established cultivation, not ownership, as the criterion for participation in land improvement schemes and membership in irrigation associations, now reorganized into tochikairyo–ku (land improvement districts).1 As a result, the existing irrigation cooperatives along the Aka River reconstituted themselves in the early 1950s as land improvement districts; some of the smaller main canal cooperatives were folded into the larger cooperatives, and by 1960 there was a bi-level ordering of a basin-wide Aka River Land Improvement District Association with four constituent land improvement districts encompassing the earlier nine main canal networks. The districts were managed by councils of representatives elected from and by all water user members. This council supervised a fulltime technical and administrative staff recruited from local residents. The third state initiative of the first postwar decade was multipurpose dam construction. Faced with food shortages, factory recovery, and urban growth, the national government embarked on a massive program of dam building in the headwaters of the country’s major rivers. The Tennessee Valley Authority was a widely discussed model by the Ministry of Construction engineers, who went about the country with their blueprints and contracts. Two dams were completed in the upper Aka River, in 1956 and 1958. Both were planned (1) to store water for irrigation, (2) for flood control, and (3) for hydroelectric generation. They remain property of the state, in the custody of the Ministry of Construction. Aka River irrigators soon realized that there were incompatible aspects of these three purposes that seriously jeopardized agricultural water use. Disputes surrounding multipurpose dams were quite common in the 1950s, and directors and staff of the land improvement districts, through field trips to such sites, were sensitive quite early to potential problems. For example, the variable discharge for electrical generation to match hours of peak demand disrupted the constant flow necessary for smooth operation of intakes, and the seasonal needs of irrigators did not match the more constant monthly use volume of the electric company. Moreover, in Sho– nai, the months of July and August are both the most likely time for drought and higher agricultural water needs, and the time of the most serious flooding

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due to sudden, concentrated rainfall. The former requires holding a maximum reservoir volume during the summer, while the latter recommends a minimum reservoir volume in order to hold the runoff when sudden storms occur. Another fear is that drawing from the cold bottoms of the reservoirs and transporting the cold water through pipes to the generating stations would lower the river water temperatures to levels injurious to the rice plant (cold water temperatures are a longstanding problem for rice farmers throughout northern Japan). Some of these problems were negotiated through a joint council of the concerned parties, but yet another consequence of the dams proved less amenable to adjudication. By preventing the downflow of sediment, the dams seriously disrupted the balance of deposition and scouring along the river channel and caused a progressive lowering of the river bottom. This made it increasingly difficult for the intakes to draw water. The land improvement districts, faced each year with heavier outlays for higher diversion weirs to raise water for the intakes, prepared a suit against the electric company. In the late 1950s, they won a 260 million yen indemnity payment in an out-of-court settlement. This of course did not solve their intake problems, and it was in casting about for a solution that they precipitated massive changes in their water works and their entire agrarian system. Again, this second rice revolution may be schematized as a succession of four stages, concentrated in the years between 1965 and 1980.2

Yo–sui no go–rika ( The Rationalization of Water Use) The only feasible technical solution to the intake difficulties of the main canals proved to be the replacement of the nine separate weir gates with a unified headworks, a remote controlled, multiple-sectioned diversion weir, and a multigated intake channel at the top of the alluvial fan that would serve all irrigators in the basin. Ministry of Agriculture engineers designed the headworks and managed the project, 80 percent of which was funded by the state and 20 percent by basin water users with their indemnity payment from the electric company. The headworks project both allowed and required a comprehensive realignment of the basin canals, which were consolidated into a single network of straight channels, lined with concrete, with locked division gates operated under a central allocation plan by the full-time technical staff of the land improvement districts. Basin waterworks were restructured of course not merely in response to a local river channel problem. The “rationalization of water use” was a key phrase in government policy debates of the 1950s and 1960s, and the


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projects in the Aka River basin were one instance of a massive investment strategy by the state to make agricultural water use more efficient and make those savings available to industry and hydroelectric generation. Under the new River Law of 1964, the headworks and canal projects provided the opportunity for the Ministry of Construction to convert the customary water rights of the various land improvement districts—perpetual and ambiguous in claim—to a single, fixed term water use permit, by which maximum volume, use period, manner of intake, and other details are carefully specified. The holder of this use permit is actually the Minister of Agriculture, because as public property the headworks is delegated to his ministry’s jurisdiction. In actual practice, operating rights to the headworks and canals, together with the use permit, are assigned to the Aka River Land Improvement District Association.

Kiban seibi jigyo– (Paddy Land Adjustment Projects) When the engineers reached the fields themselves, they bulldozed them over, resculpturing the paddy landscape into even larger rectangles (of 0.3 hectares). They gridded them with entirely separate irrigation and drainage ditching, such that water was only used in a single field and not later reused. This was necessary to enable the fine tuning of water levels and fertilizer applications. That is, some ingredients of the chemical fertilizers dissolved in the water, and could complicate the calculations of downstream farmers should they attempt to reuse that water. This had not been a serious problem with smaller quantities of fertilizers and earlier rice varieties, but new hybrid varieties, introduced by the extension service, require as many as twelve very precisely timed and measured fertilizer applications. In contrast to the rectangularization projects earlier in the century, these were contracted to professional construction companies with heavy, earthmoving equipment. Like the earlier projects, however, village units were charged with arranging an exchange of parcels among residents to consolidate a household’s holdings into two to four blocks.

Kikaika (Mechanization) The combination of water and land reorganization allowed, and was intended to promote, a complete mechanization of rice work. With credit funneled through the regional agricultural cooperative, which thus could position itself as the principal sales and service agent, the state subsidized the purchase of a complete line of rice machinery—gas heaters for the

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seedling houses, tractors, transplanters, pesticide sprayers, combines, trucks, hullers, and gas dryers. These further standardized the work cycle and cultivation. By the early 1980s, over 90 percent of arable land within the basin service area was planted in a sasanishiki (single variety of rice), which the agricultural cooperative vigorously promoted as a brand name variety through an expensive advertising campaign in Tokyo and other major cities.

Chiiki kaihatsu (A Real Infrastructure Development) While the land and water projects were largely funded by the state, the 20 percent local share caused some anxiety to marginal smallholders. Yet there was virtually no active opposition. This was due to the attractions of the fourth component of this agrarian infrastructure reform. While areas of the basin were under construction (and thus property rights suspended), project engineers could push through another kind of kiban seibi, a wholesale renovation of the regional infrastructure (Kelly 1990). All major public roads were widened, straightened, and resurfaced; water supply piping and telephone cables were laid; electricity lines were upgraded; and other improvements were made to regional transportation and utility grids. Bipasu (bypass) was the word on everyone’s lips in the late 1970s, as they eagerly awaited the completion of direct road links to the plain’s major service centers that replaced the lanes that wound through the hundreds of compact settlements. Ten years later, the buzz word was “airport,” as the regional awaited completion of a regional facility that since the early 1990s has offered direct flights to Tokyo and Osaka.

Improvement and Rationalization The outcomes of this century of change have thus been most surprising. From the perspective of irrigation, the density of organization, accountability to users, and technical expertise of staff of the Aka River districts are admirable examples of responsive and effective water management. And against the ambitions of the principal actors (the landlords at the turn of the century and the government planners more recently), both periods strengthened the political and economic position of the smallholders, guaranteeing a broad distribution of the benefits of agrarian reform. With an eye toward problems and prospects in other rice regions of Asia, one is tempted to applaud both results. Yet these same developments have produced for Sho– nai and the other surviving agricultural regions of Japan a


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farm crisis of overcapitalized, underscaled farming units that equally perplexes local people and national bureaucrats. To appreciate these mixed outcomes, we must review in closing the political–economic forces and cultural idioms during the two periods. Sho– nai’s first green revolution was set in motion by a combination of political, economic, and cultural factors. The reorganization of the national state gave political support and legitimacy to rationalized organizations and private property. The revised land tax formulas and improving rice market opportunities favored investments in rice production. And in Sho– nai as elsewhere, there was a longstanding openness to experimentation, communication, and pragmatic intervention in farming methods, a legacy of innovation. Yet for several reasons, these idioms and infrastructure proved attractive and available to smallholders and tenants as well as landlords. The former were able to defuse latter’s ambitions, and turn the sequence of reforms towards a rather different agrarian capitalism of cultivating smallholders. Following World War II, the national state was again reconstituted to provide even firmer legislative guarantees to cultivators and generous subsidies to rice production and output. The networks of national and prefectural ministries, agricultural cooperatives, land improvement districts, extension services, and construction and equipment companies have provided the incentives and expertise for the recent reforms. However, the language of rationalization by which these programs have transformed Sho– nai and other rice regions has been as semantically slippery as it has been ideologically potent. Rationalization uneasily embraces two distinct themes, both of which ideologically reinforced smallholder commitments to farming: the “democratization” of the countryside (e.g., the land reform and the reorganized land improvement districts) and the modernization of agriculture. It is important to recognize how anomalous has been postwar farming as a work identity. In the aftermath of the wartime defeat, most employment was effectively depoliticized. Shorn of fascist patriotism, the enticements and idioms of public service and corporate employment were quickly reformulated in terms of economic growth, job security, and organizational loyalty. Even when companies employed a Confucian familial metaphor, it was carefully sanitized of its former imperial referents. But the farmer stands as a striking exception. Agricultural work, the subject of protracted prewar tenancy disputes, was effectively repoliticized after the war. The Land Reform transformed a countryside of tenants into one of enfranchised proprietors, and identified farming prominently with democratic principles; the 1947 Agricultural Cooperative Law emphasized the democratic association of

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these independent proprietors; and the political party reorganization of the mid–1950s linked farmers to a party machine, the Liberal Democratic Party. Under such circumstances, one can appreciate the resistance to yielding such an identity. The other bundle of meanings under the rubric of rationalization, modernization initially meant increasing production to alleviate postwar food shortages and to facilitate industrial and urban recovery. It subsequently came to mean mechanization—farm labor savings that would allow expanding farm scale and transfer excess labor to manufacturing. At the same time, it has implied a redefinition of farming expertise along at least three dimensions: the professionalization of expert roles (the extension agent, the prefectural planner, the agricultural cooperative technician, the cement contractor); the bureaucratization of institutions of expertise (the land improvement districts, the agricultural cooperative, the project office); and the systemization of procedures (the pump house blueprints, the calibrated allocation formulas, the detailed water permits). It was this new conception of farming, now seen as modern agriculture, that appealed to a young generation in a region with few other opportunities for mechanized, scientific work. They were prompted to take advantage of the inducements and institutions of the green revolution to remain small-scale, increasingly part time rice farmers, fully mechanized and generously subsidized (Kelly 1986, 1992). Thus, the paradoxical results of the rationalization of Sho– nai rice agriculture have been highly responsive water-management and advanced rice-growing technology, an intractable farming system crisis, but a broader improvement in Sho– nai infrastructure. Such an outcome was unpredictable in advance, but it is understandable in retrospect when we trace the interplay of the rhetoric of reform and the political and economic configurations in both of Sho– nai’s 20th-century green revolutions. It is, finally, as a case in the cultural politics of directed change that Japan’s agricultural development experience has relevance for both Western and Asian debates.

Part-Time Agriculturists, Full-Time Farmers This chapter has argued that major Japanese agricultural regions like Sho– nai have experienced two repetitions of Green Revolution change in the last one hundred years. During these periods, the struggles among contending intentions of actors in a structured field of policies, investments, technologies, and institutions reinforced the smallholder character of production. This would seem to be an argument for a century of homeostatic equilibrium—cyclical movements that restored stasis.


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However, as virtually every commentary on contemporary agriculture attests,3 there is a radically new feature of Japanese agriculture in the last quarter of the 20th century, and it is overwhelmingly part-time in character. Farm by-employment has been an important contribution of rural household economy for over a century, but the preponderance of farm households whose income is largely derived from nonagricultural pursuits has been an accelerating trend that most date from the mid– to late–1960s. By 2000, only about 14 percent of 3,120,000 farm families were classified as commercial farms with at least one family member under the age of 65 engaged primarily in farming (Mulgan 2000). Of the total farm household population of 13.4 million, only 2.4 million worked more than 150 days per year in agriculture, and of these, over 80 percent were age 50 or older. Fulltime farmers are a miniscule segment of the Japanese population, perhaps equal in number to municipal bus drivers. The logic of the part-time trend has generated debates that often divide along disciplinary lines. To the economist Koji Taira (1993), for example, it is a rational individual response to constraints (limited farm size) and opportunities (labor-saving technology and alternate employment). To the rural sociologist Raymond Jussaume (1991), though, the part-time option is a collective strategy to preserve more intangible amenities of rural hamlet cooperation and community. My own argument in this chapter grounds both the economic logic and the social logic of part-time farming in the persistence of smallholders that is a quite unintended and controversial result of the second era of Green Revolution technological innovation and organizational reform (see also Brown 1986). Analytically, it reminds us that individual actions are seldom simply the product of the actors’ social location but neither is the product of individual actions simply the sum of those actions. Actions are often intentional, but they are worked out in a social matrix, and for this reason they frequently do not yield their intended results. As Foucault once put it aphoristically to Paul Rabinow, “people know what they do; they frequently know why they do what they do; but what they don’t know is what what they do does” [Dreyfus and Rabinow 1983:187]. Politicians, bureaucrats, engineers, and farmers had clear ideas and interests in these periods of directed change, the preponderance of which was to foster full-time economically viable farming, but the resulting part-time smallholder rice growing in Sho– nai and elsewhere can only be appreciated in retrospective analysis. In closing, what I wish to emphasize is an aspect of this trend whose significance is often overlooked but which leads directly to subsequent chapters in this volume. That is, there is an intriguing gap between the precipitously declining numbers of full-time agriculturalists and the still large

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number of rural households who insist on identifying themselves as farm families in official surveys and informal conversation. Seldom does more than one of the three or four adults in such households have any substantial involvement in any agricultural operations, and farming typically contributes quite minimally to total household income. Why, we might say, are there so few agriculturalists and so many farmers? Moreover, this tenacious self-identification of farm families as such is matched by official and popular insistence on the continued existence of a rural Japan of rice farmers. What is producing this agrarian sentimentalism and locating it in areas like Sho– nai, which have already lost much of their rural color? This chimera is in fact a further outcome of the historical experience. In particular, five factors collude in sustaining this illusory image, and as the editors’ introduction notes, they are amplified in the chapters to come: • the class, gender, and generational dynamics within “farm families.” This includes, for example, the divided class consciousness of farming households and the preference for playing up the more bourgeois nature of farm proprietorship and playing down the more proletarian nature of much off-farm employment. It is often the case, too, that male identity is more bound up in the family’s farming than is that of female members, who may contribute more substantial and more regular cash earnings from nonfarm employment as well as significant labor in household farming (Okado 2003). • the domination of the national agricultural cooperative organization by part-time farming interests, often to the detriment of those individuals and households trying to devise full-time farming strategies. • the pattern of regional development through state subsidies and public infrastructure investments rather than sustained, direct investment and job creation by the private sector. Farm interests keep areas eligible for project designation by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries, and play to the rivalries between the two great patron vehicles of rural investment, the MAFF and the Ministry of Construction (now, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport). • the regional political bases of many LDP politicians, ever more anxious and vulnerable since the 1990s, and the significant financial support that continues to flow to the LDP from the national Agricultural Cooperative organization.


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• the cultural politics of heritage to sustain metropolitan nostalgia for a rural world of paddy fields, village festivals, and community solidarity. The public alarm provoked by the opening up of Japanese rice markets during the 1990s was orchestrated by organized partisan interests of an agricultural sector, but it was also shaped by enduring popular images of a farming way of life. That, indeed, is the most striking irony of the Japanese countryside at the opening of the 21st century. As agriculture has been marginalized, in household, regional, and national economies, farming has been warmly sentimentalized, in personal identity and popular imagination. Japanese agriculture has a grim prognosis. Japanese farming has seldom been so well received. And as many of the following chapters show, To– hoku, among Japan’s regions, aptly illustrates this paradox.

Notes 1. The common translation “district” is really a misnomer for what is an association of all water user-cultivators in a service area, which by the 1949 law is to manage irrigation-drainage facilities and carry out land and water improvement projects. See Latz 1989 for a comprehensive study in English of land improvement districts. 2. This account of postwar programs is drawn from Naganuma 1983:501–775, Sato– and Shimura 1966:361–541, and Sato– and Shimura 1974:619–950, and from the author’s fieldwork in the Aka River basin since 1976. Kase 2003 is a recent Englishlanguage overview of agricultural public works. 3. In English, Hayami 1988, Ogura 1980, Moore 1990, and Mulgan 2000 are comprehensive sources of agricultural policy and the emergence of part-time farming. Ino 1996 is a comparable source in Japanese.

References Brown, L. Keith. 1986. Agriculture in Japan: The Crisis of Success. Japan Society Newsletter 34(1):2–5. Dreyfus, H. L., and P. Rabinow, ed. 1983. Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Francks, Penelope. 1984. Technology and Agricultural Development in Pre-War Japan. New Haven: Yale University Press. Hayami, Yujiro– . 1988. Japanese Agriculture under Siege: The Political Economy of Agricultural Policies. London: Macmillan Press. Isobe, Toshihiko. 1977. Ko– chi seiri o kikaku to suru tochi hensei no tenkai [The Development of Land Consolidation as Catalyzed by the Arable Land Adjustment Projects]. In Zenji nisshi, ed. Toyohara kenkyu– kai, 191–227. Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai.

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———. 1978. Toyohara tochi hensei no kento– [An Investigation of the Formation of “Toyohara land”]. In Toyohara mura, ed. Toyohara kenkyu– kai, 695–769. Tokyo: No– rinsho– no– gyo– so– go– kenkyu– jo. Jinnouchi, Yoshiro– . 1977. Kandenka to Meiji no– ho– no keisei [The Shift to Drained Fields and the Formation of the Meiji Methods]. In Zenji nisshi, ed. Toyohara kinkyu– kai, 465–515. Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai. Jussaume, Raymond Adelard, Jr. 1991. Japanese Part-time Farming: Evolution and Impacts. Ames: Iowa State University Press. Kase Kazutoshi. 2003. Agricultural Public Works and the Changing Mentality of Japanese Farmers in the Postwar Era. In Farmers and Village Life in TwentiethCentury Japan, ed. Ann Waswo and Nishida Yoshiaki, 244–266. London: Routledge. Kelly, William W. 1982. Water Control in Tokugawa Japan: Irrigation in a Japanese River Basin, 1600–1870. East Asia Papers #32. Ithaca: Cornell University China-Japan Program. ———. 1985. Deference and Defiance in Nineteenth-Century Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ———. 1986. Rationalization and Nostalgia: Cultural Dynamics of New Middle Class Japan. American Ethnologist 13(4):603–618. ———. 1990. Regional Japan: The Price of Prosperity and the Benefits of Dependency. Daedalus 119(3):207–227. ———. 1992. Tractors, Television, and Telephones: Reach Out and Touch Someone in Rural Japan. In Re-made in Japan: Everyday Life and Consumer Taste in a Changing Society, ed. Joseph J. Tobin, 77–88. New Haven: Yale University Press. Moore, Richard H. 1990. Japanese Agriculture: Patterns of Rural Development. Boulder: Westview Press. Mulgan, Aurelia George. 2000. The Politics of Agriculture in Japan. London: Routledge. Naganuma Gensaku. 1983. Nakagawa shi [A History of the Nakagawa Canal Network]. Tsuruoka: Nakagawa tochi kairyo– ku. Nishida, Yoshiaki. 2003. “Dimensions of Change in Twentieth-Century Rural Japan.” In Farmers and Village Life in Twentieth-Century Japan, ed. Ann Waswo and Nishida Yoshiaki, 7–37. London: Routledge. Oba, Masaoto. 1977. Meiji no– ho– no do– nyu– katei: taisu– sagyo– yogo no henka o teate ni [The Process of Introducing the Meiji Methods: Clues from Changes in Corresponding Agricultural Work Vocabulary]. In Zenji nisshi, ed. Toyohara kenkyu– kai, 47–70. Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai. Ogura, Takarazuka. 1980. Can Japanese Agriculture Survive? A Historical and Comparative Approach. Tokyo: Agricultural Policy Research Center. – Okado, Masakatsu. 2003. The Women of Rural Japan: An Overview of the Twentieth Century. In Farmers and Village Life in Twentieth-Century Japan, ed. Ann Waswo and Nishida Yoshiaki, 38–59. London: Routledge.


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Sato– , Shigeru, and Hiroyasu Shimura. 1966. Akagawa shi [A History of the Aka River]. Tsuruoka: Akagawa tochi kairyo– ku rengo– . ———. 1974. Shoryu– jigawa shi [A History of Shoryu– jigawa Canal Network]. Tsuruoka: Shoryu– jigawa tochi kairyo– ku. Smethurst, Richard. 1986. Agricultural Development and Tenancy Disputes in Japan, 1870–1940. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Taira, Ko– ji. 1993. Review of Jussaume, Japanese Part-time Farming. Journal of Japanese Studies 19(1):185–188.


Part II Wearing Tradition and Wearing Modernity Negotiating Paths of Social Change

Changes in the political economy of rural areas within advanced industrialized societies challenge governments, average citizens, and the private sector to develop novel ways of coping with and adjusting to emerging circumstances. As the human actors in these contexts confront the realities of social change in their respective communities, they rarely respond passively, instead, directing and redirecting the course of their lives to actively carve out new roles for and understandings of themselves and the social flows in which they move and that they generate. Nowhere has this process of sociocultural reconfiguration been more dramatic than in the rural areas of To– hoku. In a rare examination of this process in a non-Western context, the authors in this section present a series of intriguing case studies that provide examples of how local people wear different styles of tradition and modernity to negotiate the rural, urban, domestic, and international influences of their contemporary cultural milieu upon their everyday lives. The section begins with Nancy Rosenberger’s portrayal of the lives of five To– hoku women in their 20s and 30s. She develops an argument that explores modernity as a process that, in the case of these women, involves the negotiation of tensions within the knowledge and power structures that shape and are shaped by individuals and communities. Through and in relationship to these tensions, people construct individual and social imaginations as they interpret their own identities in relation to that which is, in part, defined as modern and traditional. In her chapter, Rosenberger reveals the multivocality of modernity among To– hoku women that emerges from relationships beyond the global economy. Following Rosenberger’s examination of cultural styles worn by contemporary To– hoku women, Tomoko Watanabe Traphagan explores a

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different dimension of modernity at the local level by studying the lives of residents intent on actively participating in one manifestation of mainstream Japanese lifestyles through government sponsored international activities in a former farming community quickly becoming a regional industrial center. Traphagan examines the activities and attitudes of residents in the town of Kitasawa in relation to their use of the term “kokusaika” (internationalization) as a means of investigating how people negotiate the ideology and the reality of internationalization in their community. In her detailed account of local international activities, Traphagan illuminates the ways in which Kitasawa residents use the term “kokusaika” to adapt, negotiate, ignore, and contest the changes in their lives associated with the modernization process. Next, Christopher Thompson examines an agricultural hamlet that is adapting its local folk performance tradition to the social and economic circumstances brought about by domestic and international forces beyond the community’s control. For the first time in hamlet history, women are recruited to the collective’s historically male dance troupe—a cultural organization that no longer entertains only local residents, but now regularly performs abroad. But instead of describing this adjustment process as something new, Thompson argues that the traditional performance of Shishi Odori (the deer dance) in Ochiai has long been part of an ongoing syncretistic social process that integrates tradition, modernity, and rural–urban influences, even at times transcending national boundaries. He suggests that the successful preservation of the Ochiai Deer Dance is not the result of the Ochiai community’s resistance to change, but made possible by local residents’ re-creation of the tradition within and against the forces of change that threaten to pull its members apart. Enka music, a genre that focuses on heterosexual romantic heartbreak, is the topic of chapter 7. Debra Occhi maintains that post-World War II enka contains a particular discourse seen as traditional by its middle-aged fans. This discourse outlines gender-differentiated emotional and physical behaviors attributed to men and women relative to their physical locations. Enka also describes an emotional return to furusato, the heart’s traditional home place—a representation often ascribed to the To– hoku region in both national and local imaginaries. Occhi’s examination of enka reveals the constructed nature of Japan’s agrarian sentimentalism, a sentimentalism that often stands in stark contrast to the multidimensional hardships that have historically been a part of To– hoku life. In the section’s final chapter, Anthony Rausch addresses the multiple dimensions of social meaning that surround the preservation, promotion,

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production, and consumption of Tsugaru Nuri Lacquerware in Aomori prefecture. Rausch presents the traditional craft of lacquerware as one means of examining the contrast that exists between tradition and modernity by examining the history, policies, preferences, and practices of the lacquerware craftworkers who are situated in a web of relationships with government agencies and Japanese consumers. Rausch’s study reveals poignantly the constructed nature of tradition within the contemporary culture of Tsugaru Nuri Lacquerware explaining how this folkcraft is cast to its consumers according to specific cultural styles that match the evolving objectives of each special interest group. Rausch concludes, as do several of the authors in this volume, that the construction of tradition in the present does little to ensure a secure future. Ultimately, cultural styles in all contexts of Japan must be continually remade. They are both a product of and vulnerable to changing local, domestic, and global circumstances. As Kelly notes in chapter 2, politics and culture as much as economics and technology have rendered the urban–rural dichotomy outmoded for understanding the contemporary experience of To– hoku. The case studies contained in this section provide specific examples of the complex interplay of factors that make the To– hoku lifestyle simultaneously traditional and modern, Western and Japanese, local and global in all of the contexts described. As people move through these different, and sometimes contradictory, expressions of To– hoku life, they wear the different and diverse styles that contribute to the social, political, and cultural construction of modernity and tradition.

Chapter 4

Young Women Making Lives in Northeast Japan Nancy R. Rosenberger

In northeast Japan, an hour or so from a bullet train stop, young Tokyo women find a hip place to go for a weekend of skiing in winter or golfing in summer; a place to get in touch with nature and festivals of “traditional Japan”; a place to meet a cute local guy perchance, but not to fall in love. He probably is an eldest son with a father, mother, and farm just waiting to find a young wife to carry on the household, help with the farm, and care for his parents. A nice place to visit but young women prefer the with-it lights of Tokyo—or so the current myth goes. Go to the village not far from the ski and golf resort, however, and you will find young women who have grown up here and, often after schooling and a stint of work in Tokyo or a regional city, have chosen to return. They return for similar reasons and struggle with similar problems that the city women imagine—but they build lives for themselves. As one young village woman named Sasaki-san said, “In Tokyo the information goes right through you and there is no free time. I want to live here.” This woman is a nurse who worked in a Yokohama hospital for three years. “I didn’t fit with the big city. There we just got blood samples and made a diagnosis; here we talk with the people.” From her point of view, city life seemed to revolve around machines, while life here seemed full of close human relationships. That is not to say that human relations here did not have problems. Sasaki-san noted frictions in the family-like atmosphere at work—“We get too much like a family and are not careful of each other”— but her preference for the village over a cosmopolitan area did not change. We will meet her again.

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Young Women Making Lives in Northeast Japan

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The stories of these young women take place in Yamamura, a village unit that is constituted by a collection of farm hamlets in a mountainous area of the province of Iwate. A high percentage of people living here have farms that have been passed down through their households for generations. Not as isolated as many rural villages in Iwate prefecture, Yamamura is only one hour from a city on the main train line that runs the length of Japan, and thus now only four to five hours from Tokyo. As a context in late modernity, it is interesting because it is rural with households still tied to the land and decidedly less cosmopolitan and sophisticated than urban Japan, yet through media and transportation the village is totally linked to cosmopolitan Japan, even marketing its own traditions within that framework. My lens focuses on the younger women raised in the village—single women in their 20s and early 30s when interviewed in 1993, some married and some single when interviewed again in 1998. I chose young women because they are one of the groups at the nexus of global and local struggle for hearts and minds in late modernity. I take five as case studies through which to ask questions about how people, constituted as they are by the various systems of knowledge and power that they have grown up in and now swim in as adults, negotiate or just struggle through “the hard surfaces of daily life” in contemporary, northeast Japan (Geertz as quoted in Ong and Nonini 1997:13). These young women take on the open-ended struggle of modernity— “the evolving process of imagination and practice in particular historically situated formations” (Ong 1997:171). Here I speak of modernity as a general process that can affect and take input from any society, with the awareness that modernity carries with it many of the cultural values of Europe and the United States, and thus has Western-oriented aspects that will figure in below (Taylor 1992). One of the general characteristics of modernity is the experience of various alternatives for institutions, communities, families, and individuals beyond the local context. Accordingly, these women’s lives are constituted within various systems of knowledge and power. Ong defines knowledge-power systems as “metanarratives with different claims to truth that construct imagined communities of belonging in the modern world” (Ong 1997:171). A knowledge-power system is illustrated by a religious cult that attempts to define a person’s beliefs about God, community, family, work, gender relationships, and the future world through the texts or words of leader-experts and through specific practices that inscribe these beliefs onto the body. In everyday life in the contemporary world, people usually

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Nancy R. Rosenberger

exist in a vortex of a number of knowledge-power systems that overlap, both reinforcing and contradicting each other. They will vary for any historical and geographic situation; the people there are constituted by these knowledge-power systems and act within and among them—evolving a “process of imagination and practice,” as Ong says. To bring this idea of knowledge-power systems into the context of this chapter, I understand the most important of the powerful discourses making up young women’s lives in Japan as: national discourses concerning national visions for family, work and women; the household discourse promulgated in the 19th century and practiced selectively through the late–20th century; the global media discourse carrying the values of Western modernity as constructed in Japan; and a vaguer but tangible generational discourse constructed among Japanese young women. I develop these below. These discourses exist for young women in big cities and small villages, although they have somewhat different histories and different powers in Yamamura than Tokyo, their edges cutting into people’s lives at different angles. Like everywhere, the relations of power-knowledge systems in people’s lives are complex and often disjunctive (Appadurai 1990), calling on people’s patience and ingenuity to live within and among them. Although these discourses hook into these young people’s desires, emotions, and bodily practices, the match is never perfect and people inevitably construct their lives and identities across divisions between themselves as subjects and these large discourses (Hall 1996). Thus, modernity is a process of struggle and tension to construct lives out of such knowledge-power systems and the particular histories of individuals and communities. Within the process of modernity, people have a selfconscious awareness of individual trajectories that they are trying to forge (Giddens 1991). People weave dreams or social imagineries of what they would like to be; Appadurai calls them “constructed landscapes of collective aspirations” (Appadurai 1990:2). Nonini (1997) calls these “fantasy scripts” that people construct in relation to themselves, their intimate others, and their peer group. If acted upon, these may feed into plans for new ways of being, thinking, and acting that build upon old social, cultural, and economic capital, as people simultaneously exploit whatever new forms of capital they can muster, however futile (Nonini 1997:205). People have space to maneuver, to negotiate, to compromise, to rebel, to dare, and to leapfrog, yet they also have the space to become fragmented and confused, confounded among ideas and practices, histories and futures that simply do not fit. Scholars characterize people’s responses to these multiple and colliding knowledge-power systems variously. Some see people moving futilely,


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caught in webs of power no matter how they resist (Foucault 1980; Kondo 1990; Kelsky 2002). Other scholars suggest hybridity or multiple hybridities (Gupta 1998:230, Rosenberger 2001)—the possiblity of living among various knowledge-power systems as one maneuvers skillfully, negotiating flexibility among such positions as national subject and self-propelling subject (Ong 1997:173). Yet other theorists suggest that sometimes people live at the nexus of mutually nonconjunctive discourses and do not have the political, economic, or educational means to switch between them, or bring them together in any satisfying way. Their actions mimic and mock the Western-oriented intentions of development towards modernity (Gupta 1998:230). Thus, hybridities have hierarchical positions—quite different if you are the tourist or the migrant laborer (Said 1980). I analyze specific case studies of young women living in Yamamura as they live in overlapping webs of knowledge-power systems. Do they get caught in the webs of the multigenerational household discourse? Do they take various positions as smalltown subservient workers and cosmopolitan travelers? Do they find compromise positions as independent young women in a farm village? Do they fail to make individualized trajectories for themselves? The interesting ethnographic question is: What happens in the ongoing ups and downs of everyday life as individuals live within and among knowledge-power systems in the modern world? In what ways and to what effect do they evolve social imagineries and practices—in this case in a context where older ways of being are quite active? We will start with knowledge-power systems in this Japanese context of young women and proceed to individual case studies in Yamamura.

Knowledge-Power Systems I briefly describe four knowledge-power systems that have claims to truth in the lives of Japanese young women and discuss their meanings in Yamamura. My understanding of them is derived from popular media culture, well-publicized public documents, several decades of fieldwork experience among various ages of people, and in-depth interviews with about 60 young women in Tokyo, Yamamura, and a regional northeastern city in 1993 and 1998 (Rosenberger 2001). The first knowledge-power system is national. The Japanese government, through its ministries’ white papers, its regulations, policies and local education and practices promulgates a strong sense of what Japan is and

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where it should be going. Debates exist in the Japanese government, as between ministries overseeing welfare and finance, but people are given a general view of a national vision. Participation in families, neighborhoods, work, and schools reinforce this in citizens. This knowledge-power system teaches personal characteristics of cooperativeness with the group, sociality, self-reliance, compassion and a certain mildness of character that knows its obligations, yet knows how to relax convivially with a close group. The gendered structural arrangement underlying postwar economic growth has been one of the full-time housewife running the katei (home) and supporting the salaryman-husband. Nuclear families and mothers as socializers of two cooperative, educated children has been idealized, and care of family elders silently assumed. As economic growth slowed in the 1980s and cheap labor was needed, government and corporations encouraged middle-class women to get part-time jobs—women’s central role at home legitimating subordinate treatment at work. Women’s jobs and hobbies were to remain “backstage” in relation to their household responsibilities (Rosenberger 2001). This national discourse shifted through the 90s because of the government’s alarm at the growing proportion of elders, the dip in the birthrate to 1.4, and the tendency for young women to work longer, enjoy themselves, and marry later, if at all. The government, needing women as workers, mothers, and daughters and daughters-in-law, espoused a picture of the new, nonthreatening family of the 1990s—one that enjoyed a highlevel of consumption, freely given emotional warmth, psychological relaxation, and fulfillment of individual needs with the couple’s love at the center (Rosenberger 2001:128–129). The family would be the relaxed, emotional backstage for men and women alike. With no need to live with in-laws, women would be willing to give in-laws or their own parents care with the help of government-supported home helpers. The increase in private and public day care centers would allow women with small children to work. Given women’s expectations stemming from the 1986 Equal Opportunity Law and the national need for labor, the national discourse encouraged single women to work full-time and wives to work full- or part-time. In short, the national knowledge-power system helped middle-class women imagine that they could build their own life trajectories and do everything they wanted. It harbored unspoken assumptions, however, the education of children, a husband’s career, and the care of elders would be voluntary desires in women’s self-narratives (Rosenberger 2001). The second important system of power and knowledge in this context is one of the ie (household) carried by local elders in Yamamura (the grandparents and parents of the young women). This discourse is a locally


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adapted version of the Household Code of 1898 that instituted ideal samurai kinship patterns of first-son inheritance, powerful male household head, transfer of the wife into the husband’s household’s koseki, (legal registry) children as property of the husband’s household, and parental authority over marriages (usually arranged) with divorce difficult to initiate for women; these customs were gradually accepted in the countryside and replaced local flexibility on these matters (Smith and Wiswell 1982). In practice, in absence of a qualified son, elder daughter inheritance with her husband joining the family register remained a custom throughout the country. Elders of Yamamura insisted on this household discourse to varying degrees, accommodating competing discourses, but at least trying to ensure heirs and the ongoing care of the land, ancestors, and elders. Elder son and wife were still preferred, but any son or daughter with a spouse would do, given the out-migration rate. Young couples and their children usually lived separately at first, although they would visit often and help with agricultural and ritual tasks. Choice of partner with family approval appeared to be accepted, but entry into the household register—a group document that names all members of the household with househead—was an important symbol that the household would continue into the next generation. Proof that not all attained this ideal lay in the village’s elder care home built in the early 1990s. The household discourse among elders in Yamamura continued to carry a strong practice of hierarchy based on age and gender—first the elder father over wife and family members and second the elder mother over the rest of the family. This aspect of the household discourse permeated work life in Yamamura as well. As a woman in the local school said, “The men are head of most everything and because of one female principal who was bad, they don’t think women are good leaders. There is a stain here and it’s hard to change it.” The strength of the local elders’ household discourse in Yamamura influenced the way that the national discourses of the full-time housewife and later the working mother played out. The farm women of Yamamura had not participated in the 1970s middle-class ideal of full-time housewife with an absent company man for husband (Rosenberger 2001). This was for the “weaker” wives of doctors or principals. Women endured under strong mothers- and fathers-in-law, worked hard on the farm, shared childraising with mothers- and sisters-in-law, respected their husbands—and perhaps dreamed of becoming strong as mothers of grown sons and daughters-in-law. Thus, for young women raised in this system, motherhood within a nuclear family (minus elders) appeared as a privilege in Yamamura. Moreover, the

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emerging 1990s national discourse of combining work and motherhood was not new for women raised in a farming village. Young women are expected to earn money to help out the family, not to gain personal fulfillment. The third knowledge-power system is the global, Western-oriented media discourse as interpreted in Japan. This knowledge-power system shows the strong influence of European and American values on the process of modernity, stemming from the history of modernity itself and the continued political, cultural, and economic influence of Europe and especially the United States in the context of Japan. For young Japanese women, the main conduit of these values is via the media—movies, songs, books, magazines, advertisements for fashions, et cetera. American movies are ubiquitous in Japan. Otherwise, the Japanese media is nationally based, yet it uses American models and American values popular in media advertising such as independence, freedom, and sex appeal. Status is advertised via travel and shopping in the United States or Europe, practice of Western-style hobbies such as golf and tennis, and consumption of American and sometimes European fashions, music, and art. Although this is interspersed with Japanese fashion and travel in Japan to find the nostalgic old Japan or shop for old Japanese things, these Japanese things are interpolated within the constructed nostalgia for selected traditions within modernity and as one of various alternatives available to young women. Individuality is portrayed as gaining jibun (self or self-fulfillment), or kosei (individuality) through consumption, pleasurable leisure, and to a lesser extent work. Marriage is not ultimately undermined; even married women should find freedom and individuality in buying for home, children and selves. The authority of mothers-in-law and care of the elderly are not actively supported, but mentioned only in how to construct separate living spaces or apartments (Rosenberger 1995). Fourth, the generational knowledge-power system among young Japanese women is fed by the media discourse, but is not synonymous with it. This discourse attains power and knowledge through the channels of talk, mutual experience and peer pressure, coupled with popular writings by young women and self-reinforcing feedback from marketing research and government surveys concerning young women. It carries the wisdom that one should enjoy life while you can before marrying, an act that will inevitably lead to less freedom and money. Key to this is developing a jibun (self) apart from family via work and leisure activities with friends. Western-oriented hobbies, goods and travel are central, but Japanese hobbies, aimed at an inner calm as a center of self development, also have value. In this discourse, the ideal is a self who has a yarigai (meaning in life). This is


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often sought in the work sphere, and ideally goes along with some responsibility or feeling of doing good for others; for many women in low-level jobs, however, money for enjoying leisure time suffices. Ideally one will be able to continue to nourish self after marriage via work and hobbies. The common sense of this knowledge-power system is that a young Japanese woman should not settle for a partially satisfactory marriage partner who does not connect with and respect one’s inner self. Divorce increasingly is a viable option even when children are young. Some members of this community imagine a world without limitations for women, and some go to the United States or Europe in search of it, but usually there is a sense that in public life, compromises must be made. In time, the experience of motherhood is generally desired—even more than marriage—but marriage is accepted as necessary for having and raising children. Many women idealize the experience of having children and recognize that they will not be accepted as adult in the Japanese social world unless they have at least one child and a husband. Young working mothers are happy when their own mothers will care for their young children, but young women do not relish caring for elders. They do so when necessary, however, preferring their own parents whom they have emotional links with to their in-laws. In sum, the generational discourse is diverse, but settles particularly around the idea of having and maintaining a self that is respected within the family and grows in extra-familial situations. Distance between the obligations of life and the inner pleasures of life should be lessened, even disappear. Self should not be lost or sacrificed as many see in their mother’s and grandmother’s generations. Women want to play more than one position throughout life and to have some say over the construction of their own life trajectories, maintaining a close core of relationships in family and friends (Rosenberger 2001:182–232). How do the last two discourses play out in Yamamura? The media discourse is muted because there are less movies, less variety of magazines sold, and fewer advertisements bombarding people. TV is as ubiquitous as anywhere in the country, although with fewer private channels and a public local channel. People generally meet fewer foreignors, although Yamamura has an active exchange program with a Canadian town. Perhaps because of this lack of frequent contact coupled with their sense of marginality and inferiority to urban, industrialized Japan, Yamamura folk maintain an attitude of awe and romanticism toward Americans and Europeans. In sync with media and generational discourses, young women criticize gender discrimination within the household, yet they have sympathy with women’s roles in the household discourse. A violin teacher said, “My

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mother just has to do what my father says. She doesn’t have the courage to be different. Her marriage is the way that she makes her living.” Most were firm: “I want a partner who is equal and whom I can talk with.” Yet, several took their mothers as ideal examples of self-sacrifice: “My mother puts up with things without complaining. I think it is good to do so (gaman).” Another expressed the beauty of a woman in her willingness to serve food to husband and family. Young women in Yamamura were more willing to work in elders’ households and live together with elders in the future than the national, media, and generational discourses above would imply. They preferred their own mothers as caretakers, but had little hesitation about mothers-in-law caring for children. Most had faith that browbeating by mothers-in-law would not affect them. To this extent they thought change had come to the village. This rural community of young women also had a less critical attitude toward hierarchy in the workplace. Though they did not like it, they resigned themselves to serving tea or not being listened to and, although they were pleased with promotions, they did not push aggressively for them. In the village young adult women dressed more modestly than city girls—in more muted colors at work and very casually outside of work. The idea of self as expressed in work and hobbies was still important in their generational context, but practical attention to making money echoed household-based wisdom. Almost all women interviewed here said change as regards women had not yet come to this village or was just beginning to come. The nurse summed up the situation: “Society is narrow here. They all know everything about me.” On the other hand, they knew that elders had to compromise or the young adults would leave.

Individual Voices: Five Case Studies Exploring how individuals and communities of people forge lives within imbricated systems of knowledge and power is the fascinating stuff of ethnography. Hasegawa-san was working as an aide at the local elder care home when I met her in 1993 at the age of 26. She had commuted to high school in the nearby city and had gone to university in Sendai where she majored in social work. She had worked there a year in a car dealership where she and the other women were “the tea-pourers.” Moving home at the urging of her parents when her grandmother died, she found in her work that even more than before, “men are on top” at the nursing home.


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During the interview Hasegawa-san whispered excitedly that she was talking marriage with a local young man, an eldest son. Her dreams of a small church wedding had already been dashed because her future in-laws insisted on a huge reception to tie their households together and reaffirm relationships with households accrued over the years. She had a rough joviality about her, however. When I asked if her future husband would help around the house, she replied, “He will.” Poking her friend next to her, she grinned and whispered loudly, “I’ll make him!” Her grandmother had been used by her husband to bear children, she said, but claimed that her relationship with her boyfriend was equal now—a complete change. Hasegawa-san was clear in 1993 that she didn’t really want to live with her intended’s parents, but since he was a first son with eventual responsibility for parents and land, there was no help for it. This arrangement was fine in relation to her natal family because she had a younger brother. She married, went into his household registry and was happily looking forward to the birth of her first child in 1994. She complied with household discourse and at the same time, hoped to finesse national and generational discourses all in one package. By 1998, she was divorced “because of personality differences” and had switched back to her natal household registry. The child belongs to that house. He is their inheritor (atotsugi). He is being raised by the mother-in-law. I was not able to see him for one year after the divorce, but then my ex-husband ran off with another woman, and now I can see him [the child] once a week.

Although she understated the emotional effect on herself, Hasegawasan’s actions made it clear that seeing the child was the most important thing in the world to her. She designed her life to be morally and economically stable in order to ensure future access to her son: by living in an apartment not far from her ex-husband’s home; by accepting promotion into an office job at the elder care home although she did not like the paper work and could not express her opinions about the quality of care to her supervisors; and by proclaiming she would not marry again or have any more children. Her love of good times doing karaoke and drinking in mixed company were done judiciously in the nearby regional city on vacation evenings. Hasegawa-san treasured going to her son’s preschool events and occasionally having him spend the night with her. We don’t know why the divorce really happened or what deals were struck at the time of the divorce, but her feelings of disjuncture with national, media, and generational discourses in her life emerged as she quoted

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her mother: “It’s just pitiful for this child that he isn’t being raised by his mother and father.” She was vaguely critical of the grandmother for being too soft with the child, and added, “I hear that he is afraid of me because I am stricter.” She expressed her sadness in a poetic Japanese way: “Sometimes I just go for a drive to the ocean and just sit there and think. I want my own world in nature sometimes.” Hasegawa-san is caught between disjunctive systems of knowledge and power—the household system as carried by local elders and the media, generational, and national discourses. Her desires for an enjoyable leisured life with active sexuality and her expectations from the national discourses to be an active mother of her child both fly in the face of the somewhat extreme desires of her parents-in-law to have an heir, emotionally and legally tied to the household. This form of power was extreme even in the contemporary village version of the household system, but enough within local moral bounds to make it unthinkable for a young mother to take this to court. Hasegawa-san’s emotions and desires are so tied into discourses of motherhood, however, that she avoids direct criticism of her in-laws and resigns herself to her job’s limitations and constricted lifestyle. As subject of modernity, Hasegawa-san is confounded among nonconjunctive knowledge-power systems, but hanging on, trying to slowly regain her place as a mother in a middle-class national discourse, garnering support from local popular opinon against the extremes of the older household discourse. On the margins floated her participation in a generational leisured self. The second young woman, Sasaki-san, 25 in 1993, had returned from nursing in Yokohama to a be a nurse in the new, local elder care home. She enjoyed the closeness with patients, but with her superiors: “I can say what I want, but they don’t listen.” In Yokohama her boyfriends had cooked and done laundry, but here she did it. Nonetheless, she had a local boyfriend with whom she enjoyed dirt motorcycle rides and was talking marriage. The problem was that he was an eldest son and she was the younger daughter of two girls, the older of one whom had already married into another family in Morioka. Her natal household, land, and parents were her responsibility as surely as his household, land, and parents were his responsibility. The families were “talking” in 1993; by 1994, she had married and “entered his household register.” Officially Sasaki-san would be responsible to care for her aging parents-in-law along with her husband; her husband helped with the farm on weekends already and would take over the farm when he was older. At some point they would live there with his parents. When I returned in 1998, I met Sasaki-san at her parents’ home where she cared for her grandfather and children during the day while her


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father worked on the farm and her mother did a nine-to-five job. With two children and pregnant with a third, she had taken two maternity leaves and family care leave, but finally had to quit her nursing job. At night she returned to her apartment ten minutes away to cook dinner and await her husband’s return from his job at a local driving school. Sasaki-san described her dream script for the future: “I will care for both my parents and his. He has many siblings around here and I have talked about it with his sisters. We can all help care for them, and I will have time to care for my parents, too.” Who would care for her farm? That was not yet worked out. It is within the realm of possibility that one of her younger children could be adopted by her parents to carry on her natal household. Sasaki-san felt that even with her own parents, the expectation was strong that the mother should care for the children and that whenever she had to go get a haircut, she had to bow her head low and make herself small in order to get help with the children. Such frustrations over the constant care of children came out in her sense that “It isn’t a feeling of fulfillment to care for your children—maybe over the long run but not in the everyday. I want to work again so much because there people praise you and say thanks to you—but not here. You don’t have a self as a mother.” To share her frustrations, she sometimes met with other young mothers in the afternoons and they let the children play while they talked and drank sake—a fact not to be shared in the village. Sasaki-san demonstrates a skill at holding the desires of all the knowledge-power systems close to her and maneuvering among the practices. She has imagined a fantasy script for herself that accommodates her sense of obligation to care for the elders in both households and her strong desires for motherhood and partnership in a nuclear family. She has forced her natal household to compromise, taking advantage of the weak position of households with only daughters in an era when generational and national discourses do not generally favor the idea of a male marrying into a woman’s household and submitting to a subordinate position. Having satisfied her links with the household and national discourses as wife, mother, daughter, and daughter-in-law, her struggle focuses on desires she holds in the generational and media discourses. She characterizes these desires by her wish for a self that is independent enough to merit verbal gratitude from others in the group; such recognition marks a role that is not considered simply natural but earned and unique to her. Although she has put her work self on hold, as a nurse she will be able to return to work with her mother caring for her children in due time; for now, her outlets with her friends maintain her sense of generational self out in society, apart from

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family. Sasaki-san uses her social and cultural capital, as well as her energy, to maneuver her way within the various discourses that make up her life and historical context. Hosoi-san, the third woman, was dressed in a dark suit fresh from work as a section chief at the nearby golf and ski resort in 1993. Cosmopolitan work ideas had come to her in Yamamura in the form of a company called Recruit where she had worked her way up since high school. “Here women also can grow. You can say anything. In fact, we don’t say shacho or bucho [respectful forms of address for managers], but just their name plus san.” She worked because it was enjoyable and for the income. Because she lived at home, she was able to save half her salary and spend the rest on golf, clothes and travel. Unlike the other women mentioned above, she had travelled to golf in Taiwan, Guam, Hawaii and Bali as part of her company’s bonus system. In short, she was deep into the knowledge-power system of the Western-oriented media, enabled by the products and philosophy of her company, which was popular among young people in Japan. At work Hosoi-san had done well, rising to a managerial position, but so far marriage hadn’t “fit with my hobbies.” Things had become difficult with her parents, however, who wanted her to marry to make way for her brother’s marriage. She had had various arranged meetings with prospective husbands, even though she preferred to find a person with “a more mutual understanding” than her parents’ marriage in which her mother “endured a lot.” Pressure came from the community as well: “As for eyes around me . . . you are accepted if you are married and doing work, too.” She could think of no merits to being single, even though she realized women have a handi (handicap) at work because they go into the home. Her ideal was to continue working unless her husband had enough money. By 1998, Hosoi-san was married with a two-year-old child and lived in Sendai, the largest city in To– hoku, where I visited her modern, 15th-floor condominuim overlooking a large park. She had been introduced to her husband by his boss, a frequent guest at the golf and ski resort. “Though I wasn’t smitten with him at first, when I saw this apartment, I thought I could marry him! Also I liked the people around him. His boss is fashionable— used to play cello—and his wife is so attractive! ” Her demeanor had become lighter and more cosmopolitan. She wore a purple top with a silky skirt, had a chic haircut, and laughed often. Status symbols within a Western-oriented media discourse filled her life. She had her son watching Disney videos made to teach children English and had him


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say a few words of English to me. She talked of the Americans in the building and the golf club that she and her husband both belonged to. Although she apologized for the “group life” quality of the apartment building, she thought it was good for her child and her self because they could socialize. Her husband worked as a sushi maker at a small, high-class sushi bar in downtown Sendai. His work echoed the apprentice system of the artisan world. “He’s done this job since18 and the boss dotes on him like a son. He gives the salary in an envelope—real money! So my husband gives it to me and says thank you. He does have his own cash card, though!” Although her husband would like to open his own sushi shop, he can’t let the boss down. As the ninth son, her husband was not responsible to care for his aged father, but they lived near the family. Hosoi-san reported that many nieces and nephews were marrying so they had to give 7 to 8 man yen ($700 to 800) for each wedding according to their relationship and status. She visited her parents two hours away on occasion, and her mother called often to hear the child’s voice. “I retired and became a housewife,” Hosoi-san said in a satisfied tone. She was conscious of being an older mother—almost 40—and had tried to get the child to call them by the more formal words for mother and father—okaasan and otoosan. “It was embarrassing to be called mama.” Hosoi-san is a practical status-seeker exploiting all the knowledgepower systems to the extent of her social, cultural, and economic capital. The ironic juxtapositions of her urbane condominium life and her husband’s artisan-like work situation are not entirely lost upon her. Even before marriage, the hierarchy of her natal household and marriage introduction system mocked the consciously nonhierarchical resort company she worked for and the cosmopolitan guests that came to ski and golf in the countryside. The household system pushed her toward an arranged marriage, but she maintained her hold on media and generational discourses: “I will marry once even if I get divorced.” Hosoi-san climbed the Westernoriented status symbol ladder in surface ways, mimicking entry into cosmopolitan status. She had attained the generational symbols of success in becoming a manager at work and travelling the world playing golf, yet she was solidly entrenched in a household discourse, worried about being addressed respectfully, and distributing income to extended family. In daily life, she proudly displayed markers of the Western-oriented media discourse and the national discourse of nuclear family life. Sarukawa-san illustrates skillful mimicry of and ironic juxtaposition among knowledge-power systems as she draws from each for status.

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The fourth case study, Noda-san, taught violin in her studio above her father’s workshop in Yamamura. Both in 1993 and 1998, she served me tea in delicate cups from Europe as we sat on the plush chairs beside her grand piano. “Music was the only thing I liked,” she said. “I don’t fit this era. I can’t do word processing.” Single at 32, and still so at 37, she stood out in Yamamura as a person who dressed and made up her face more stylishly than most people. With 45 students, she was able to support herself well and pay her parents rent for the studio and house expenses. What she was most interested in telling me was that she had studied abroad twice on her own money—ten months in Switzerland in 1991 and two months in Prague earlier in 1993. Her students and their parents did not like it so well, and her parents “were very much against it,” but she talked at length about how wonderful it had been to live cheaply on her own, and be able to practice a lot. “I want to go back if I can.” Because she had still not married, Noda-san felt marginalized. “They [neighbors] think something is funny with you, an oddity . . . but people have stopped saying anything. People know each other too well.” She had been involved with her teacher from university until the age of 25, but decided against marriage because he was an older widower with a child. Noda-san stood out with less than one percent of all 60 Japanese interviewees as very critical of married life. It’s as if it is inevitable that the woman does the housework. Women have an ideal pattern. You have to be this kind of woman in a box. Men spoil these women . . . My mother doesn’t have the courage to do different things. I am bold.

Noda-san did not want children because she thought she could not be a good “education mama” and would have to use up “time for self ” on the children—who lose their imaginations anyway when they get into high school. She felt she would be accepted as single if she were full of life— smiling and enjoying herself. But she did worry about what would happen economically if she got sick. Because her sister was married, it was she who would look after her parents, or so she thought in 1993. By 1998, Noda-san was still wishing to return to Europe, but realized she could no longer do it on her own. In the meantime, she had had two operations for a tumor on her audial nerve. She was very concerned whether her face looked distorted. Due to dizziness and failing eyesight, she could no longer play violin and look at music simultaneously, and even had trouble going up and down the steps to her studio. Her father was


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building her a studio on the ground floor in the front of their property. Noda-san’s boldness emerged in her assertive relationship with the doctor: They have informed consent now. It is your own body. So they tell everything to me. They promised not to say things [about my condition] to my family, but to me. I want to be able to choose. If my face would change [because of an operation], I wouldn’t want it . . . But I am still fighting with the doctor.

She discussed her situation with single friends in Sendai and her sister in the nearby city, but tried to keep up a good front for the neighbors and her parents. Although Noda-san had had a steady boyfriend in 1994 whom she had wanted to “live together” with, she had broken it off. “In 1994, I played with a professional quintet from Czech that was here. It was my most happy time. I was healthy then. In April 1995, they found it.” Noda-san represents an alienated subject who feels marginalized within her own community. Her strategy is one of resistance. She has directed her desires into a knowledge-power system that is Western-oriented in her commitment to European music, training, and lifestyle, but remains innocent in her pure admiration of Europe. Her dream script draws on aspects of generational and media discourses, but she acts them out to a degree uncommon in Yamamura and finds few allies. By not ultimately wanting children, she diverges from the national discourse, and from one main stream of the generational discourse. Images of the artist as nonconformist exist in Japanese history, but as a native living in this village she is a fish out of water. Although this position is lonely, she uses it to resist the national and household discourses for women as wives and mothers while she lives and argues for her own trajectory of imagination and independence. Socially, she compromises with the household system by living with and caring for her parents. Her fierce independence is played out even in the misfortune of her tumor—which ironically may seal her fate as a single person without children—nonetheless she cannot fully live out her desires within the generational discourse and who will be cared for within the household system. The last case study is Sato-san, who was 23 and in her second year of work at the city hall in 1993. She lived at home on her parents’s dairy farm and helped with dinner, the cows, and the dog in the evenings. By 29, she had been in her own local apartment for a year. “I wanted time for myself. I don’t have to worry about others. I can talk with my mother more now actually.

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And I am able to avoid caring for the cows and doing the laundry.” Although at 23, Sato-san complained that her mother wouldn’t allow her to go out at night to eat and drink because “people will talk. . . . You are a woman, you know,” at 29, Fuji-san felt free to take a sauna at nearby hot springs late at night or visit with friends. In 1993, she was interested in tennis and “bridal training” hobbies such as flower arranging, but by 1998, golf was her choice in her limited free time. While attending university, Sato-san had had a sales job to sell local Iwate products; she traveled to Tokyo and Osaka to talk to people about them. She peddled nostalgic hometown country goods throughout Japan, seemingly unaware of the ramifications of commodified tradition but gaining cosmopolitan views of Japan via the selling of traditional goods. Her focus was on earning some money in a depressed area of the country. At age 29, she had just been promoted in the village’s Commercial Tourism department to oversee the planning and implementation for the sales events she used to help with; she felt much more able to talk with important people around Japan. Being the first woman in the job was not easy, though. “I will ask others to do something and then they won’t do it, but they will do it if men ask. It’s meaningful because I have responsibility, but I feel it would be okay if it weren’t me doing this work.” As a woman, she still helped the secretary pour tea. Although at 23 she wanted to quit when she married, at 29 she wanted to continue this work after marriage, if possible. “Without experiencing society, my self won’t grow.” By 1998, Sato-san had broken up with the local man she had been dating for five years because, “He didn’t measure up. I cut it off. Now I am looking for a husband (dannasan), though there is little time to date . . . and I have said ‘Enough!’ to arranged meetings!” Laughingly, she commented, “I am starting to think ‘It is more comfortable by myself.’ That’s dangerous! I have to have kids. The sooner the better.” Her reasons hark back to the elders’ household discourse, though in a nuclear family frame: When you do your home (katei) things well, then you are a complete person . . . I don’t understand those people who don’t want to raise kids. Children become a support for yourself. Raising them and then celebrating together when they are older. It’s not a bad thing.

Her brother would inherit her natal household, but she would like to live near to get help from her mother with children, but “it depends on my husband.” Sato-san illustrates a movement among knowledge-power systems— from an acceptance of the national discourse she was socialized into with


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some resistance against the hierarchical household discourse, toward an appetite for the life of a single working woman drawing on generational and media discourses. She has developed her own self narrative to a greater extent than she ever expected. Although time alone will tell, it appears that she is committed to a generational version of the nationalist discourse: enjoy and develop a single independent life of leisure and work, but marry who you want, establish a nuclear family, and ultimately follow his job. Of great interest here is Sato-san’s feeling of danger as she enjoys the satisfying temptations of the single life in which she doesn’t have to worry about anyone—a characteristic that contradicts the necessary virtues for women in both the household and nationalist discourses. Her work situation with its male-dominated hierarchy does not allow complete investment in this ideal, but she does think that her self will grow via work, not marriage. In short, her fantasy script within newer discourses plays with her individual desires. Her strategy appears to be to enjoy those desires in the short term, but remain faithful to her socialization into the nationalist discourse and the warm parts of the household discourse, with the generational caveat that she has to choose a husband who respects her. Presently in a mode of determining her own trajectory, Sato-san raises the question of what struggles will ensue from her experience of and investment in the various, and in many ways contradictory, knowledge-power systems available to young women in contemporary Japan.

Conclusion This article has shown the ways in which systems of knowledge and power overlap, reinforce, and contradict each other in young women’s lives in the particular historical and geographic situation of a northeastern village of Japan. We have seen individuals flowing in, across, and between knowledge-power systems, like rivers, sculpting their own self-narratives, yet as surely sculpted by overlapping and cross-cutting influences of rocks, banks and inclines that become part of them as they go through life. The complexity of their lives goes far beyond a simple dichotomization between local and global, or modern and traditional. As Ong and Nonini have argued, modernity is an ongoing process of imagination and practice into communal and individual fantasy scripts that exploit all the new, old and older knowledge and strategies that are available in any time and place. As individuals and as an imagined community of generational and geographic compatriots, young Japanese women struggle and somehow cope. They illustrate a variety of different ways of interacting with multiple knowledge-power systems: creative

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maneuvering along a fantasy script; ironic juxtaposition and mimicry with status in mind; alienation and resistance; and gradual incorporation with danger signals of inner conflict. These women have chosen to stay in Yamamura, though they could well have left—most of their friends and sisters did. Probably most telling in their lives as young women in Yamamura is the necessity to cope at some level with the elders’ system of power and knowledge associated with the contemporary, ie (landed household) and their own socialization and participation in that. The resulting desires and experiences permeate all generations of the village, affecting the ways in which young women interpret and live within and among other knowledge-power systems that make up their lives. Yet as they experience the inner and outer conflicts of being partial and divided subjects in and across national, media, generational, and household discourses, their imagination and practices are not qualitatively different from young urban women. No Japanese young women do escape the tensions of these multiple systems of power and knowledge. In some ways these rural women’s fantasy scripts do not reach as far afield as sophisticated cosmopolitans, yet in other ways, these young women of rural To– hoku stretch their imaginations and extend their practices as far as any people in their generation in order to live as modern subjects in contemporary rural Japan.

References Appadurai, Arjun.1990. Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy. Public Culture 2(2):124. Foucault, Michel. 1980. The History of Sexuality. New York: Vintage Books. Giddens, Anthony. 1991. Modernity and Self Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Gupta, Akhil. 1998. Postcolonial Developments: Agriculture in the Making of Modern India. Charlotte: Duke University Press. Hall, Stuart. 1996. Introduction: Who Needs Identity? In Questions of Cultural Identity, S. Hall and P. du Gay, eds. Pp. 1–10. Thousand Oaks: Sage Press. Kelsky, Karen. 2002. Women on the Verge. Charlotte: Duke University Press. Kondo, Dorinne. 1990. Crafting Selves: Power, Gender and Discourses of Identity in a Japanese Workplace. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Nonini, Donald. 1997. Shifting Identities, Positioned Imagineries: Transnational Traversals and Reversals by Malaysian Culture. In Ungrounded Empires: The Cultural Politics of Modern Chinese Transnationalism. A. Ong and D. Nonini, eds. Pp. 203–227. New York: Routledge Press. Ong, Aihwa. 1997. Chinese Modernities: Narratives of Nation and of Capitalism. In Ungrounded Empires: The Cultural Politics of Modern Chinese Transnationalism. A. Ong and D. Nonini, eds. Pp. 171–202. New York: Routledge Press.


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Ong, Aihwa, and Donald Nonini. 1997. Chinese Transnationalism as an Alternative Modernity. In Ungrounded Empires: The Cultural Politics of Modern Chinese Transnationalism. A. Ong and D. Nonini, eds. Pp. 1–20. New York: Routledge Press. Rosenberger, Nancy. 2001. Gambling with Virtue: Japanese Women and the Search for Self in a Changing Nation. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ———. 1995. Antiphonal Performances? Women’s Magazines and Women’s Voices. In Women, Media and Consumption in Japan. L. Skov and B. Moeran, eds. Pp. 143–169. Surrey, England: Curzon Press. Said, Edward. 1980. Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Victims. Social Text 1:7–58. Smith, Robert, and Ella Wiswell. 1982. The Women of Suye Mura. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Taylor, Charles. 1992. The Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Chapter 5

Negotiating Internationalization in Kitasawa Tomoko Watanabe Traphagan

Introduction Kokusaika (internationalization) has become a nationwide theme in Japan in recent years, driven by both external and internal forces (McConnell 2000; Meguro et al. 1988; Neustupny 1982; Shiba and Keene 1996; Siegal 1994; Tanaka 1995; Watanabe 1992, 1993; Yano 1986). One of Japan’s most symbolic efforts used for improving its international stature was the start of the JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching) program1 (McConnell 2000) which has brought non-Japanese individuals to communities throughout Japan as internationalization resources. Along with this national trend, internationalization has become one of the political and social themes in To– hoku, as well. During my fieldwork in 1995–1996 and 1998, in a region that I will call Kitasawa, the words kokusaika (internationalization) and kokusai ko–ryu– (international exchange) were frequently heard in both public and private discourses. Internationalization is a multifaceted construct, and hence even in this small region of Kitasawa, it has been embodied differently among communities and individual agents. When the words kokusaika (internationalization) and kokusai ko–ryu– (international activities) arrived in this region, their meanings and contents were not concretely defined, since only a small portion of the residents could relate these terms to personal experiences. However, in recent years municipal governments and some nongovernmental leaders have defined their meanings and created activities associated with internationalization that fit to those definitions, thereby crafting their own cultural styles (Traphagan and Thompson, chapter 1 of this volume) of kokusaika and kokusai ko–ryu– . This chapter delineates one form of cultural style reified in the form of internationalization—a concept which, itself, has conceptualizations and processes that are unique to each community.

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Negotiating Internationalization in Kitasawa

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Internationalization efforts in Kitasawa can be seen as one element in the attempt to modernize the community. Internationalization forms a modernization vector in the sense that it represents investment for the future by addressing economic and social needs associated with increasing international transactions and ethnic diversity. It also is an investment towards the future in the sense that it allows more involvement of younger generations as central agents. Internationalization efforts yield modernization vectors that point to local autonomy; internationalization policies involve explicit planning of the general directions and operations at the level of individual municipalities, and hence each municipality forms a particular vector along which it builds a modern community, even while focusing on internationalization as a core goal. The extent and success of internationalization efforts may also be viewed by some as an index of how the community is in step (or not being left behind) with national or global trends. At the same time, internationalization in Kitasawa reveals how the implementation of the new trend (internationalization) takes its unique shape as the result of negotiations with the existing patterns of local ideologies and realities, as communities have devised feasible ways to infuse ideas related to internationalization into the grassroots level by creating continuity with existing social discourses. In other words, the heterogeneous local expressions in Kitasawa’s internationalization efforts reveal how people may deal with the tension between the co-evident trends, ideals and realities, in particular manifestations of tradition and modernity. The internationalization of Kitasawa shows an example of how phenomena associated with modernity may infiltrate and become reified in a community through negotiation with the existing local ideologies and realities. This chapter explores how different agents—municipal governments, autonomous organizations, and individuals—have crafted internationalization in Kitasawa within cultural frames of both tradition and modernity.

Kitasawa: The Area and Its Internationalization Kitasawa and Its Modernization, Industrialization, and Urbanization Upon arriving in Kitasawa by bullet train, one glances over the smooth look of ever-continuing rice paddies set against the background of forested mountains. Kitasawa spreads across a large plain created by the flow of the Kitakami River, which runs between two parallel mountain ranges that cross To– hoku from north to south. Kitasawa is a region in To– hoku, consisting of two cities (Uwano and Hirose), three towns (Aoba, Yamato, and Iwai) and one village (Hirasawa). The region has approximately 150,000 people.2

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Tomoko Watanabe Traphagan

Kitasawa’s main industry has been agriculture, predominantly in the form of rice farming, but also including apples, vegetables, dairy, and livestock. Reflecting the limited employment and higher education opportunities, and also perhaps limited entertainment and commodity availability, the demography of Kitasawa had been characterized by a gradual decrease and the out-migration of young people since the early 1960s. The number of residents between 20 and 29 years old dropped considerably in Kitasawa during that period, and as of 1990 the ratio of the population between 20 and 29 years old in Kitasawa to the total population is much lower (9.3 percent, Iwate Prefecture Environment and Health Division, 1990) than the nationwide ratio (13.6 percent, http://www.stat.go.jp/data/jinsui/1996np/index.htm). The municipalities (cites, towns, or village) in Kitasawa have been faced with the challenge of making their living environments more attractive to maintain their populations for the sake of survival (Aoba Town 1995b; Hirose City 1998). The accomplishments associated with these efforts have become visible in the last two decades, helped by the opening of a bullet train line and an expressway in the 1980s. Hirose and Aoba, each constructed new industrial parks in the 1980s and have successfully brought in factories for large corporations such as Toyota, Fujitsu, and Tokyo Electron. These industrial parks have created a large number of jobs for the local people and have also brought in people from outside of Kitasawa, thereby relieving the depopulation (Hirose City 1998) to some extent.3 In Aoba, the population decreased by 9 percent (16,067 to 14,653) between 1965 and 1975. But since the start of operation of the industrial park around 1980, the population went back to the level of 1965 (16,250) by 1985 (Aoba Town 1995a). Additionally, municipal governments have built various attractive facilities, such as sport complexes, and resort complexes with hot springs, concert halls, libraries, multipurpose cultural facilities, and elderly welfare facilities. Furthermore, new stores, restaurants, hotels, game centers, and bars have been added along the major roads in Kitasawa. A couple of largescale theme parks also opened. The most symbolic sign of these developments was seen in the news that Hirose City, which was officially designated as a depopulating area in 1970 (Hirose City 1998), was ranked as the fifth most rapidly growing city in the nation in 1998 (Toshi Seicho–ryoku Rankingu (City Growth Ranking), 1998).

Increase of Foreign Residents and Ethnic Dynamics in Kitasawa Another recent change in Kitasawa has been the conspicuous increase of foreign residents. In 1998, residents in Kitasawa typically said that it had been very rare to see non-Japanese people in Kitasawa until about ten years


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before, but now they would not be surprised to see one in daily settings such as grocery shopping. This perception of a sudden increase of foreign residents in Kitasawa accurately reflects the actual increase. The total number of registered4 foreign residents in Kitasawa rose sharply from 115 to 342 in 1989–1993 (16–40 percent annual increase) (see fig. 5.1). The number has continued to increase, although more slowly (except for a 37 percent increase in 2000), and reached 524 in 2000. Table 5.1 shows that the majority of the foreign residents in Kitasawa (89 percent; 466 out of 524) come from China, the Philippines, Korea, and Brazil.5 Foreign residents from China and the Philippines include a large number of foreign wives married into Japanese families, according to Ms. Shimizu of the Uwano International Relations Association.6 Many young successors of ie (families), in particular farming families, have difficulties in finding wives in Kitasawa and other areas in To– hoku (Kasuga 1993). One option some have chosen for finding wives, and thereby continuing their family lines, is to bring wives from foreign countries, such as the Philippines and China. Some municipal governments and private agencies in To– hoku (although none in Kitasawa) organize trips to these countries for the purpose of finding prospective wives (Kasuga 1993). Also, according to the Aoba government officials, some local companies hired large number of Chinese workers for factory labor.

Fig. 5.1. The Increase in Registered Foreign Guests in Kitasawa, 1989–2000 (Iwate Prefecture, 2001).

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Table 5.1. Breakdown of Registered Foreigners in Municipalities in Kitasawa Chinese Filipino

Korean

Brazilian American Canadian Indonesian

Total

Uwano

53

53

52

18

8

5

4

193

Hirose

53

20

6

61

1

0

0

141

Aoba

54

6

9

1

1

0

0

71

Iwai

21

10

17

0

2

1

2

53

Yamato

14

8

4

0

3

0

0

29

5

1

0

0

1

0

0

7

200

98

88

80

16

6

6

494

Hirasawa Total

Note: This table includes only the residents from the countries that represent 6 or more residents in Kitasawa.7 (Based on the numbers of alien registration as of December 31, 2001, in Iwate Prefecture, 2001).

Many Korean residents are perhaps the descendants of Koreans who were brought to Japan for labor coercively when Korea was colonized by Japan before the end of World War II (Tanaka 1995),8 according to Ms. Shimizu. They have lived in Japan for more than 50 years, and are foreigners in a very different sense from other foreign residents who are new to the area. Mr. Yamada, vice president of the Uwano International Relations Association attributed the recent visibility of foreigners to the fact that hiring native English speakers as English teachers had become a common practice at local public schools with the start of the JET program (1987) and at private English schools. There have consistently been between 25–30 foreign residents from English speaking countries, such as the United States, England, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand from 1997 to 2002. Indeed, of the 19 that I came across during my fieldwork in 1998, 16 were full-time English instructors, and one taught English part-time. In addition to the occupation, they also shared other features distinct from other groups of foreign residents. First, they were usually college graduates, because English teaching positions required a college degree. Second, they were young and often unmarried, coming to the area within a few years after college graduation. Third, their stay in the area was typically short, ranging from half a year to three years, unless they married a Japanese person. Although this group represents less than 10 percent (about 5 percent in 2000) of the entire foreign residents in Kitasawa, they receive significant expectations related to their roles in Kitasawa’s internationalization.


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Dynamics of Internationalization: International Activities and Agents By 1998, all of the municipalities in Kitasawa had developed some type of international exchange activities independently. The activities in Table 5.2 cover most of the organized internationalization efforts in the area. These organized kokusai ko–ryu– activities are categorized by the primary target participants. Some activities are (a) with sister–friendship cities, while others are (b) for the benefit of foreign residents, (c) Japanese residents, (d) or both. Additionally, there are numerous unorganized individual level interactions that involve both Japanese and foreign people.

Table 5.2. Organized International Activities in Kitasawa

(a) Sisterfriendship city related

Activities

Hirasawa Iwai Yamoto Aoba Hirose Uwano

Categories

✓ ✓

Exchanging students with sister– friendship cities Organizing trip to and hosting visitors from sister–friendship cities

✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Exchanging in sports and culture (e.g., exchanging residents’ art work for exhibition, exchanging sport instructors)

✓

Exchanging goverment officials (b) For foreign residents

Japanese language lessons for foreign residents

✓

✓ ✓

Publication of community newsletters in Chinese Workshops for experiencing Japanese traditional cultures (e.g., calligraphy, doll making, etc.)

✓

Exhibition of Japanese performing arts and art work by foreign residents

✓

Lending foreign language books and magazines

✓

(continued)

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Table 5.2. (continued)

(c) For Japanese residents

Activities Organizing overseas trip for junior high school students on an annually basis*

✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Organizing overseas trip for adults on annually basis

✓

Exchanging youth sports groups

✓

Exchanging students’ art work

✓

Inviting native speaker English teacher to local public schools

✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Foreign language lessons

(d) For interactions between Japanese and foreign residents

Hirasawa Iwai Yamoto Aoba Hirose Uwano

Categories

English Chinese, Korean, German, or Spanish

✓ ✓

✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ some municipalities

Ethnic food cooking lessons by foreign residents

✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

World Festival, World School, Easter Party

✓

International Market, Halloween Party

✓

International parties

✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Newsletter on international exchange activities

✓

✓

*Uwano, Aoba, and Iwai send students to the United States, where Hirose and Yamato send their students to Australia.

The survey of the table allows us to see that municipalities differ from one another both in the degree and the foci of their engagements in fostering internationalization. Internationalization efforts in Kitasawa also vary in terms of the main operating agents: they are municipal governments, international associa-


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tions, and individual residents. These three agents of internationalization attend to different needs and ideologies with different degrees of involvement. The cases of Aoba and Uwano describe how and with what ideological framework the different agents created international activities and how they experienced them.

Aoba’s Case: Government Driven Identity Crafting Aoba’s vice mayor stood up at the annual meeting of Aoba International Association in 1998, and proudly mentioned that Aoba was considered number one in international exchanges in the entire prefecture, and pointed out that Aoba had been designated as kokusai ko–ryu– no machi (an international exchange town)” by the Ministry of Home Affairs (Jichi-sho– ) in 1994 and 1995. Such identification of Aoba as an international exchange town was conspicuous in town. On Aoba government employee’s business cards and governments’ envelopes, for example, it says heiwa kokusai ko–ryu– sengen no machi (the town of declaration for international exchanges for peace). The general features of this traditionally agricultural town with 16,000 people do not easily invoke the image of an international environment. How did Aoba become an international exchange town?

Government: Internationalization Through Sister–Friendship City Relationships Three international partnerships According to the Aoba government’s international exchange staff from China, Mr. Ri, in Aoba, promotion of international exchanges has been a part of conscious efforts for machi okoshi (town revitalization) from the beginning. In the 1980s, the Aoba government was seeking a new identity of the town in unique ways for enhancing the residents’ health, and became interested in Chinese herbal medicine. Through three Chinese visitors, who were in town at the time, communication developed with their hometown city of Anjin in order to learn about Chinese medicine. Soon the two municipalities officially formed a yu– ko– toshi (friendship city) relationship in 1989. This was only the seventh international city relationship in the prefecture9 and second in Kitasawa after Hirose. Also, the fact that Anjin was a major city with 7 million people was a source of the pride for the small town Aoba. Encouraged by these facts, the town government started to seek its new identity in international exchanges. Four years later, Aoba formed another relationship with a small American college town (with a population of 38,000, but nonstudent population

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of only 7,000 to 8,000), Greensville, Massachusetts, which was the Aoba’s JET (see note 3) teacher’s hometown. This second sister city formation made Aoba one of only four municipalities that had established two sister–friendship city relationships in the prefecture, among which Aoba was by far the smallest. In 2002, a third relationship was formed with a similar sized German town (pop. 16,000), Rhein. When Rhein expressed an interest in Aoba as an international partner for its historical preservation project, the mayor of Aoba and other town officials welcomed the idea of the third international relationship, the first in the prefecture. They did not know how the residents would react to this, but the mayor’s trip to Germany for the official formation of the relationship had already been planned. “The town, as a principle, is trying to develop the international exchanges by forming sister city relationships,” and hence forming a new international relationship is important to the town, so Ms. Yoshida of the Planning and Promotion Division (the section responsible for international exchanges) explained. In this new relationship, the town officials saw great potentials for collaboration in dealing with common social issues, such as new industrial development and historical and environmental preservation. Ms. Yoshida asserted that the sister–friendship city relationships are central to the town’s internationalization efforts. Indeed the government’s international activities have almost always involved Anjin or Greensville directly or indirectly.10 In order to enhance the operation of these activities, the town created a position devoted to international exchanges, kokusai ko–ryu– in (international exchange staff), for each partner city. These staff members are natives of China or the United States11 who are fluent in Japanese. In addition to communication with the partner cities, the Chinese staff member’s job includes publishing a Chinese version of the town’s monthly newsletters and tutoring Chinese children. Both American and Chinese staff members provide English or Chinese lessons. The cost for these partner city related activities ranges from 8 to 11 million yen ($67,000 to $97,000) in regular years (Aoba Town 1995a; Jichitai Kokusaika Kyo– kai 2001). These figure are based on the cost in 1994, 1997, 1998, and 1999. In 1995, when the town had its 40th anniversary and invited 14 governmental officials from Anjin and Greensville to participate in an international exchange symposium and lectures (Aoba Town 1995c), expenses amounted to 29.5 million yen (about $246,000) (Aoba, 1995a). Before the formation of the third partner city relationship, Aoba’s expenses for its partner city relationships was the third highest in the prefecture after two much bigger cities in 1999 (Jichitai Kokusaika Kyo– kai 2001). More-


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over, the town’s international exchange-related expenses are much higher when including costs not directly related to the partner cities. For example, as of 1994–1995 the town was spending anually 3.6 to 4.7 million yen to hire a JET teacher, 3 to 3.84 million yen per international exchange staff member, and 2 to 3 million yen to support the international association (Aoba Town 1995a). The vigor and formality with which the Aoba government promoted the international exchanges may have puzzled its partners at times. Steve, the American kokusai ko–ryu– staff in 1994–1995 had great difficulty explaining the reasons for inviting eight of Greensville’s town officials to Aoba’s town hall opening ceremony. The invited Greensville officials did not understand why Aoba was willing to use so much tax money to invite them and worried that the invitation might be misunderstood as bribery. In Aoba, on the other hand, the town government’s vigorous efforts to enhance partner city relationships was accepted without major criticism. In 1994–1995, the town government’s proposal was awarded by the Ministry of Autonomy (Jichi-sho– ) with designation of the town as kokusai ko–ryu– no machi (an international exchange town) and the town received 3 million yen each year. In those years, the town government worked on building infrastructure for foreign residents and visitors, such as creating signs for public facilities and sights, town guide maps, and an informational guidebook for daily life, in English and Chinese.

Government Driven Activities and Town Identity Crafting The Aoba government’s approach to internationalization may be characterized as top-down, that is, dissemination from the government’s initiatives to the residents’ participation. While some exchange activities are exclusively at the government level (see (a) and (b) in note 10), the majority of activities (c–i) are planned and administrated by the government for the participation of town residents. The ultimate goal of internationalization activities is their infiltration into the town residents’ lives as educational experiences. Mr. Oda, section chief of the Planning and Promotion Division, emphasized this. He was hoping that international exchange activities would pick up at the grassroots level, after the government set up the foundation, and that it would eventually operate autonomously, with less government intervention. The town government promoted international exchanges through a clear ideological framework: They were captured as one form of sho–gai kyo–iku (life-long education). The town government had declared the town as

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a sho–gai kyo–iku no machi (life-long education town) first in the nation in 1979 with the philosophy that hitozukuri (personal growth) is the first step for machizukuri (town growth). Thereafter, it has built sho–gai kyo–iku sentâ (lifelong education centers) throughout the town and facilitated a variety of continuing education activities such as lectures and art and craft lessons. Mr. Oda explained that international exchanges give town residents opportunities to learn about other societies and fosters the opportunity for residents to reflect upon themselves through comparison with the others, which in turn will serve as individual’s personal growth (Aoba Town 1995a). Captured as a form of life-long education, the new concept of international exchanges was embraced within the well-established town ideology and identity. In 1995, the town issued heiwa kokusai ko–ryu– sengen (Declaration for the International Exchanges for Peace), thereby officially announcing its commitment to international exchanges. Through creating these ideological frameworks, the town government has increasingly stabilized the new identity of international exchange town. Mr. Oda claimed that international exchanges were now the machi no kanban (town’s signboard). In sum, the Aoba government’s efforts toward internationalization are characterized by (a) a focus on international partner city relationships, (b) strong government initiatives, and (c) a clear definition of an ideological framework.

The Experiences of Town Residents The identity of the international exchange town seemed to be taking root among town residents. Yoshie, who moved from Uwano to Aoba, ascribed the vitality of Aoba to its international activities, saying Aoba was more susunderu (progressive) in international exchanges than Uwano. Residents in town often framed situations involving foreign people with the town’s new identity, for example saying, “because Aoba is supposed to be an international exchange town” (see Siegal 1994 for similar examples). Those who have actually participated in the town’s exchange activities are still limited in number but they often claim that international exchange experiences have had deep impacts on their lives. Mr. and Mrs. Shimoda, in their 60s, joined the first Aoba group to visit Greensville in 1994. Mrs. Shimoda remembers that the hospitality of their host family, a single father with four children, was eye opening to her. Contrary to Mrs. Shimoda’s assumptions about child care as primarily a mothers’ role, the father took care of four children as well as hosting the couple from Japan. The oldest son, a 15-year-old, came to stay with the Shimodas for three months the


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following year. Later, he became the leader of the Greensville Japan Club. After this, the Shimodas played the role of Japanese parents for a few American residents in town. Getting together with people different from herself is beneficial to her, Mrs. Shimoda said, because she is exposed to new perspectives and can learn from it. Atsuko, in her 30s, had been an enthusiastic English learner since she was in college. The town’s international activities have given her longawaited opportunities to use her English skills when she accompanied the junior high school tour to Greensville. She also took advantage of opportunities to talk to native English speakers such as JET teachers and American international exchange staff members. Mrs. Sasaki, a beautician in her 40s, learned Taichi from a visiting instructor from Anjin, and now teaches Taichi in Uwano. Her child participated in the tour to Greensville and, stimulated by the experience, was planning to go to study overseas after graduating high school.

International Association: Partner City Related and Community Based Activities The town’s other internationalization agent, Aoba International Exchange Association, was founded in 1993, with the slogan kusa no ne ko–ryu– (grassroots level exchanges) (Aoba Town 1995a) by the initiative of a town councilman, Mr. Saito. By 2001, the membership had grown to 50 individual and 10 corporate members. Mr. Tanaka, the second president of the association after Mr. Saito, asserted that the association was born as a town residents’ organization, with no intervention by the town government. It was not intended to facilitate or promote the partner city relationships initiated by the town government. Yet, the association depends on the town government, and its activities overlap with the town government’s activities to a certain degree. The association’s main contact is in city’s the Planning and Promotion Division in the town government where a part-time clerk hired by the association has a desk. Also, a government subsidy is the major revenue source for the association. Furthermore, some association activities augmented the government’s activities. For example, the association carried out the following partner city related activities in 2001 (Aoba International Exchange Association 2001a, 2001b): • Hosting home stays and holding a bowling party for elementary school student visitors from Anjin

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• Hosting home stays and holding a farewell party for student visitors from Greensville • Sending a local traditional performing arts group to Greensville (postponed) • Holding a concert by musicians from Anjin • Holding an exhibition of photo–painting from Greensville and Anjin In addition to the partner city related exchanges, the association assumed its mission in fostering the residents’ general international understanding. For this purpose, the association held events for exposing the residents to other cultures, such as international food sampling–cooking lessons, a Halloween festival, lectures, a photo exhibition, Foreign language (English/Chinese) lessons (with the town government employees as instructors), among others (Aoba International Exchange Association 2001a, 2001b). Mr. Tanaka also added that the association should serve the foreign residents in town, but their participation in the associations’ activities was very limited. In the association’s annual party in 1998, Mr. Oda of the Planning and Promotion Division whispered to me “I’m afraid that you may be able to see the reality of the international activities (soko ga mie so– de kowai desu yo),” referring to the lack of foreign residents’ participation. Among about 30 participants I could find only four foreign residents, all of whom worked for the government. The foreign residents in the town increased drastically from 6 in 1989 to 77 in 1994 (71 in 2001), many of whom were factory workers and foreign wives. Some association members voiced their concerns about the working and living conditions of foreign residents, and felt that the association may be able to at least relieve their isolation. But no activities actually addressed their concerns. In short, the association strives for grassroots level international exchanges independent from the government, but depends on the government’s assistance and initiatives. The association appeared less visible in the shadow of the town government’s vigorous activities. At the regional meeting on internationalization, Mr. Oda of Aoba mentioned that international exchanges were costly, and he met criticism from other participants. Ms. Akiyama said that international exchanges should not refer to only big scale events but should rather be formed around small, regular opportunities for communication among foreign and Japanese residents. As a whole, Aoba’s international exchanges are characterized by a dominant emphasis on exchanges with partner cities, which


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tended to incur large expenses. In contrast, Uwano took a significantly different approach with emphasis on communication within the community.

Uwano’s Case: Emphasis on In-Community Activities Uwano is the leading municipality in Kitasawa. Its population is the largest, about 60,000. It also houses Kitasawa regional government offices, and has the only bullet train station as well as more shopping, dining, and entertainment facilities than other municipalities in Kitasawa. On a narrow street in downtown Uwano is a French style building with an orange tile roof. The sign says “Netpia.” People in Uwano gather at Netpia for various activities. Bimonthly, about 30 people of various nationalities gather in a large salon for the “English dinner,” potluck parties where Japanese and foreign residents chat in English. On other days one may find guitar lessons, chorus group practices, or English conversation lessons in the room. Behind this room is the office for the Uwano International Relations Association, where foreign and Japanese residents drop by for various consultations. Upstairs are two conference rooms, where weekly Japanese classes for foreign residents are held as well as other group meetings. Local residents usually list Aoba and Hirose’s partner city relationships and/or Uwano’s Netpia as representative of international exchanges in Kitasawa. Mr. Tanaka of the Aoba International Association urged me to look into Netpia’s activities, because he saw Netpia as a model for international associations in the prefecture. Netpia represents Uwano’s in-community approach to internationalization.

Government Policy: No Partner City and Fostering In-Community Interactions The mayor of Uwano has made a conscious decision for Uwano not to form any international sister city relationships for two reasons, Ms. Shimuzu, the staff member of Uwano International Relations Association explained why. First, sister city relationships limit exchanges to those with the sister cities. Second, after researching other municipalities’ cases, city officials concluded that sister city relationships require a significant budget and considerable preparation (for example, producing official documents and facilitating city officials’ visits), but do not yield much “real exchange” at the level of general public. The mayor and city officials believe that it is better to have many informal exchanges with various informally affiliated cities than having

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formal relationships with one or two sister cities. Mr. Nakayama of the Citizen Activities Division in city hall added that the local government favored fostering communication within the community, rather than finding sources of interactions outside the country. Another city official, Mr. Okuno, explained that the desirable form of international exchange includes many small-scale activities emerging at the grassroots level rather than developing relationships on the initiative of local government. In order to facilitate grassroots activities within the community, city officials decided to develop a facilitative infrastructure that consists of three elements: an organization, a space, and staff members dedicated to local international activities.

International Association: Government Initiated, Autonomous Organization The Uwano International Relations Association was founded in 1993 by the So–mu Zaiseika (General Affairs and Finance Division) of the city government, which up to that point, was in charge of the city’s international exchange programs to improve the capacity to meet already overflowing demands for international exchanges. Around the same time, the city purchased a French restaurant building and remodeled it into “a space for residents’ community activities, international exchanges, and information exchanges (http://www.catv-mic.ne.jp).” Officially named Uwano City Regional Exchange Hall, and nicknamed Netpia, the building housed the office for the Promotional Council of the Uwano Citizen Charter and the Uwano International Relations Association. The office was staffed with a director for both organizations and a full-time staff member for each organization. Ms. Shimizu worked for event planning and operations for the Uwano International Relations Association. What sets Uwano apart, Ms. Shimizu said, is that the association has its own building, office, and fulltime staff members. Within the prefecture, this full service capacity is found only in Uwano and the prefectural association for the entire prefecture. In 2002, the association had about 75 corporate, and 180 individual members, an exceptionally large membership for an international association, according to Ms. Shimizu. Also the association had about 80 registered volunteers who provide translation and interpretation services, or other kinds of assistance for events, and 13 home stay and home visit volunteers who host international visitors. However, Ms. Shimizu said only 10 or so active volunteer members actually assist events in a given year. The association has also grown in terms of the number and variety of the activities and the numbers of participants. Once a month, they have a


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kokusai shinzen no hi (international friendship day) that includes cultural learning, sports, and outing events, with Japanese and foreign participants. Additionally, they simultaneously run more than five language courses including (English, Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish. The association also has developed a foreign language library where residents can check out foreign books and magazines (mainly in English and Chinese) and use newspapers (in English) and dictionaries. Moreover, Netpia has become the meeting place for 30 autonomous groups (usually weekly), five of which are English conversation study groups. The events conducted by the JET teachers, such as the English dinner (bimonthly) and annual dance parties for junior high and high school students also take place at Netpia. Indeed, more than ten gatherings in the internationalization framework take place weekly at Netpia. While Uwano city government’s different sections (e.g., School Education Division and Citizen’s Activities) also conduct their own activities that involve international parties, the association is recognized as the central agent for internationalization efforts in the city and relied on for its accumulated know-how, by local government and area residents. For example, when the city government’s sports and health division hosts a foreign youth sports group each year, the city asks the association for assistance. Netpia staff members confidently stated that, although the Netpia building and staff salary were provided by the government, and the association received more than half of its budget from the government, the association’s activities were operated independently from the government.

Netpia’s International Exchange Activities The Netpia international activities may be categorized into three groups depending on the target participants. Many of them are for the purpose of educating Japanese residents in foreign cultures and languages, while others are aimed at helping foreign residents understand Japanese culture and language. Still other activities provide opportunities for Japanese and foreign residents to meet and interact. The survey of these activities allows us to observe certain tendencies in Uwano international activities.

Educating Japanese Residents: Focus on English Exposure Among the activities for Japanese residents’ international education, English study was the most frequently held activity at Netpia. The association offered two or more short English courses (weekly, over five to eight weeks) for adults and monthly sessions for preschoolers and

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kindergarteners simultaneously. Also, four groups of advanced English learners and a group of parents of small children gathered at Netpia with native speaker instructors. Other activities also embed English education within them. For example, in 1998, about 25 preschool-age children and their parents came to the annual Halloween party, and went around to booths designed for Halloween activities, such as jack-o’-lantern carving, and games, and were taught relevant English words such as face parts for jack-o’-lantern by three JET teachers and about ten Japanese volunteer members. Later, children went into four rooms for trick or treating, where they were taught to say “trick or treat,” “thank you,” and, “bye bye.” Easter and Christmas parties similarly involved English education and exposure to traditional practices. The frequency of Netpia activities with English education components is a reflection of the Japanese residents’ interests. International activities with the opportunities to be exposed to authentic English could attract participants. Indeed, for many, the interest in improving English ability was the determinant factor for participation in international activities. “I would not dare to talk to a foreigner who may not speak Japanese,” said, Mrs. Tada who in her sixties, and has never participated in Netpia international events. On the contrary, her daughter Michi, who had been taking English lessons, was becoming a regular at Netpia, and actively participated in Netpia international events. Another Netpia regular, Seiko, in her early 30s, continued taking English courses offered by Netpia and became good friends with the instructors, with whom she frequently went out to shop or to play racquet ball. She said, “my world widens, when I talk to people from different cultures. Their cultures are different from mine, but we find similarities as we discuss deeply.” Mr. Yamada, in his forties, and one of the vice presidents of the Uwano International Relations Association, was fluent in English, visited Netpia regularly, and invited JET teachers to various outings, such as drinking at shot bars, karaoke, grocery stores that carry international food, and local scenic sites. He feels comfortable in the foreign residents’ community because he can ignore the need to conform to typical Japanese behavioral patterns. While the Netpia community consisted largely of those who are or want to be English speakers, and the Netpia activities often catered to interest in English improvement, activities promoting the learning of other international themes were held regularly, although less frequently. World School was such an event, where foreign residents in the city created booths for the culture they represented and explained the selected topics in


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their cultures to 50 fifth and sixth graders. In 1998, 27 presenters represented ten different countries. Twelve English teachers made presentations of American, Canadian, English, Australian, Mexican, and Samoan cultures, while 12 foreign wives created Chinese, Filipino, and Mexican, and Ecuadorian booths. A researcher and agricultural trainees from Indonesia also had a booth. As students went around, they were introduced to Filipino bamboo jumping, Australian boomerangs, Samoan traditional dancing, the American Twister game, as well as general facts such as the currency and a few greeting words in those societies. Other events for introducing foreign cultures to Japanese residents included Chinese language lessons ethnic cooking lessons, and an international market.

Helping Foreign Residents: Western versus Non-Western Foreign residents Every Tuesday night, Netpia became the classrooms for Japanese language lessons for two hours. Students could take the lessons with a professionally trained instructor, Ms. Sato, for a monthly fee of 1000 yen (about $8). Usually five to ten students came to the lessons. Foreign wives, followed by JET teachers, and Indonesian agricultural trainees, represented the majority of learners. Learning needs varied greatly among the learners. Most foreign wives could carry daily Japanese conversations comfortably, and wanted to focus on developing reading skills for understanding written materials from their children’s schools. Some newly arrived JET teachers were truly beginners in Japanese language, while other JET teachers with advanced Japanese skills wanted to prepare for the annual Japanese proficiency tests. One to six Japanese volunteers always joined the lessons to assist Ms. Sato, enabling instruction in small groups according to learning needs. Ms. Sato and a volunteer, Ms. Kimura, viewed the lessons not only as the site for language instruction, but also as caring communities for foreign wives. Those foreign wives, they said, who were brought to Japanese families through go-betweens with little information about their husbands and their families, went through significant adjustments. Domestic conflicts stemming from difficulties of communication, and cultural differences (e.g., child rearing practices, cooking) were frequent. Therefore, Ms. Sato and Ms. Kimura wished to provide a site for the foreign wives to let out their frustration while providing a sympathetic ear. Ms. Sato and Ms. Kimura often compared the situations of foreign wives with Westerners, whom they described as megumareteiru (fortunate),

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being well taken care of by their employers, colleagues, and communities. Ms. Sato and Ms. Kimura felt that kokusai ko–ryu– should prioritize the wellbeing of foreign wives rather than Westerners since the former outnumbered the latter and were going to be the permanent residents and mothers of future generation of the city. Ms. Kimura also called Westerners hitoyose panda—giant panda bears for attracting audiences—to international activities. She lamented the fact that the non-Western foreign residents received significantly less invitations to international events and thus had fewer opportunities to get involved in the community, compared to Westerners who were often invited as special guests. The events where non-Western foreign residents played vital roles, such as the World School and ethnic cooking lessons, were limited in number. Also the events open to all foreign residents, such as an excursion to a Zen temple to taste Sho–jin Ryo–ri (vegetarian dishes); a traditional doll making workshop; and calligraphy, were mostly attended by Western foreign residents.

Creating Interactions Between Japanese and Foreign Residents In order to create opportunities for interactions between Japanese and foreign residents, the association annually conducts three to five events that involve sports (e.g., tennis tournaments and ski trips), excursions (hot spring, mountain climbing), or music (concerts), in addition to various parties. In 1998, when Netpia held a bowling party, among 28 participants were four JET teachers, three Chinese wives and their Japanese husbands, two Indonesian agricultural trainees, and 18 Japanese residents. Japanese participants were mostly in their 20s to 30s, who often participated in other Netpia activities. In the roar of crashing bowling balls and pins, Japanese and foreign residents cheered one another, applauded spares and strikes, and encouraged one another before each turn. After the closing ceremony, however, the participants defaulted to small groups by ethnic background to chat for a while before going home. English dinners were held bimonthly in 1998 with 15 to 40 participants, mostly JET teachers and Japanese speakers and learners of English. The amount of interactions between JET and Japanese participants varied. Some JET teachers and Japanese participants stayed in their own groups, while a few JET teachers were surrounded by Japanese people. Considering the fact that many in both parties expressed a strong desire to get to know the members of other parties, the actual interaction between parties appeared limited. These examples show that the amount and depth of interaction among different ethnic groups at international events is often less than


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what participants desire, although a clearly defined interactional framework such as cheering during the bowling party can facilitate interactions. While these international events with both the foreign and Japanese participants were far from melting pot experiences, they offered meeting opportunities from which some have developed friendships.

Either In or Out While Netpia activities and its community have become part of their daily lives for some Uwano residents (especially for those who are interested in English conversation), for others Netpia remained remote. Ms. Fukuda, a day care director, thought that Netpia was “the place where foreigners get together” and thus felt she had no reason to visit there. Also, Mrs. Ohta, who had tried to invite others to join the association, said that many would hesitate because they believed that the membership would require certain qualifications, in particular English skills. Yoshiko told me that she saw a Caucasian person in down town Uwano trying to talk to people, who all went away without responding to him. Hearing that, her friend, Sanae added, “Nihonjin no honto no sugata” (“That is the real nature of Japanese people”), referring to the fundamental hesitation towards foreigners (in particular Caucasian people). While the pool of people who participated in Netpia international activities is fairly large, especially compared to other surrounding municipalities, the majority of the people in Uwano stayed outside of the internationalization efforts. In summary, the city of Uwano has fostered internationalization within the larger scope of facilitating in-community communication by providing the infrastructure of physical space, organization, and manpower. The association’s activities have been enriched involving a greater number of participants. At the same time, there are certain tendencies about which some feel the need for improvement, such as concentration on the English language, English speakers, Western residents, and a less than desired amount of interethnic group communication.

Discussion Ideology and Reality of Internationalization in Aoba In Aoba, internationalization represented the town’s vision for the future. In the midst of a transition from a depopulation period to the introduction of large-scale industrialization, the town sought a new identity.

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The ideal new identity represented the town in terms of notions of progressiveness and energy—internationalization was the answer to this. Since internationalization was becoming recognized as a necessary trait for Japanese society and local communities to maintain their vitality, Aoba’s formal internationalization efforts would put the town at the cutting-edge of nationwide community initiatives. On seeing this possibility, the town leaders rigorously built a town identity focused on internationalization around exchanges with partner cities. Aoba’s focus on the partner city relationships was the result of various factors. First, international partner city relationships have a strong symbolic impact, which automatically raised local residents’ awareness of Aoba’s engagements in international relationships within and outside of the town. Second, without significant existing communication with other countries or many foreign residents who could be instrumental in attempts to internationalize (there were ten or fewer foreign residents until 1989), exchange with partner cities was perhaps the most feasible and effective way to generate internationalization of the town. Third, exchanges with partner cities allowed substantial prearrangements, such as preparing enough participants and activity frameworks, which helped to prevent the awkwardness that may arise from the lack of international experiences. The novel construct of internationalization was introduced to town residents as an element of the existing framework of life-long education (see Traphagan 2000). The integration was perhaps necessary for the new and unfamiliar construct to be accepted by town residents comfortably. To residents, who had typically had very little international experiences, the new town theme of internationalization was neither naturally comprehensible nor easy to participate in. By embracing internationalization in the existing, well-accepted ideological framework, town officials strategically made the internationalization idea and structures simply an addition to a familiar discourse. The processes of generating frameworks to pursue internationalization in Aoba reveals complex negotiations with various ideologies and realities. There were existing local realities, such as depopulation, pressing needs for revitalizing the town, a general lack of history of international experiences, and success in creating a town identity through the theme of life-long education. Internationalization formed one means to deal with problematic realities (depopulation and need for town revitalization), and it was carefully crafted in a way that embraced existing conditions and ideologies. The international partner-cities centered approach was a strategy to generate internationalization in the context where international transac-


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tions have been traditionally lacking. The framework of life-long learning formed a context in which government leaders could plant the unfamiliar concept of internationalization in a familiar discourse. At the time of my fieldwork, the internationalization efforts in Aoba were facing another need to negotiate its ideology with existing reality. The life-long education philosophy, in which the internationalization was integrated, emphasizes personal growth. Hence, in this framework, it is necessary for each individual to learn through participation in international exchange activities. The dominant form of Aoba’s internationalization, which is based on the town government’s strong initiative focusing on exchanges with partner cities, is, however, conducive to neither transformation into grassroots-level activities nor frequent opportunities for international experiences by a large number of town residents. While those who had opportunities to participate in Aoba’s exchange activities felt the significance of their experiences, the number of the participants and frequency of the events were limited. In fact, those who wished to have frequent opportunities for international experiences in Aoba often attended Netpia activities in Uwano. The difficulties of transforming the internationalization ideal to a resident’s personal educational experience was recognized by town officials and the leaders of the international association, as well as the need to increase communication with foreign residents in town. But these issues remained unresolved as I concluded my fieldwork in 2003.

Ideology and Reality of Internationalization in Uwano Unlike Aoba, Uwano’s efforts for internationalization were motivated by the need to meet the increasing demands for international transactions and activities, which the existing structure could no longer handle. Therefore, Uwano did not have to find resources for international activities outside of the community. Rather, Uwano’s internationalization ideology points to facilitation of communication among in-community residents, with the conscious decision not to form any formal international partner city relationship. For the facilitation of incommunity international exchanges, government officials decided to provide the facilitative infrastructure of space (Netpia), organization (subsidy for the association), and staff members (staff salary). While the existing differences in conditions of international transactions led to different approaches between Aoba and Uwano, it should be emphasized that these municipalities deliberately looked for unique ways in which to express and implement internationalization.

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As with the case of Aoba, Uwano’s case exhibited ongoing negotiation with existing realities and ideologies at the time of my fieldwork. Certain issues became more conspicuous than in the case of Aoba, due to Uwano’s focus on in-community interactions. First, the issues related to the well-being of the foreign residents and their integration to the local community were frequently raised as concerns around Netpia. While incommunity interactions were facilitated actively in different forms, there was also awareness that existing activities were not enough and did not solve their problems fundamentally. The activities that revolve around the events do not touch the core of their lives, but how much and in what way the association can or should get into foreign residents’ (in particular foreign wives’) personal lives to improve their well-being has not yet been sorted out. Issues about the nature and quality of international activities also have come up in Uwano. The conspicuousness of English learning in many of the activities raises the question of how to balance the exposure to different cultures and people’s interests. Furthermore, the amount and depth of interactions in the activities for communications between Japanese and foreign residents show that the provision of international opportunities alone may not be sufficient to foster meaningful interactions. Moreover, event-driven activities attract only those who are already interested, leaving most of those who have little or no international experiences uninvolved. The activities in Uwano have gone through the stage where international activities meant simply carrying out various events, and are reaching the stage where the assessment of what is actually achieved towards the goal of in-community international communication is necessary.

Cultural Styles in Implementing Internationalization Aoba and Uwano’s approaches for implementing internationalization exhibit substantial differences, thereby clearly revealing significant diversity in the processes of crafting new movements even in geographically close communities. The examination of the cases of these municipalities, however, also reveals that both municipalities attend similar areas to work on but they took different expressions in those areas. In this sense, we can observe cohesiveness and the uniqueness between the communities in Kitasawa simultaneously. The first area of similarity is that both Aoba and Uwano became active in their internationalization efforts around the same time. The influence of nationally increasing interests in internationalization, and local demands to


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deal with increasing ethnic diversity and to vitalize the communities all pointed to the benefit of the internationalization efforts in all communities. Therefore, other municipalities in Kitasawa also formed international partnerships and founded international associations around the same time. Yet, Aoba and Uwano’s approach to internationalization was distinctively different from the beginning—partner city based as opposed to in-community interaction based. Municipal officials and residents are acutely aware of the differences, and each confidently asserted that their approaches were wellsuited to both their community and internationalization goals. Second, in both municipalities, the governments took initiatives in the internationalization efforts, but the degree and approaches of their involvement differed. In Aoba, the government’s initiative has been the dominant form of operating international activities from the beginning until the present. In Uwano, the government founded the international association, which is now the central agent for international activities. While Aoba also envisioned grassroots level initiatives, the transition of administrative power from the government was much slower than Uwano, due to its partner city centered approach. Third, in both Aoba and Uwano, the governments strategically used certain symbolic forms to exhibit their engagements in internationalization and their directions. In Aoba, the successive formation of partner city relationships symbolically exhibited its dedication to partner city based internationalization efforts. Furthermore, with the Declaration for the International Exchange of Peace, internationalization obtained the official status as the town’s title that was printed on the town’s business cards and envelopes. In Uwano, the Netpia building itself symbolically embodied its engagements with the facilitation of in-community international communication. These symbolic forms represent both governments’ “form–framework first” approach. Creating the form–framework necessitated the activities to follow, thereby producing the momentum to pursue internationalization efforts in the direction the governments set. Fourth, in disseminating the ideology of internationalization, both governments used existing frameworks. In Aoba, the government integrated the new concept of internationalization in the familiar framework of life-long education. In Uwano, the government captured the international exchanges as one form of in-community communication. In both cases, they defined the international exchanges as one variety of the activities that have been long familiar to the residents. In so doing, they presented international exchanges as not being intimidating or overwhelming to the residents, most of whom had little significant international experiences.

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Finally, while the processes of creating and disseminating ideological framework and crafting symbolic precedence of internationalization efforts were smooth in both Aoba and Uwano, they have hit the wall of grassroots participation in several ways. Japanese participants in international activities were limited to certain repeaters who were often English speakers. Also, on the foreign residents’ side, the JET teachers played the major roles, and insufficient participation by the long-term foreign residents, such as foreign wives, has been recognized as a problem. Moreover, the administration of internationalization has not easily transferred to grassrootslevel participation. In Aoba, the government still held dominant control of the town’s internationalization, despite the fact that government officials were hoping that the government-initiated activities would be gradually taken over by the residents. In Uwano, the association’s autonomous status was quickly established as the association developed methodological resources and a rigorous activity program. Yet international activities are planned and operated by Ms. Shimizu, the association’s staff member hired by the city government, in collaboration with some core association members, and the other residents’ participation was limited. Aoba and Uwano’s internationalization efforts show one pattern of community modernization. It is characterized by government initiatives and strategic approaches to bring in and move forward new, unfamiliar concepts. For example, Aoba and Uwano promoted internationalization by creating symbolic precedence, and embracing the ideology of internationalization in the familiar discourse of community activities. The modernization processes, as observed in internationalization of Aoba and Uwano, are also characterized by difficulties in the transfer to meaningful engagements by a large number of individuals: some quickly jump onto the new phenomena, while many others are left behind. Under the umbrella of internationalization, we saw the various dimensions in which different communities found different expressions: purpose of international activities (Japanese residents’ English education and exposure to different cultures, well-being of foreign residents, and communication between Japanese and foreign residents); form of activities (partner city exchanges, in-community communication, event-driven, etc.); and agents (government, associations, individual), among others. In summary, what we observed in Kitasawa is the negotiation of these stereotypically traditional and rural communities with the new ideas and activities associated with modernity. Their approaches are distinctively original and unique, and yet deeply anchored in the existing discourses of local reality, thereby crafting their own expression of cultural styles.


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Notes This study was supported by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Grant from the US Department of Education, a Research Development Grant from the University of Pittsburgh Japanese Studies program, and Research grant from the University of Texas Mitsubishi fund. All the proper nouns, such as names of individuals and places were changed to protect the individuals. The place names in the reference entries were also changed. 1. The JET program is a Japanese national government program, started in 1987, that posts college graduates from mainly Western countries to public secondary schools as assistant language (mostly English) teachers and in local government offices throughout Japan. The program has been rapidly expanding. The number of foreign participants doubled the initial target of 3000 by 1999. 2. According to the statistics as of September 1, 1998, slightly over 60,000 people lived in Uwano-city, the most populated municipality in Kitasawa. The population of Hirose-city was about 34,000. The three towns were all with similar population sizes between 15,000 and 18,000. The village of Hirasawa was populated with about 5,400 people (“Kitasawa Chiho– [Kitasawa Area],” 1998). 3. The ratio of residents between 20 and 29 years old in Kitasawa decreased to 9.3% by 1990. It has, however, increased to 9.9% by 1995. This pattern of population movement is consistent with the nationwide trend. That is, the nationwide population shift to metropolitan areas that started around 1960 has slowed down since late 1990s (Asahi Shimbun 1999). 4. Any non-Japanese persons who stay in Japan for more than ninety days are required to register at their municipal offices (Tanaka 1995). The number of foreigners who stay in the area for a shorter period or without registration is, therefore, not included. In fact, I was informed that Chinese workers hired at a local company and their families, whose estimated number was 50 to 100, were not registered. 5. Nationalities of the most common foreign residents in Kitasawa roughly correspond to that nationwide. In 2000, foreign residents in Japan are most commonly from Korea (38%), China (20%), Brazil (15%) and Philippines (9%), representing 81% of the entire foreign population in Japan (Asahi Shimbun 2001). 6. The rapid increase of foreign wives from the Philippines and China is a nationwide phenomenon. International marriages between foreign wives and Japanese husbands increased more than five times in the past two decades (from 4386 in 1980 to 24,272 in 1999). In 1999, the cases of marriages between wives from the Philippines or China and Japanese husbands amounted to half (45%) of all international marriages in Japan (based on the data in Asahi Shimbun 2001). Furthermore, Tanaka (1995) points out that international marriages in 1993 are 3.4% of all marriages while the registered foreign residents are 1% of the population in Japan, suggesting that relatively many foreign individuals come to Japan for marriage. Also, Kasuga (1993) shows that the ratio of foreign spouses to the all registered foreign residents has rapidly increased from 4% in 1984 to 12% in 1990.

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7. Other foreign residents are from New Zealand (5 persons), Russia (5), Great Britain (5). Australia (3), Vietnam (3), ), Belgium (1), Ecuador (1), Italy (1), Mexico (1), Singapore (1), and Thailand (1). 8. At the end of WWII, over two million Koreans were in Japan (Tanaka 1995). In 1950, 95% of the six hundred thousand registered foreign residents in Japan were Koreans (Tanaka 1995). In 2000, 38% (more than 630,000) of foreign residents were Koreans, many of whom were the second, third, and fourth generations in Japan. (In 1993, 85% of all Korean residents in Japan were tokubetsu eiju– sha (special permanent residents) who are the descendents of Koreans brought to Japan before the end of WWII.) 9. There are 13 cities (with a population of 30,000 or more), 31 towns (usually with a population between 10,000 and 30,000) and 18 villages (with a population less than 10,000) in the prefecture. 10. The exchange activities included: (a) sending and inviting government officials for discussing future exchange activities (Anjin and Greensville), (b) exchanging government officials for international training for two months to a year (Anjin and Greensville), (c) exchanging high-school students (Greensville), (d) organizing a trip of 15 to 30 Aoba middle school students annually (Greensville), (e) organizing adult group trips (Anjin and Greensville), (f ) sending and inviting sports and performing arts groups (Anjin and Greensville), (g) exchanging elementary and junior high school students’ art works (Anjin), (h) inviting Taichi and Chinese medicine instructors and hosting agricultural interns from Anjin, and (i) exchanging articles for the town or city newsletters (Aoba Town 2001). 11. However, the position for the American has been filled by an Englishspeaking Japanese staff member since 1997.

References Aoba Town. 1995a. Aoba-cho– Kokusai Ko– ryu– no Machi suishin kihon keikakusho [Aoba town proposal for promotion of international exchange town]. Aoba Town (General Affairs Division [So– mu-Ka]). 1995b. Ko– ho– Aoba: Heisei 7. September issue. Aoba Town (General Affairs Division [So– mu-Ka]). 1995c. Ko– ho– Aoba: Heisei 7. November issue. Aoba Town. 2001. Aoba-cho– Kokusai Ko– ryu– no Machi suishin kihon keikakusho [Aoba town proposal for promotion of international exchange town]. Aoba International Exchange Association. 2001a. Heisei 13nendo Jigyo– Ho– kokusho [2001 Activity Report]. Aoba International Exchange Association. 2001b. Heisei 13nendo Aoba-cho– Kokusai Ko– ryu– Kyo– kai Shu– shi Kessan Kansakai [2001 Aoba International Exchange Association Settlements of Accounts Audit Meeting]. Asahi Shimbun. 1999. Asahi Shimbun Japan Almanac 1999. Tokyo: Author. Asahi Shimbun. 2001. Asahi Shimbun Japan Almanac 2002. Tokyo: Author. Hirose City (Planning and Adjustment Division). 1998. Ko– ho– Hirose: Shisei shiko– 40


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shu– nen tokubetsu go– [Hirose Newsletter: City government fortieth anniversary special issue]. Iwate Prefecture. 2001. Gaikokujin To– rokushasu– no Uchiwake [Breakdowns of the number of registered foreigners]. Miyamori, Japan: Author. Iwate Prefecture Environment and Health Division. 1990. Eisei nenpo– : jinko– do– tai [Health annual report: Population movement]. Miyamori, Japan: Author. Jichitai Kokusaika Kyo– kai (Association for Internationalization of Municipalities). 2001. Shimai Jichitai no Katsudo– Gaikyo– 2000 [The general conditions of activities of sister municipalities 2000]. Tokyo: Author. Kasuga, K. 1993. Gaikokujin hanayome to chiho– jichitai [Foreign brides and local municipalities]. Gendai no Esupuri [Lésprit Dáujourdhui] Tokyo: Shibundo. Kitasawa chiho– no jinko– suikei: Yamato-cho– no nobi medatsu [Estimated population of Kitasawa area: Conspicuous increase in Yamato-town]. (1998, October 3) Kitasawa Nichinichi, p. 1. McConnell, J. V. 2000. Importing Diversity: Inside Japan’s JET Program. Berkeley: University of California Press. Meguro, Y., K. Ishihara, S. Kitamura, and H. Watanabe. 1988. Kokusaika Jidai no Hitozukiai [Interpersonal Relationships in the Internationalization Age]. Tokyo: Keizaikikaku-cho– , kokuminseitatsu-kyoku. Neustupny, D. L. 1982. Gaikokujin to no Komyunike–shon [Communication with Foreigners]. Tokyo: Chu– o– Ko– ron sha. Shiba, R., and D. Keene. 1996. Sekai no Naka no Nihon [Japan within the World]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Siegal, M. 1994. Looking East: Learning Japanese as a Second Language in Japan and the Interaction of Race, Gender and Social Context. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of California at Berkeley. Tanaka, H. 1995. Zainichi gaikokujin [Foreign residents in Japan]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Toshi Seicho– ryoku Rankingu [City Growth Ranking]. (1998, October 21). Kitasawa Nichinichi, p. 1. Traphagan, John W. 2000. Taming Oblivion: Aging Bodies and the Fear of Senility in Japan. Albany: State University of New York Press. Watanabe, F., ed. 1992. Kokusaika to ibunkakyo– iku [internationalization and intercultural education] [Special issue]. Gendai no Esupuri [Lésprit Dáujourdhui] Tokyo: Shibundo. ———. 1993. Ibunkakan konfurikuto manejimento [intercultural conflict management] [Special issue]. Gendai no Esupuri [Lésprit Dáujourdhui] Tokyo: Shibundo. Yano, T. 1986. Kokusaika no Imi [Meaning of Internationalization]. Tokyo: NHK Books.

Chapter 6

Preserving the Ochiai Deer Dance Tradition and Continuity in a To– hoku Hamlet Christopher S. Thompson

We must find a way to make shishi odori (the deer dance) in Ochiai simultaneously rural, urban, traditional, modern, and international because that’s what being Japanese has become. —53 year old To– wa-cho– folk performance practitioner

Introduction Long before Japan’s rural nostalgia boom began during the 1970s (Creighton 1997; Kelly 1986; Knight 1994a; Robertson 1991), the preservation of local minzoku geino– (folk performance arts) was a serious concern among municipal residents throughout Japan who feared that their grassroots folk traditions and cultural histories would be forfeited to modernity during the postwar period (Ivy 1995; Morse 1990; van Bremen and Martinez 1995). While a national preoccupation with preserving tradition during the last 30 years has helped to protect many local folk performance genres, in the last decade, the nation’s economic recession, ageing expert practitioners, a declining pool of capable successors, and a new round of government directives has caused the topic of folk performance preservation to resurface with new fervor, particularly in geographical regions furthest from Japan’s TokyoOsaka metropolitan corridor (Tsubohari 1999). During the latter part of the 20th century, nowhere has folk performance preservation received more serious attention locally than in the rural townships of Japan’s To– hoku (north-

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east) region. In this chapter, I examine one community of To– hoku folk performers trying to preserve their local heritage amid the multiple currents that fashion Japan’s postindustrial milieu. As Japan has come to maturity as a postindustrial nation, the revival of traditional performances at the local level have become a popular identitybuilding tool fueling Japan’s nostalgia for an idealized past, thought to embody the fundamental cultural principles of what it means to be Japanese. Most municipalities now proudly boast at least one local minzoku geino– tradition, sometimes called kyo–do geino– (hometown performing arts). Some communities have even created new ones where none had existed before (Robertson 1991). This phenomenon has often been explained as a local response to the centralization and homogenization of Japanese middle-class culture (Bestor 1989; Robertson 1985; Schnell 1997). However, such portrayals don’t adequately convey the full extent of what is going on in all of Japan’s local communities, especially those located in the nation’s sociopolitical periphery quite disparate from the nation’s urban mainstream. As the state’s postwar decentralization policies have placed a special emphasis on showcasing originality and uniqueness at the local level (see chapter 1), it has become more important than ever to consider traditional performance preservation not just as a local reaction to topdown state policies or the result of macro-level cultural, economic, or demographic influences, but also from the viewpoint of its rural practitioners as a grassroots level social process. Historically, studies of minzoku geino– have focused on sanctity, ritual, and performance (Averbuch 1995; Honda 1960; Minakata 1971; Yanagita 1970). But more recently, scholars have examined the contemporary sociocultural purpose, place, and significance of folk performances in community life (Bestor 1985; Knight 1994b; Schnell 1999; van Bremen and Martinez 1995). Using historical analysis and ethnographic data, this chapter takes the latter approach to examine more closely how and why shishi odori is being sustained by local residents in Ochiai, a rapidly depopulating agricultural hamlet of 160 residents located in To– wa-cho– , a municipality in south central Iwate prefecture.1 To– hoku depopulation and the consequent socioeconomic struggles experienced by its many farm communities during Japan’s postwar farm crisis are well-known (Bailey 1991; Hashimoto 1989; Shimpo– 1976; Thompson 2003; Traphagan 2000a). The lack of young people, the scarcity of good jobs, and the question of how to care for the needs of increasing numbers of the elderly, while carrying on their treasured folk lifeways, is an everyday concern. In recent years, these factors have been magnified by declining birth rates locally as experienced nationwide. In Ochiai, there are no longer enough residents to perform shishi odori, which has served as a

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signature of the collective for over two hundred years. But instead of accepting the demise of their local folk tradition, Ochiai residents are recreating shishi odori and its associated practices to fit modern circumstances. What is happening to shishi odori in Ochiai is a lesser known, but equally significant, renegotiation of local power between residential districts and their municipalities. In the postwar period, this reconfiguration stems from national economic policy changes that began during the 1970s, aimed at shifting the burden of rural development from Tokyo to the countryside. As a result of Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei’s proposal to remodel Japan in the early 1970s, and furusato zukuri (hometown making) initiatives that were the cornerstone of Japanese cultural policy during the Nakasone and Takeshita administrations in the 1980s, the state began giving local governments unprecedented freedom to manage their own affairs (Robertson 1991). With this freedom, however, came the burden of fiscal responsibility as well as liability, which has forever changed the way folk performance arts are situated at the local level in Japan (Thompson 2002, 2003). Since the late 1990s, the managerial freedom and fiscal responsibility for cultural preservation initiatives passed down to cities, towns, and villages earlier in the decade have been consigned to residential districts and neighborhood associations as well. For the most highly ranked cultural performance traditions, the state continues to offer special dispensations. In most urban areas, folk performers solicit corporate sponsorships and cultivate fund-raising opportunities using private sector contacts and media resources to make up for funding no longer available from local government sources. In farming municipalities like To– wa-cho– , located away from urban resources where community cash flow is tight, the administrative support and financial aid for grassroots level heritage preservation, once available through the local town hall, must now be supplemented significantly (and in some cases replaced altogether) by local residents. As a lead into folk performance preservation in Ochiai, this chapter offers an introduction to Japan’s folk performance tradition from a grassroots point of view. A description of the deer dance, and a discussion of shishi odori’s secular and religious symbolism, its origin, and its role and function in Ochiai life follow. Next, I describe the political economy of postwar change in the hamlet, and analyze how Ochiai has maintained cultural stability socially and financially despite the economic instability of folk performance preservation in contemporary Japan. Finally, I present the most recent strategies implemented by community leaders who have problematized the preservation of shishi odori by constructing what Anthony Cohen calls a symbolic community (1995) to counter the many challenges imposed by modernity upon their To– hoku hamlet.


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A detailed investigation of shishi odori in Ochiai reveals that the organizational structure of and motivation to perform the deer dance has changed significantly during the postwar period. As shown, however, this modification is not contrary to shishi odori history, but is actually part of a continual transformation process that has characterized the deer dance throughout its lengthy existence. Shishi odori was never an exclusively local or rural practice. It was brought to Ochiai via an ongoing syncretism of international and domestic, secular and religious influences that continue to shape and are shaped by its evolutionary development, performance community, and local circumstances. Like many grassroots level folk performance genres, the Ochiai Shishi Odori tradition is dynamic, not static. The chapter demonstrates that shishi odori has persisted within To– hoku culture not because it has successfully resisted modification, but precisely because its practitioners have tied it intimately to the parameters of social change. Ultimately, I argue that shishi odori and other kyo–do geino– enjoying a resurgence in To– hoku townships are experiencing an era of newfound popularity not because these folk traditions mirror the past, but because as a countermeasure to contemporary societal changes, they link the past meaningfully to the future by helping those associated with its practice to transcend the outmoded boundaries of hometown folk performance in the present.2

Shishi Odori and Folk Performance in Japan To fully understand shishi odori in Ochiai, it is important to situate this folk performance within the broader study of dento– geino– (traditional performing arts) in Japan. Scholars of dento– geino– recognize an extremely diverse range of Japanese folk performance types that can be classified into many subgroups (Honda 1960; Kawada 1989; Morse 1990; Nitobe 1912). Minzoku geino– (folk performance arts) is one variety of dento– geino–. The most basic forms of minzoku geino– include performances connected with Shinto and Buddhist rites, with aspects of rice agriculture, and with the exorcism of malevolent spirits as well as folk versions of courtly or city-based performing arts such as noh, kabuki, or bunraku. Most forms of minzoku geino– did not originate where they are currently performed, but were brought to these areas where they gradually became acclimated as an integral part of the local culture. Shishi odori in Ochiai is a prime example of this pattern (Befu 1971; Honda 1960). Most minzoku geino– occur annually, or as part of observances held at regular intervals. Patron, audience, and performers alike are usually local inhabitants. Performers usually do not earn their livelihood from performing. Most Japanese folk performances such as shishi odori are related to local

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folk beliefs and seasonal celebrations and have a close connection to a specific farming lifestyle. Local residents often refer to the performing arts in their hometown collectively as kyo–do geino– (hometown performing arts), a term that implies a more personal (nostalgic) connection to the specific performances situated in a particular local. This term is also used by scholars and patrons alike to capture the meaning and significance of the folk tradition from a local point of view (Honda 1960). It is difficult to determine how much faith is involved in the performance of shishi odori and other kyo–do geino–. While there is no doubt that in premodern times, religious belief was more influential in informing the worldview and motivation of the performer, as we will see, postindustrial society provides many other incentives to perform. In most communities, local performances are considered a demonstration of a district’s rich cultural heritage. High quality performances at shrine festivals and cultural events can lead to various onetime allotments of “preservation funding” and public recognition as a valuable cultural asset by state authorities, providing the troupe with a measure of status. Official designation as a cultural asset at the local or prefectural level can also result in permanent annual funding to the troupe’s support organization. Obviously, performances are also useful as commercial or tourist attractions. Because of its local popularity, Shishi odori in Ochiai, like the many folk performance traditions that exist in the farming hamlets of the To– hoku region, is a kyo–do geino– that is well-positioned to attract attention. In part because of its historical continuity, its unconventionality, and continued popularity within Iwate, even today, shishi odori is a highly touted kyo–do geino– in Ochiai. The importance of shishi odori in the hamlet is celebrated clearly by artistic renditions of deer dancers on decorative billboards, stone monuments, and a special mosaic built into the retaining wall on the inside curve of the community’s main thoroughfare. The guardrail hugging the outside of that curve features a shishi odori design that is seen only when rounding the bend in a car. These community accessories were created using municipal subsidies during the 1980s and early 1990s when hometown preservation funds seemed abundant.

Ochiai Shishi Odori in Practice Up to and during WWII, shishi odori performers danced house-tohouse in Ochiai during the spring planting season, in midsummer during All Souls Day,3 and during New Year festivities, to chant prayers and perform rituals designed to ward off evil by activating the nurturing


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power of ancestral spirits. In a typical performance, six to twelve dancers enact a parable while chanting Buddhist prayers to a coordinated drum beat that incorporates a range of ritualistic movements expressed through the anthropomorphic behaviors of deer in their natural habitat thought to mediate the real and spiritual worlds (see fig. 6.1).4 In the old days, the head priest of the local Kumano Shrine managed the ritual and the troupe, arranging house calls for special events such as protective blessings, births, funerals, and exorcisms. The entire shrine parish supported shishi odori by supplying performers, maintaining costumes and equipment, contributing financially, and by attending performances. Today, Ochiai Shishi Odori continues to perform at seasonal and celebratory occasions, but has adjusted its venues and symbolic content in accordance to postwar demands.

Fig. 6.1. In a typical shishi odori performance, six to twelve dancers mediate between the real and spiritual world by dancing a parable to a drum beat while chanting Buddhist prayers. Eight performers are shown here. (Author’s photo.)

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Shishi odori is a complex fusion of many influences. For most Japanese, the term shishi (which has a multitude of homonyms) congers up images of shishi mai, the lion dance well-known in most parts of Japan. But for residents of To– hoku, shishi odori is a deer dance. Within this anomaly lies an important historical connection between the term shishi (derived originally from Chinese), the lion dance (originally Hindu),5 and the significance of the deer in Japanese indigenous thought. The lion dance as practiced in Japan was introduced from China in the seventh century as a part of Gigaku (ancient masked drama), adopted from the continental mainland by Japan’s Imperial Court. In India and China, the lion is associated with prehistoric hunting practices and to this day its mask is paraded in religious processions as a magical means to purify spaces, heal disease, and expel demons. Historically in Japan, yamanokami (mountain god[s]), that predate the introduction of the Chinese lion, served a similar function as a collective ancestral spirit that takes on animal form (e.g. bear, boar, deer, snake, etc.). Interestingly, deer, often thought of as a Buddhist spiritual symbol, were used quite commonly in Japanese paintings, folk tales, and ritualistic practices hundreds of years prior to the seventh century as a symbolic representation of yamanokami and the collective of animal spirits that could mediate between the human and ancestral worlds.6 Japanese ethonologists and folk performance scholars believe it is very possible that the Chinese lion, its likeness in the form of a mask, its symbolism, and even its terminology, were adopted and assimilated into Japanese indigenous expressions of worship and belief (Averbuch 1989a). Given these associations, it is easy to understand how the term shishi, introduced to Japan as the name of an animal representative of the spiritual world, might have come to be associated with more than one creature, and rendered according to species only in writing.7 This homonymous relationship between lion, deer, wild boar, and other animals that symbolize yamanokami is reflected clearly in the physical appearance of shishi in the deer dance. This appearance represents well the complex process of creation and recreation that shishi odori has undergone as it has evolved as a folk practice through time. During the postwar period, shishi odori has manifested itself as a highly popular folk performance genre in Iwate and Miyagi prefectures, and is composed of troupes that represent several different performance schools. In Iwate alone, over 60 different shishi odori performance schools are currently registered with the prefectural folk performance association. Each school represents a certain performance style that portrays the rituals and parables it performs in original ways, accentuating certain move-


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ments over others. A troupe’s affiliation is usually indicated within the group’s official name as a prefix to the hometown location. Registered troupes perform locally, regionally, and on the national stage. Since the 1980s, international sister-city ties and a growing global appreciation for Japan’s traditional folk performance heritage have increased opportunities for overseas performances for many troupes. Today, as in the past, the shishi odori costume plays a crucial role in facilitating the ritual of the deer dance, and is a symbol of power and prosperity in Ochiai. It boasts an ominous-looking animal head equipped with antlers and a streaming black mane. Underneath the headgear, performers wear a black hanten (happy coat) and elaborately designed hakama (kimono pants) that feature bright circular designs finished in red, white, and blue and worn with matching tekko–, decorative hand coverings. White tabi (sock-like foot coverings) are worn with waraji (straw sandals) on the feet. Attached to a performer’s back is a bamboo frame that supports two sasara, thin, white, bamboo whisks measuring approximately 9 feet in length that, when shaken or touched to the ground, signal the presence of the gods. Add to this a large odori daiko (dancer’s drum), tied vertically to a performer’s waste, and specially weighted drum sticks for use in each hand, and the approximately 20-lb costume ensemble is finally complete. When fully outfitted, a dancer looks more like a monster than a deer (see fig. 6.2). It is surprising that, while sporting antlers, a long neck, and hoofs, the shishi head and accompanying decorative drape resembles a lion. A senior member of Ochiai’s shishi odori troupe once explained this apparent blend of Shinto (deer) and Buddhist (lion) symbolism by exclaiming, “This look reflects the shishi odori tradition!” As the senior performer attests, until the Meiji period (1868–1912), Shinto and Buddhist rituals were fused in popular practice. As many scholars have pointed out (Befu 1971; Ketelaar 1990), religions have historically not been regarded as mutually exclusive in Japan, the concept of deity often combining elements derived from more than one belief system. As Buddhism was introduced during the sixth century, it was typically blended with indigenous beliefs to the extent that people worshipped deities of different religions without any feelings of conflict. It was even typical to enshrine deities of different religions in the same edifice—for example, erecting a temple on the premises of a Shinto Shrine. The priests of one religion frequently officiated at the ceremonies of another. In fact, the relatively clear-cut distinction between Shintoism and Buddhism today didn’t occur until the beginning of the modern period when the Meiji government insisted on separating the two. At this time, the multiple indigenous

Fig. 6.2. Its ominous-looking animal head equipped with antlers and a streaming black mane causes a shishi odori performer to look more like a monster than a deer. (Author’s photo.)


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theologies of spirit worship were institutionalized as a national religion under the rubric of Shintoism with the emperor as its high priest. Buddhism, while continuing to strongly influence customs and beliefs in everyday life, remained sectarian. But in many local areas around Japan, the folk traditions of the premodern past persist. Even today, elements of Shinto–Buddhist fusion are quite common in architecture, symbolism, and ritualistic practice (Befu 1971; Grapard 1984). Shishi odori is a product of this kind of cross-cultural and interreligious syncretism that occurred throughout Japan and in the To– hoku region over hundreds of years. In the premodern world, Buddhism in Japan emphasized ancestor worship and addressed issues related to the family, while Shintoism catered to community affairs. Shishi odori rituals continue to address both.

The Origin of Ochiai Shishi Odori There is no agreement among scholars regarding the precise origin of shishi odori in Japan. However, there is clearer historical evidence regarding how it was introduced to the To– hoku region.8 According to the most prominent theory, shishi odori was created in the year 951 by a Buddhist priest named Ku– ya Sho– nin who enjoyed watching the playful deer near his meditation site in Mt. Hiei (near Kyoto). One day, Ku– ya is said to have witnessed the merciless slaying of a buck in his favorite herd by hunters. Deeply grieved at the loss, he is reported to have performed the first deer dance with local villagers as a nembutsu (prayer to Amida Buddha) ritual to comfort its spirit. Ku– ya passed the shishi odori ritual on to his disciples who developed it further at Kasuga Taisha (shrine) in Nara (Japan’s capital at the time) where the dance become quite prominent around the year 1000.9 The rituals and parables performed in shishi odori were brought north to Oshu– (a designation for the region including present day Iwate prefecture used since the Taika Reform in 645)10 in 1094 by the Fujiwara family who tried to establish a new national capital in Hiraizumi near the present day city of Esashi. Many Fujiwara retainers were trained to perform shishi odori in their native Kyoto, and spread the dance to the villages they visited as their regime slowly controlled the region. Ochiai legend claims that hamlet priests have utilized shishi odori at shrine festivals and in the local community for over three hundred years, but specific evidence is lacking. Not much is known about the development of shishi odori from 1100 until the beginning of the Edo period in 1603. From 1850 onward, shishi odori was practiced widely in what is now north central Miyagi prefecture and southern, central, and coastal Iwate.11

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Historical records verify that two hundred years ago, shishi odori performers from Ochiai traveled southwest to Nara in central Japan on a pilgrimage to perform at Kasuga Shrine where their performance style was originally founded. At this time, the shrine name, “Kasuga” was officially bestowed upon the troupe in recognition of representing the Kasuga style at such a high proficiency level. Since this visit to Nara in or around the year 1800, Ochiai’s shishi odori troupe has been known as Kasuga Ryu– (Kasuga style) Ochiai Shishi Odori.12 A stone marker at Ochiai’s Kumano Shrine commemorates this event, recording the return of the troupe from Nara in 1804.13 Town Hall records verify that shishi odori has been performed annually in Ochiai without interruption since this time (To– wa-cho– 2001). Ochiai’s Hidensho (document of hamlet secrets)14 authored during the late Edo period (1603–1868),15 outlines the original rituals and organization of Ochiai’s shishi odori tradition. According to this document, shishi odori performance was restricted solely to men born into one of the parish units centered around the Ochiai Kumano Shrine. Young men were drafted as shishi odori performers by the shrine priest as soon as they were old enough to dance, and served the parish for life. The households from which these performers were drawn gained status and prestige in the hamlet and were called upon to help support the financial burdens associated with maintaining the ritual. From the beginning, shishi odori in Ochiai was made up of a support community that included performers, facilitators, and patrons who sustained the shrine ritual socially and financially. Compared to other kyo–do geino– (hometown performing arts) in To– wa– cho, Ochiai’s shishi odori troupe is fortunate. In the neighboring hamlets of Narushima (Kanatsu Ryu– [style]) and in Taninai (Nambu Ryu– [style]), shishi odori died out just after World War II. But even when the three styles were prevalent, Ochiai’s shishi odori tradition had long ago established itself as the oldest.16 Few of To– wa-cho– ’s other kyo–do geino– can boast the same continuity or authenticity. The local kagura (Shinto shamanic dance)17 and onikembai (Shinto shamanic sword dance)18 traditions, which predate shishi odori, remain strong—thanks to what municipal funding remains and the town’s close proximity to Mt. Hayachine.19 However, hyakusho– odori (farmer’s dance) ningyo– kabuki (doll performances reenacting Edo period [1603–1868] Kabuki plays),20 and numerous other To– wa-cho– folk performance traditions, unable to adapt to contemporary circumstances, have long since faded from the local cultural performance scene. As a closed system, shishi odori fits nicely into the established anthropological models for understanding Japanese festival performance. Each parable reenacts communal history, affirms and reaffirms communal iden-


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tity, works as a rite of passage, and provides Ochiai residents with a vision of adulthood and a standard for maturity. Above all, the shishi odori performance creates a liminal space that promotes what Victor Turner calls “communitas.”21 But while the symbol systems embodied within the deer dance are important, the social and cultural dynamics of the performance community are less obvious yet perhaps even more significant.

Shishi Odori in Contemporary Ochiai With the emergence of a new state structure after WWII, and the amalgamation of Ochiai village into the newly formed municipality of To– wa-cho– in 1955, Ochiai’s prewar sociogeographic boundaries have become less and less pragmatic, and more and more symbolic. As Ochiai’s shrine parish community struggled for social and economic survival during this period, the new town hall administration, impressed by the troupe’s Kasuga Ryu– rating, invited Ochiai Shishi Odori to apply for designation as a mukei bunkazai (an intangible cultural asset). In an attempt to breath new life into the hamlet tradition, this credential was granted in 1957 with a budget to fund up to 50 percent of the annual costs required to maintain the basic equipment and minimal performance activities of the troupe. Local credentials paved the way for the founding of Kasuga Ryu– Ochiai Shishi Odori Hozonkai (Preservation Association) in 1967, and this association took over leadership of the troupe from the Ochiai Kumano Shrine, which had been without a resident priest for over 10 years. In 1974, a prefectural level designation made the troupe eligible for an additional 50 percent in state support. This enabled regular training and recruitment activities to resume as before (Obara 2001). In the years that followed, however, depopulation, economic decline, and the state’s decentralization policies took their toll. On several occasions, redistricting reduced Ochiai to half its prewar size. Today, Ochiai is located in an area of approximately three square miles situated south of the Sarugaishi River in central To– wa-cho– , a little more than half the size of the original shrine parish boundaries. Since the mid-1970s, the hamlet population, as in the rest of the municipality, has been declining steadily. Officially, Ochiai contains 42 households (see tables 6.1 and 6.2). Only five are full-time farms. In most others, grandpa and grandma carry-on farming, while their sons and daughters help them part-time on weekends and during planting and harvest. During the past 30 years, a majority of younger Ochiai residents, who by birth would qualify as shishi odori performers, have moved outside the hamlet for better schooling and higher-paying jobs

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Table 6.1. Total Population of Ochiai Hamlet (1955–2002) Year

1955

1965

1975

1985

1995

2000 2002 (July)

230

219

177

195

178

165

160

Source: Kei Fujimura, e-mail message to author, 15 August 2002.

Table 6.2. Total Population of To– wa-cho– (1955–2002) Year

1955

1965

1975

1985

1995

2000

2002

16,851

14,454

12,567

12,044

11,424

10,959

10,787

–

–

Source: (Obara 1998; Koho Towa December 2000, July 2002)

Table 6.3. Kasuga Ryu- Ochiai Shishi Odori Annual Support Funds (2001) (Approximate Costs) Prefecture –

–

$ 5,000

Towa-cho

$ 2,500

Preservation Association

$ 2,500

Total

$10,000

Source: (Obara 2001)

(Ko– ki Kikuchi, e-mail message to author, 13 December 2001). Due to a significant decline in the population of residents in the 15–30 age group, in recent years, local shishi odori successors have been difficult, if not impossible to find (Traphagan 2000b; Odashima 2001). In small farming municipalities like To– wa-cho–, the town hall has aided local districts in their folk preservation efforts during a majority of the postwar period. In To– wa-cho– , local bureaucrats have accomplished this by providing administrative services and funding support and by establishing citizen-run municipal cultural arts associations as well as encouraging successor training. But fewer local residents overall means less money in municipal coffers.22 Overburdened by the new fiscal responsibilities placed locally by the state’s decentralization policies, in the 1990s, the town hall has been forced to shift the bulk of administrative and financial support it used to provide for district preservation initiatives back to the district and related private support associations.


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Table 6.4. Kasuga Ryu– Ochiai Shishi Odori Annual Operating Budget (2001) (Approximate Costs) Costume and Equipment Acquisition

$ 2,000

Costume and Equipment Maintenance

$ 1,500

Practices (monthly and prior to performances weekly) *Includes cost of facility rental, food, and incidentals

$ 1,000

Travel to Performances (local, regional, national, international) *Includes gas money, airline tickets, and shipping for costumes.

$ 4,500

Dues to To– wa-cho– Cultural Arts Association

$

500

Annual Banquet

$

500

Total

$10,000

Source: (Obara 2001)

While bureaucratic ties between To– wa-cho– ’s Geino– Bunka Kyo– kai (Cultural Arts Association), Kasuga Ryu– Ochiai Shishi Odori, and To– wacho– Town Hall remain strong, local level support funding for cultural assets preservation were cut significantly in 2001. Consequently, tasks previously performed by the town hall administration such as annual updates of membership in municipal folk performance groups, the publication of status reports and promotional materials, arrangement of performance schedules and fund raising opportunities must now be taken on by the Cultural Arts Association using volunteer help. The Preservation Association alone must now generate approximately $5,000 annually that was once a part of the troupe’s municipal funding package (see tables 6.3 and 6.4).23

Ochiai’s Symbolic Community Ironically, the encroachment of the contemporary industrial order upon To– wa-cho– makes the shishi odori performance increasingly impotant to Ochiai as a tool to facilitate continuity and to regulate change. In order to fully comprehend the relationship between shishi odori performance and community building, however, the two must be seen as a dialectical process. A performance implies the existence of a group of performers, support personnel, and patrons—a social unit based upon face-to-face interactions whose effective day-to-day operation rests heavily on the efficacy of the

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performance and accompanying rituals that affirm and reaffirm the social organization and strengthen its social solidarity. In rural Japan, community solidarity and unity have been achieved historically through collective participation in the rituals and festivities associated with a tutelary deity (Befu 1971; Smith 1974). In Ochiai, the shishi odori performance has served this function dating back at least to the Edo period (Neko 2001). In the late 1990s, as word of shishi odori’s decline began to spread among Ochiai natives residing away, many began to reengage with their hamlet folk tradition from afar. Curiously, postwar studies of grassroots level folk performance traditions reveal that kyo–do geino– often exert a strong sociocultural influence in the home community that reaches far beyond the local setting. Most Japanese ethnologists agree that without this inertia, old folk traditions tend to die. In recent research in community settings, Averbuch (1998b), Ikeda (1997), and others have shown that hometown folk performance embodies the power to physically bind people to a community and a location, and brings members, who have left that community, back. Although education, jobs, and marriage outside the hamlet take Ochiai natives away, nostalgia for their hometown folk tradition and hamlet loyalty, as well as family, neighborhood, and friendship ties are bringing them back home as performers, supporters, and members of the audience. Though no longer physically residing within the historical bounds of the Ochiai shishi odori community, returnees are remaining a part of it. In this way, Ochiai’s hometown folk performance is facilitating the production of a new kind of community within the old—a community constructed by its participants, and no longer dependent on the contemporary parameters that have split historical Ochiai apart. For Ochiai residents, the shishi odori performance is a local tool that facilitates solidarity, producing and reproducing a symbolic community—bounded by what locals perceive to be their tradition. To those who view postwar social change in terms of a traditional– modern dichotomy, Ochiai’s shishi odori performance might seem to be merely a nostalgic preservation of a historic practice. But what is happening in Ochiai, and many other economically disadvantaged To– hoku farming communities trying to preserve their grassroots folk traditions, is different. In the Ochiai shishi odori community, a creative process that is perceived to be tradition is actually something new. It is a new creation actively maintained through a constant revision, renewal, and renegotiation of its existence against the social currents of contemporary Japan. It is a renewal process that those who have been a part of the shishi odori tradition have experienced for hundreds of years. The process of constructing the new shishi odori tradition within the Ochiai community enables its participants to articulate and maintain their


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own identities as society around them changes. For those involved with shishi odori in Ochiai, association with the performance provides the means for them to experience social and historical continuity within a context of change. What they are a part of is a community that is not governed by present-day industrial principles. Rather, it is what Anthony Cohen calls a “symbolic community,” a community bounded by tradition, and constructed and manifested in activities associated with the performance of shishi odori, independent of the political, geographic, or historical boundaries of the contemporary hamlet (Cohen 1985).

Kasuga Ryu– Ochiai Shishi Odori Remade As Ochiai’s socioeconomic circumstances have changed over the past 30 years, hamlet leaders have harnessed the power of their tutelary diety through the framework of their symbolic performance community by once again taking shishi odori outside their hamlet, their municipality and established routines. Today, shishi odori performances are not limited to shrine compounds and Ochiai households. Since the mid-1980s, performances at regional tourism events, meibutsu (local products) sales promotions, folk festivals, national competitions and international performances have become the norm. A roster of Kasuga Ryu– Ochiai Shishi Odori’s performances since the 1980s reveals clearly the new domestic and international contexts into which the hamlet community has launched its hometown folk performance (see table 6.5). As a designated prefectural cultural asset, invitations to perform overseas are rewarded by the state with supplementary funding to support all but a small percentage of costs incurred by overseas travel. New venues not only allow the troupe and support community to recreate the shishi odori tradition as participants in contemporary Japanese society, resituating their folk tradition in this way enables them to access financial resoucees badly needed to make up for lacking local level support.24 In this regard, Kasuga Ryu– Ochiai Shishi Odori has taken full advantage of available opporuntities. In 1988, the troupe traveled to Seoul, South Korea and several surrounding towns for a first-ever, one week international spring tour. During the summer of 1994, the troupe traveled to the United States and performed in Wisconsin and Indiana. In 2001, the troupe performed in Kent, England at an international folk festival. By affirming their relevance globally, the Ochiai Shishi Odori community constructs and reconstructs their local relevance by preserving a continuity and autonomy that counteracts the domestic geopolitical forces that threaten to pull Ochiai apart.

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Table 6.5. Kasuga Ry u– Ochiai Shishi Odori Performance Activity (1980–Present) Local Performances Ochiai Kumano Shrine Tannaisan Shrine Kumano Shrine Fall Festival To– wa-cho– Agricultural Cooperative To– wa-cho– Chamber of Commerce To– wa-cho– Town Hall events To– wa-cho– Hot Springs

Nature of Performance September (annual) regularly by invitation September (annual) regularly by invitation regularly by invitation regularly by invitation regularly by invitation

Regional and Domestic Performances Hanamaki Fall Festival (Iwate) Kitakami Folk Festival (Iwate) Iwate Prefectural Folk Festival To– hoku Folk Festival (Miyagi) Furusato Mura, Tokyo

September (periodic) August (periodic) regularly by invitation periodically by application by invitation

International Performance Experience South Korea United States United Kingdom

April 1988 by special invitation November 1994 by invitation November 2001 by invitation

Performances for Hire Will perform at weddings, festivals, ceremonies, commercial events, schools, senior citizen homes. Source: (To– wa-cho– 2001, Obara 2001)

The late 1980s also marked the beginning of unprecedented modifications to Ochiai’s postwar shishi odori tradition initiated by the Preservation Association. In 1989, shishi odori was introduced permanently into the curriculum at Hanamaki Agricultural High School (located in an adjacent town) as a club activity. Women were accepted by the troupe as performers for the first time in 1990. Hamlet residents formed Ochiai Children’s Shishi Odori, and began actively recruited boys and girls from all To– wacho– hamlets and neighboring cities to perform two years afterwards. In 1994, membership in the troupe, the support roles, and the Preservation Association were opened to anybody willing to perform assigned duties whether or not they were born and raised in Ochiai.


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Many other small and large scale adjustments were made in the 1990s to mainstream Ochiai’s shishi odori heritage. My favorite anecdotal story involves the current chairperson of the Preservation Associatoin. In an attempt to find a new niche for his beloved folk performance, he worked with his wife, a nurse at a prefectural psychiatric hospital, to develop a therapeutic application of shishi odori for patients there. In the summer of 1995, I accompanied him to Shiwa, a small town 20 minutes north of To– wa-cho– , where he had been training a group of 15 patients with mild to severe symptoms of depression with shishi odori therapy. I was amazed at what mastering the choreography, executing the fine movements of the rituals, and understanding the significance of the dance seemed to do for the confidence and self-esteem of the chairperson’s students. The hospital doctors felt the same and shishi odori therapy taught by Kasuga Ryu– Ochiai Shishi Odori has been an offering at this hospital ever since. While shishi odori has been welcomed warmly into many new domains both inside and outside of Ochiai, it is important to also recognize that the contemporary Ochiai Shishi Odori community struggles with problems as well. Facilitating the solidarity of a historic tradition through a continual process of recreation is not a smooth or easy task. In recent years, a major cause of tension and conflict among its members has been the lack of a clearly defined system to equitably manage the troupe’s multifaceted support system. Inevitably, some supporters have to do much more of the work than others. This inequality has put a strain on a number of hamlet relationships and has caused more than one family to leave. As devoted shishi odori fans without direct ties to the hamlet wait patiently for an invitation to lend a hand, a minority of Ochiai men and women resent being made to feel they have to help their local troupe, just because they live within the boundaries of the hamlet, or have a family member related to the performance. This view is most prevalent among hamlet residents who are not originally from Ochiai or belong to a household without a performer. In the words of a 35-year-old man who married into an Ochiai family to help run a small business in the hamlet, “I am more interested in modern things, like computers, software and the Internet. The only reason I care about shishi odori is because I have to.”25 There used to be repercussions for residents who withdrew their support from the local folk tradition. Abnormally frequent assignments by the neighborhood association to gutter cleaning, weed whacking, and other undesirable seasonal maintenance tasks were common. The threat of property damage by the hamlet mikoshi (portable shrine) sent out of control at

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festival time by an unhappy tutelary spirit was also a concern.26 But as the demographic composition of Ochiai has changed, such coercion has ceased to have much of an impact. Historically, designated households and the women and men that were a part of them have taken on the responsibility for organizing practices, setting up recruiting trips, and planning for pre- and post-performance gatherings. But since the founding of the Preservation Association, the shishi odori community operates according to an unwritten division of labor that is very unclear. Currently, most Ochiai families contribute at least one person for support service several times a year. But nobody keeps accurate records. Everything from fixing meals for full practices, helping performers dress, equipment repair, and performance attendance is conducted and managed by a group that consists mostly of Ochiai housewives. Women residing outside the community help as they are asked. The men of the Preservation Association transport people and equipment, and keep the performers and accompanying supporters well supplied with snacks and beverages at performance sites. Warming up the practice facility during the winter using donated kerosene space heaters is another service provided by this group. Male supporters who live outside of To– wa-cho– are more likely to be involved as spectators and in the business negotiations associated with the performance becuase they can help with this on the phone. Many of the support men and women I interviewed also complained about the lack of recognition they receive from the performers and the Preservation Association they serve, but chalk this up to the nature of the job. They understand firsthand how dependent the troupe really is on their help. Despite their criticism, supporters of both genders seem to enjoy the camaraderie and feel a sense of satisfaction in their roles. The pleasure and fulfillment they derive from their involvement in Ochiai’s shishi odori tradition adds a great deal of happiness to their lives. The struggles they share facilitate a solidarity that is at the core of the dynamic folk tradition of which they are a part. Another point of contention between some Ochiai residents and the greater shishi odori community is that so many of the performers are outsiders. Currently, of the more than 20 members on the performer’s roster, 13 attend practice regularly and perform publicly.27 Of these performers, six, including a 25-year-old being groomed as the next nakadachi (dance leader)28 is a young man born and raised in Hanamaki, not Ochiai, or even To– wa-cho– . Although this topic is clearly on the minds of shishi odori supporters, the performers native to Ochiai seem not to have any problem at


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all. When asked if the lack of locally born performers bothered him, a 65year-old former nakadachi, told me, “If the person is interested and there is potential for him or her to develop the necessary skills, whether they are male or female, born in Ochiai or not, I feel lucky just to have them here!” Since 2000, troupe practices and gatherings are no longer held at the Kumano Shrine, but at the Ochiai Community Hall. Practices stress choreography, not ritualistic precision or spiritual significance. Though a core group of senior performers claim to believe in the divinity of the homeuta (songs of praise) nembutsu kuyo– (prayers to the Amida Buddha to memorialize the dead) and gokkoku ho–jo– rituals that ensure bountiful harvests, a majority of the performers claim that they dance to keep the tradition (not their belief in ancestral spirits) alive. Performers selected for the 2001–2002 season ranged in age from 19 to 65. Three were young women. When asked why they joined Ochiai Shishi Odori, many performers cite a desire to be part of an activity related to their Iwate heritage. Some want to express themselves culturally in a uniquely To– hoku way. Others want to experience what it’s like to belong to a hometown folk performance tradition. However, a 55-year-old male performer who works nine-to-five as an auto mechanic cautioned, “Anybody can join the troupe, but not everyone has the dedication and personal commitment to uphold what they have learned from their mentors over the course of their lifetime.” Private conversations with several performers revealed a diverse spectrum of other motives for participation. During a practice break in October 2001, one of the female performers, a 21-year-old college student, confessed to me, “To tell you the truth, shishi odori helps me to keep in shape. I’ve lost 10 lbs since performing with the troupe!” At a post-performance party a week later, a 20-year-old male newspaper company employee told me that he enjoyed wearing the shishi odori isho– (costume) because he liked the attention people give him as a result. “It helps me get dates,” he said. “Women my age love guys who are involved in the traditional arts.” For performers born locally, the responsibility factor weighs heavily in their decision to dance. On the way to a practice session in the fall of 2002, a 40-year-old Ochiai man who farms full-time admitted to me that he was forced to join the troupe because he was an Ochiai native, unmarried, and available. “I hated practices at first,” he said, “but as I learned the dance steps and chants, I gradually developed a genuine interest. Now I’m in too deep to quit. I want to learn all nine morality tales in our troupe’s dance repertoire before I die.”

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The oldest performer, a 65-year-old retired tire company production line worker, seemed to have the most balanced perspective. “I perform because of the heritage and the religious philosophy that shishi odori represents. It didn’t mean so much to me when I was young, but as I have gotten older, I have come to realize how much the rituals have sustained me over my lifetime. I hope people can see that in the way I dance.” These comments are telling. This is because they reflect the degree to which shishi odori is integrated into the lifestyles of its contemporary practitioners. The resilience of the shishi odori tradition over time is not the result of its institutionalization, but a product of an ongoing construction process and the creativity and imagination of those who practice and support the art. For generations, performers, and supporters alike, have molded and shaped the tradition, complementing their lives.

Conclusion Interestingly, despite the transformation that Ochiai’s shishi odori tradition has undergone in the postwar period, there remains a manifest assumption, even among members of the performance community, that Ochiai Shishi Odori is unchanging. What is unchanging, however, are not its dance steps or its costume or its religious significance, but the malleable and dynamic nature of the tradition of which it is a part. An ongoing historical process of reinterpretation and redefinition is at the core of the symbolic unity of Ochiai Hamlet that now includes dancers and supporters from the outside. Through each shishi odori practice, performance, committee meeting, and equipment maintenance session, the members of Ochiai Shishi Odori construct not only a community of memory, connecting individual members to a communal past, but a distinctive symbolic world of their own to define themselves and their hamlet in the present. Through the activities associated with shishi odori, an alternative world is constructed for members of Ochiai’s shishi odori community, different from the ties they have at school, the work place, and in the contemporary industrial order. When members of this community meet each other in the grocery store, at municipal events, or in non-To– wa-cho– settings, they confirm dates for the next practice, performance, or meeting, they check on the welfare of troupe members, other Ochiai residents and their families living outside of the municipality. For most Ochiai Shishi Odori adherents, commitment to the performance community often takes precedence over other aspects of everyday life in postindustrial society. Both performers and supporters have to take days off from work and time away from their families to participate in the


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troupe’s performance schedule. They also travel long distances to perform, help out, or observe a performance. Unlike involvement in an athletic team, special interest club or community center classes, being a part of Ochiai Shishi Odori generates a special feeling of fulfillment and belonging more constant than in any other facet of their lives. In this way, shishi odori and all activities associated with it become a master metaphor in this symbolic community that connects everyday life with the root power of tradition that people have constructed and reconstructed for themselves. This metaphor is powerful. It may be even more so during periods of social upheaval like the present than in Ochiai’s past. Through their involvement in shishi odori, performers and supporters of all ages become a part of a holistic community that they can be a part of their entire lives. Ochiai Shishi Odori today serves as a point of reference against the backdrop of change that modernity has wrought in this To– hoku hamlet. Perhaps this is why despite the state’s decentralization initiatives and the negative socioeconomic climate, shishi odori in Iwate has grown into a thriving folk performance tradition with a prefecture-wide association of more than 150 troupes.29 Shishi odori in Ochiai and the rest of the prefecture thrives not because it mirrors the past, but because it helps to construct the present while providing a structure, grounded in the past, through which to anticipate the future. Ochiai Shishi Odori has become simultaneously rural, urban, traditional, modern, and international because that is what Japan has become. In postindustrial Ochiai, preserving shishi odori means that the men and the women of the troupe and its supporters must perform the task of their community, both within and against the global and domestic industrial order in all of its contexts. Aside from the power of the gods, it is undoubtedly the practice of this tradition that the men and women of the Kasuga Ryu– Ochiai Shishi Odori community have created and recreated in the past and in the present and in the face of societal change that will enable them to preserve their act.

Notes 1. All names used in this article (unless otherwise noted) are real, and are used with the permission of To– wa-cho– residents and town hall administrators. 2. Research for this chapter was conducted in Ochiai during visits to the community during the fall of 2000 and 2001. However, I rely heavily on interviews, primary materials, and my knowledge of shishi odori in Ochiai gained during many visits to the hamlet that date back to 1988. A variety of methods were

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used to collect data including participant observation, analysis of video recordings made at performances, and e-mail exchanges and bulletin board forum chats on the To– wa-cho– homepage with informants whom I could not meet with in person (Thompson 2002). 3. The Bon festival is a Buddhist “All Soul’s Day” during which rites are held to console to souls of deceased ancestors. Rites have been observed since the seventh century (Kojima and Crane 1987). 4. Since my concern here is not the actual shishi odori performance itself, my discussion of the ritual in this paper is minimal. 5. A Japanese television program produced by NHK, which aired on TV JAPAN on March 31, 2001, provides an excellent overview of the Asian origins of the lion dance. 6. The deer is also a well-known universal symbol that represents the spirits of nature in many cultures around the world. 7. The term “shishi” in shishi odori is written using a Chinese character meaning deer. The term “shishi” in shishi mai is written using two Chinese characters together meaning lion. 8. There are four major theories speculating upon the origin of shishi odori in Japan. While they are each complimentary of the others to some extent, none of them explain fully how shishi odori came to take its present form. The most prominent theory, known as the kyo– yo– kigensetsu, suggests that shishi odori evolved as a memorial to the spirits of slain deer. The setsuwa kigensetsu, argues that shishi odori began as a way of preserving a meaningful story or a legend handed down to each generation in mountain villages that worshipped yamanokami (the mountain god). Some ethnologists believe that shishi odori is nothing more than a symbolic reenactment of deer at play, known as the yu– gimoki kigensetsu. The second most popular theory is the takoku densetsu kigensetsu, which speculates that shishi odori is based on a legend introduced to Japan from a foreign country which incorporated indigenous symbolism. For details on these theories, see Tsubohari 1999. 9. See Tsubohari 1999 for details on how shishi odori was practiced at Kasuga Taisha in Nara near Kyoto. 10. Among the many changes brought about by the great political reforms of the Taika era (645–650) was the geographical reorganization of the nation. Heavily influenced culturally and militarily by the accomplishments of the Tang Dynasty in neighboring China, Oshu– was a designation taken from Chinese meaning “the land far away” to name what today composes the prefectures of Northeast Japan. 11. Tsubohari Mamoru, a native of Ukita hamlet in To– wa-cho– , Iwate prefecture, grew up watching shishi odori and other folk performances in his hometown. His childhood memories (recounted in his book) depict the importance ascribed to these traditions in To– hoku communities like Ochiai (Tsubohari 1999). 12. It is also important to note that two distinctive varieties of shishi odori are practiced in the To– hoku. The most common variety is called taiko odori kei (drum dance form). Kasuga Ryu– Ochiai Shishi Odori fits into this category. The drum dance formation of shishi odori features performers who wear and play their own


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drum while singing and dancing the story-line of the parable in each of their acts. The second variety is called the maku odori kei, or the “curtain dance form.” This variety is found mainly on the Iwate coastline and in central regions of the prefecture in towns such as To– no (made famous by Yanagida Kunio for its legends) which were tied to the seacoast by trade routes from the southwest during the Edo period (Tsubohari 1999). 13. Ochiai is engaged in a historical debate with performers of Kasuga Ryu– Shishi Odori in the neighboring city of Hanamaki over which of the Kasuga Ryu– troupes was bestowed the shrine name first. Considerable confusion exists as to whether each group traveled to Nara together or separately. Currently, each troupe claims to be the original Kasuga Ryu– troupe out of which the others evolved. 14. The Ochiai Hidensho is kept in a vault located in the Ochiai Kumano Shrine. 15. For details, see Kojima and Crane 1987, p. 58. 16. Ochiai’s Hidensho, or document of hamlet secrets, written during the Edo period (1603–1868) in around 1804 documents the history of the shishi odori tradition in Ochiai. 17. For details, see Averbuch 1998a and 1998b, pp. 293–329. 18. For a detailed description of onikembai, see Tsubohari 1999, pp. 166–228. 19. Mt. Hayachine, located about 20 miles north of To– wa-cho– , is a sacred place according to Shinto and Buddhist lore, made famous by the Japanese ethnologist Yanagida Kunio in his numerous works detailing the stories and legends attributed to this mountain. In financial terms, this ethnohistoric connection results in a higher media profile and prefectural and national level funding opportunities than other hometown performance traditions not as closely associated with the famous mountain. 20. Kabuki is a highly stylized form of Japanese popular theatre. For details, see Kojima and Crane 1987, p. 58 (Edo period) and p. 137 (Kabuki). 21. For details on “communitas,” see Turner 1987. 22. A strong relationship exists between local population figures and the municipal treasury. I have written elsewhere about the financial burden that outmigration place on already depopulated residential districts like Ochiai. For details, see Thompson 2003. 23. These figures are courtesy of an interview I conducted with Obara Mitsuru, former chairman of the Kasuga Ryu– Ochiai Shishi Odori Preservation Association in October of 2001. 24. According to Obara Mitsuru (2001), what the troupe charges for scheduled performances varies greatly depending on the venue, travel costs, and purpose of the event. Obara reports that Ochiai Shishi Odori has performed for as little as US$25 a performance (at a hamlet wedding) and for as much as US$100 at a commercial event. He doesn’t want to see Ochiai Shishi Odori charge too much because doing so, “. . . would disrupt the essence of our cultural performance and disappoint our ancestors.”

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25. Here, I have changed significant details to protect the informant’s anonymity. 26. Scott Schnell has written extensively about the use of the Shinto– festival procession as a context in which perceived communal injustices can be righted anonymously by defining the corrective action as an “act of the gods” (Schnell 1997). 27. The current Preservation Society Chairperson explains that there are 40 to 50 names on the active performer’s roster. They are left on, but in reality, only the 13 members mentioned in the text are actually prepared enough to dance in a current performance. Names are left on the roster to encourage performers who haven’t attended practice in a while to return. Dues are paid to the Preservation Society by the performers and members of the community on a sliding scale by seniority. Some performers contribute as much as US$500 a year, while financial contributions are not expected from school-aged support community members and those who give generously of their time. 28. Historically, the nakadachi was the performer designated as the leader of the troupe. This individual takes the lead position in the parable dance as well as in the ritual element of the performance. 29. Over half of the 150 shishi odori troupes currently in Iwate are directly associated with performance traditions uninterrupted since the Edo period (1603–1868). Onikembai (Shinto shamanic sword dance) and Kagura (Shinto shamanic dance) are two other minzoku geino– (traditional performing arts) that are also enjoying a resurgence in Iwate Prefecture.

References Averbuch, Irit. 1995. The Gods Come Dancing: A Study of the Japanese Ritual Dance of Yamabushi Kagura. Ithaca, NY: East Asia Program, Cornell University. ———. 1998a. Shamanic Dance in Japan: The Choreography of Possession in Kagura Performance. Asian Folklore Studies 57:293–329. ———. 1998b. Dancing the Doctrine: Esoteric Buddhism in a Yamabushi Kagura Performance. Tenri Journal of Religion no. 27, March. Bailey, Jackson. 1991. Ordinary People. Extraordinary Lives: Political and Economic Change in a Tohoku Village. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Befu, Harumi. 1971. Japan: An Anthropological Introduction. New York: Harper & Row. Bestor, Theodore C. 1985. Tradition and Japanese Social Organization: Institutional Development in a Tokyo Neighborhood. Ethnology 24:121–135. ———. 1989. Neighborhood Tokyo. Stanford: Stanford University Press. P. 253. Cohen, Anthony. 1985. The Symbolic Construction of Community. London: Tavistock. Pp. 70–76. Creighton, Millie. 1997. Consuming Rural Japan: The Marketing of Tradition and Nostalgia in the Japanese Travel Industry. Ethnology 36(3):239–254. Grapard, Allan G. 1984. Japan’s Ignored Cultural Revolution: The Separation of Shinto and Buddhist Divinities in Meiji (shinbutsu bunri) and a Case Study:


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To– nomine. History of Religions: An International Journal for Comparative Historical Studies, vol. 23, no. 3. Hashimoto, Ryoji. 1989. Japan’s Modern Century: The Dilemmas of Centralization. In As Iwate Goes . . . Is Culture Local? video documentary produced by the Media Production Group. Institute for Education on Japan. Earlham College: Richmond, IN. Honda, Yasuji. 1960. Zuroku Nihon no Minzoku Geino. Asahi Shinbun. Pp. 5–10. Ikeda, Keiko. 1997. Kenka Matsuri: Fighting with Our Gods in Postindustrial Japan. In Lives In Motion: Composing Circles of Self and Community in Japan. Susan O. Long, ed. No. 106. 119. Cornell East Asia Series. Ivy, Marilyn. 1995. Discourses of the Vanishing: Modernity, Phantasm, Japan. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 22, 26. Kawada, Minoru. 1989. The Origin of Ethnography in Japan: Yanagida Kunio and His Times. London: Kegan Paul International. Kelly, William W. 1984. Rationalization and Nostalgia: Cultural Dynamics of New Middle-Class Japan. American Ethnologist 13:603–618. Ketelaar, James E. 1989. Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan: Buddhism and Its Persecution. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Knight, John. 1994a. Rural Revitalization in Japan: Spirit of the Village and Taste of the Country.” Asian Survey 34(7):634–646. ———. 1994b. Town-Making in Rural Japan: An Example from Wakayama. Journal of Rural Studies 10(3):249–261. Ko–ho To– wa. 2000. Jinko– to Setai. To– wa-cho– Town Hall, Iwate-ken Waga-gun, To– wa-cho– , Japan. No. 390. June. 16. ———. 2002. Jinko– to Setai. To– wa-cho– Town Hall, Iwate-ken Waga-gun, To– wa-cho– , Japan. No 409, July: 14. Kojima, Setuko, and Gene A. Crane. 1987. Dictionary of Japanese Culture. Heian I nternational, Inc. Minakata, Kumagusu. 1971. Minakata Kumagusu zenshu– [Works of Minakata Kumagusu]. Tokyo: Heibonsha, Sho– wa 46–50 [1971–1975]. Morse, Ronald A. 1997. Yanagita Kunio and the Folklore Movement: The Search for Japan’s National Character and Distinctiveness. New York: Garland Pub. Neko, Hideo. 1997. October 7 interview with Iwate folklorist and folk culture expert at the To– wa-cho– Information Center, To– wa-cho– , Waga-gun, Iwate-ken, Japan. Nitobe, Inazo. 1912. Japanese Nation: Its Land, Its People, and Its Life, with Special Consideration to Its Relations with the United States. New York: Putnam. NHK (Nippon Ho– so– Kyoku). 2001. Shishi Odori Kiko– . TV Japan broadcast, 31 March. Obara, Hideo. 1998. To– wa no to To– kei Heisei 8. To– wa-cho– Town Hall, Iwate-ken Waga-gun, To– wa-cho– , Japan. 3 September, 1998. P. 6. Obara, Mitsuru. 2001. October 3 interview with outgoing chairman of the Kasuga Ryu– Ochiai Shishi Odori Hozonkai (preservation association) at Usugi Bantetsu (bodyshop) in Ochiai district, To– wa-cho– , Waga-gun, Iwate-ken, Japan.

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Odashima, Mineo. 2001. To– wa no To– kei Heisei 13. To– wa-cho– Town Hall, Iwate-ken Waga-gun, To– wa-cho– , Japan. 3 September. P. 10. Robertson, Jennifer. 1985. Dialectic of Native and Newcomer: The Kodaira Citizen’s Festival in Suburban Tokyo. Anthropological Quarterly 60(3):124–136. ———. 1991. Native and Newcomer: Making and Remaking a Japanese City. Berkeley: University of California Press. Schnell, Scott. 1997. Sanctity and Sanction in Communal Ritual: A Reconsideration of Shinto– Festival Processions. Ethnology 36(1):1–12. ———. 1999. Rousing Drum: Ritual Practice in a Japanese Community. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Shimpo, Mitsuru. 1976. Three Decades in Shiwa: Economic Development and Social Change in a Japanese Farming Community. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Smith, Robert. 1974. Ancestor Worship in Contemporary Japan. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Thompson, Christopher S. 2002. Enlisting On-line Residents: Expanding the Boundaries of e-government in a Japanese Rural Township. Government Information Quarterly 19: 173–187. ———. 2003. Depopulation in Regional Japan: Population Politics in To– wa-cho– . In Demographic Change and the Family in Japan’s Aging Society. Edited by John Traphagan and John Knight. Albany: State University of New York Press. 89–106. Traphagan, John. 2000a. Taming Oblivion: Aging Bodies and the Fear of Senility in Japan. Albany: State University of New York Press. ———. 2000b. The Liminal Family: Return Migration and Intergenerational Conflict in Japan. Journal of Anthropological Research 56: 365–385. To– wa-cho– Geino– Bunka Kyo– kai. 2001. Katsudo– Kiroku Shu– 2001. To– wa-cho– Geino– Bunka Kyo– kai. To– wa-cho– Board of Education, Iwate-ken Waga-gun, To– wacho– . p. 1. Tsubohari, Mamoru. 1999. Waga Michinoku no Kyo– do Geino– —Haychine Kagura, Shishi Odori, Onikembai [My Michinoku Hometown Performing Arts]. Tokyo: Kinseisha. Turner, Victor. 1967. Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites de Passage. In The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. P. 84. ———. 1987. The Anthropology of Performance. New York: PAJ Publications. P. 84. van Bremen, Jan, and D. P. Martinez. 1995. Ceremony and Ritual in Japan: Religious Practices in an Industrialized Society. London: Routledge. Yanagita Kunio. 1970. About Our Ancestors: The Japanese Family System. Trans. Fanny Hagin Mayer and Ishiwara Yasuyo. Compiled by Japanese National Commission for UNESCO [Tokyo] Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

Chapter 7

Heartbreak’s Destination To– hoku in the Poetic Discourse of Enka Debra J. Occhi

When I entered To– hoku University for a year of study abroad, singing enka music with its dreary themes of heartbreak was not a part of my study plans. When I returned to Sendai for dissertation research, however, I learned two important things. First, a knowledge of enka is important to any understanding of popular Japanese sentiment, and second, To– hoku was the best place to study enka. Why and how enka uses To– hoku, as a place where lost love finds its meaning, became clear during my research there. This chapter describes the cultural rationale that supports the use of To– hokuplacenames and associated imagery in Japanese enka music to reveal what comprises the worldview reflected within. When I began my fieldwork in Sendai1 in proper ethnographic fashion by conducting open-ended interviews, my consultants kept telling me two very similar things. First they told me that enka music was Nihonjin no kokoro (the heart and soul of Japanese people).2 Second, they told me that all I needed to know about enka was encoded in the songs. Clearly these aficionados felt the discourse of enka spoke for their hearts as well. With these things in mind, I entered two weekly neighborhood karaoke hobby singing groups. Participant observation and lyric analysis then became the foci of my research. To introduce enka to the reader it is fitting to begin with an excerpt from the song my consultants found most appropriate for me to sing in the Saturday evening karaoke class:

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Tabi Makura Journey dare o sagashi-te koko made ki -ta to who OBJ seek -GER here until come-PAST QUOT “Who are you seeking, having come so far?” watashi o yobu yo– na sanriku kamome me OBJ call as if GEN Sanriku seagull the Sanriku3 seagull seems to call to me miyako hachinohe natsu kara aki e Miyako Hachinohe summer from fall to Miyako, Hachinohe, from summer to fall anata tazuneru tabimakura you seek journey a journey seeking you Knowing I was single, my fellow singers felt sure that my ultimate quest was marriage, a worldview which is indeed represented in the songs I have studied and to which they knew I would concur.4 Their choice of this song for me shows what they thought I was really after during my stay in northeastern Japan, as I sang with them. Neither the song nor the sentiment are atypical. But what compels the heartbroken women in enka songs such as this to go north, towards the sea, in the cold? Why is To– hoku such a central component of enka discourse?

Sendai—Capital of To– hoku To– hoku is famous for snowy winters, brief summers, and historical famines.5 As a site in the Japanese national imaginary, this region represents furusato (imaginal hometown), located images of rusticity and traditionality whose geographic features and placenames serve to index sentiment in enka. That this region is similarly immortalized in haiku and waka illustrates how historically motivated imagistic conventions are reworked to construct a contemporary discourse of middle-aged love and relationships. Although relatively little known compared to the larger urban centers, Sendai is the capital of Miyagi Prefecture, the largest city north of Tokyo on the – main island of Honshu . Roughly one million people were living in the incorporated city limits of Sendai during the period when I did my fieldwork. Its bound-

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aries are demarcated by the Pacific Ocean (east), the Natori River (south), and extends into the mountains that stretch west to Yamagata Prefecture and north to Iwate Prefecture. Sendai is neither ancient nor industrial, yet it is framed as typical, partly because of its agricultural and fishing related economic base. Unlike some of the older cities in Japan, you cannot expect to see 1,000-year-old architecture in Sendai, since it only has 400 years’ history as a town. The Sendai area is not associated with such prosperous industries as seen in the western part of the country since the city has been supported mainly by rather small industries based on agriculture. However, much of what the world thinks of as “typically Japanese” can be seen and felt here in Sendai by getting around either on foot or by bike or bus and the experience will be something pleasant to look back on. (Sendai Municipal Government 1995:2)

Sendai’s imagery plays upon its natural setting; its nickname is mori no miyako (forest capital). Certain aspects of its history are also foregrounded in local imagery, personified by a particular figure: Date Masamune (1567–1636). In 1600, Date took up residence in Sendai castle, an act which was cited as the first item of Sendai history worthy of mention on the city web page.6 Though the castle itself is now gone, its site, set high atop Mt. Aoyama with a commanding view of the city, is still a major tourist attraction. The clan Date founded continued to rule the area until the Meiji Restoration (Date Munenari, 1818–1892). Matsushima, one of the three most renowned natural spots in Japan, is located on the seacoast to the east of Sendai. Date’s reign and glory is well-evidenced here through preservation of his temple and the home where his concubines lived. In Sendai, Matsushima, and throughout the region, one often sees statues and placards commemorating Basho’s journey through To– hoku along Oku no Hosomichi (narrow back highway), during which he composed many famous haiku. Sendai is also well-known for its Tanabata festival, which is arguably the largest in Japan, and is one of the three major To– hoku festivals of late summer. Over two million visitors come to the city during a three-day period (Sendai Shitayori, 8/1/98:12). The associated imagery of this festival is of celestial lovers reunited after a long separation, and symbolized by the stars Vega and Altair (the Weaver Girl and the Herd Boy), and of long-held wishes fulfilled.7 These images of Sendai lend to its construction as furusato (imagined hometown), which, as Robertson reminds us, is a site informed by nostalgia. She further describes furusato as “one of the most compelling Japanese tropes for cultural, social, and economic self-sufficiency in the face of vexatious

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domestic problems and the trials of ‘transnational capitalism’” (Robertson 1995:89). Sendai, along with many smaller To– hoku towns, often loses its young people to the job market and urban allure of Tokyo. Enka draws on the image of furusato. As part of To– hoku, Sendai shares association to the nostalgic sentiments found in enka, particularly in that Sendai’s contemporary identity is associated with the Tanabata romantic separation drama as well. History, folklore, and climate conspire to create an imaginal realm seen as inherent to Sendai and its region. The sociological realities of Japan locate Sendai as a regional, but not a national, city. This characterization, as well as the cultural construction of Sendai (and To– hoku generally) as furusato, supports the location of Sendai as peripheral relative to the core urban megacities of Tokyo and Osaka. As I soon learned, this core-periphery dynamic also applies to the neighborhood in which I lived, which is considered peripheral to the core of Sendai’s urban center, even though a mere six-minute train ride separates them.

Haranomachi, Sendai I visited Haranomachi often during my first stay in Sendai from 1995 to 1996, and later lived there for my fieldwork, from 1997 to 1999. Haranomachi was incorporated into Sendai in 1928, during its first wave of city expansion. As of April 1999, the population was 2,662 (Miyaginoku 1999). The area east of the Jieitai (Japanese Self-Defence Force) facility, still separated from it by rice fields, was not incorporated until 1943. Even though Haranomachi was incorporated early in Sendai’s current formation, its history, physical location and arrangement, as well as certain social characteristics, lead to its designation as particularly furusato-like in nature. Until 1950, its main street was a section of the road leading from Date Castle to the seashore communities of Shiogama, home of a major Shinto shrine and fishing port, and to Matsushima, where Date’s Buddhist temple and the home of his concubines are located. A roadside marker, dating from 1853, in a citydesignated cultural treasure and still stands along that street. Just north of it lies a park that was once a marsh and where, we are told, Date and his men gazed at the reflections of their brave faces in the clear water before setting off to conquer nearby Iwakiri Castle. A few minutes to the south of the main street is a park filled with 400-hundred-year-old cherry trees. Haranomachi is located to the east of Sendai Station. Having escaped the carpet bombing that devastated downtown Sendai, as well as the destruction caused by the offshore earthquake of June 13, 1978, traditionally constructed buildings of earth, straw, and wood are not uncommon there.


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Many of the streets are too small for two cars to pass comfortably. The main street is designated for one-way traffic. Some family-run businesses that line this street date back to Haranomachi’s earliest records. This neighborhood is indeed representative of Japanese city areas with equivalent historical depth.8 For residents, Haranomachi’s rich history is essential to its image. Its chronicles are recounted at public gatherings and have been compiled into a recent historical summary (Haranomachi Historical Society 1997). Its atmosphere is indeed rustic in comparison to the nearby city center with its broad, modern streets. But in the minds of Tokyoites, Sendai in toto is inaka (country).9 Similarly, people I met in Sendai’s downtown area often found it interesting and a bit peculiar that I lived on “the other side of the tracks,” where few foreigners were found. When told about my research interest in enka, however, they agreed I had found a good location. That neighborhood was, in relation to urban Sendai, considered peripheral both in geographic and imaginal terms, a touch of furusato in a city of one million. My neighbors and friends cherished that image; they said they “didn’t know Tokyo,” and considered it too big and too expensive for their tastes. Downtown Sendai was an urban place for their occasional shopping trips and excursions. My regular commute downtown and other locations elicited great sympathy for my inevitable exhaustion, caused in part by the imagined, jarring contacts with high-tech hypermodernity. Indeed, I had found a natural site for enka; Haranomachi’s public adult stage performances, including but not limited to shrine festivals, consisted largely of singing and dancing to enka tunes. The locations where I observed and participated in these performances were within a five-minute walk from my apartment. I was living in the heart of the enka imaginary. It is not just that Sendai happens to be in a region considered furusato, such as those celebrated in enka. It is also clear that the people in Sendai— at least in Haranomachi—who celebrate enka and find it amenable to their worldview, do so with the conviction that they are ideally located in relation to the images of which they sing. These images include references to traditional gender roles and the love narratives associated with them, as well as aspects of nature and season, which reinforce these roles. Before discussing the language of enka, it is important to deal with one question: If north is a primary trope in enka, why focus on To– hoku rather than Hokkaido? Though undoubtably the northernmost part of Japan, Hokkaido does not participate in the enka discourse as fully as To– hoku. Recall that Sendai’s city office characterizes Sendai as typical, and that To– hoku represents the nation’s furusato. As with Okinawa, Hokkaido’s ethnic history marginalizes

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it relative to core Japaneseness. Both places occupy different spheres in the Japanese national imagination11 than the “heart and soul” to which enka belongs. Hokkaido place names do occasionally appear in enka songs, yet its history as part of the Japanese nation is even shallower than that of To– hoku. Hokkaido’s imagery is aligned with potatoes, corn, broad fields of lavender, and the frontier spirit, rather than the famed rice and sake of To– hoku. Though corn and lavender do not appear in enka lyrics, sake and other To– hoku images often appear in a genre-specific linguistic context which frames its nostalgic lament. The following section provides an overview of the linguistic resources found in this and in other enka songs which are situated generationally and ideologically within popular Japanese discourses.

Language Features of Enka As a genre, whose focus is on heterosexual romantic heartbreak, enka in the post-WWII period contains a particular discourse which is seen as traditional by its middle-aged fans. It is characterized by poetic features that harken back to Heian poetry and are found in everyday language as well.12 Through its use of pronouns that are typical of speakers over 50, and associated with the gendered roles these speakers typically embody, enka claims traditionality even as it alienates the young. PRONOUNS. The lyric example Tabi Makura (Journey), on page 152, contains half of a set of pronouns that in toto index the male-female relationship common to enka. The female figure calls herself watashi and calls the man anata, a pattern of address that is rather common in heterosexual couples over a broad age range. The terms the male figure uses in enka, however, are more limited generationally. He calls himself ore, indexing assertive masculinity, and calls his female mate omae, a pronoun that is problematic to younger generations of women because they perceive it as derogatory. In women’s enka songs13 generally, the singer addresses a masculine figure, specifically the beloved, with anata (you), sometimes glossed with pragmatic inference as darling. Specific roles are evoked by this term, as well as by its male speaker to female addressee counterpart, omae. Most definitions describe anata as a polite pronoun. Its association with a generically male referent is reinforced by the convention that when it indexes a female “you” in writing, one of its two kanji characters ( ) is switched to one that means “woman” ( ). Omae is defined as a rough term with which to address one’s interlocutor. Both pronouns have histor-


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ical origins in the Japanese deictic system; anata emerges from “you ⫹ that direction,” and omae glosses as “HON ⫹ in front.” The prototypical anata-omae addressing pair is a wife and husband of middle-age; consultants below the age of 35 tend to find the use of omae problematic, since it indexes the display of male dominance. In the pop music of the younger generation, the paired referents are usually anata and the less hierarchically loaded kimi, respectively.14 Enka fans, however, align to more traditional address forms and their implications: Nirinso– Two-flowered Stalk anata, omae, yon -de yob -are -te yorisot -te you you call-CONT call-PASS-CONT draw close-CONT you (fem), you (masc) calling and being called (i.e., by those terms), snuggling up to each other; yasashiku watashi o itawat-te well/kindly me OBJ pity-CONT kindly take good care of me. This lyric crystallizes the gender roles that are indexed by occurring pronouns and idealized in love novels by the kind of love known as ai (cf. [Shibamoto] Smith 1999) whose subversion constitutes the core of enkastyle heartbreak. That is, the happy couple call each other omae and anata respectively, leaning towards each other. Furthermore (since this is a woman’s song) she asks that the man care for her with kindness. This is typical of ai-based relationships; most enka songs are unhappy, usually depicting a woman with no one to lean on. POETRY. The poetic features shared by enka include overt metaphors that relate humans to nature, such as this chorus, from the song just cited: Nirinso– Two-flowered Stalk futari wa ni -rin -so–” couple TOP two-flower-grass we (the couple) are a two-flowered stalk

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There are also grammaticized mixing of human and natural phenomena as in Tabi Makura (Journey) page 152: Tabimakura Journey nami no kokoro tsumetai ya wave GEN heart chilly SFP the heart of a wave is chilly The discourse found in enka outlines specific, gender-differentiated, emotional and physical behaviors attributed to men and women and relative to their physical locations and metaphorized properties (e.g., as ocean waves). One of the images associated with humans (particularly with women) in enka and in Japanese discourses generally, is that of flowers. Understanding this motif, and how it operates in the larger sphere of enka discourse, points us towards To– hoku’s centrality in the enka worldview. WOMEN AS FLOWERS IN ENKA. Floral imagery has both a historical salience in Japanese poetry and a continuing potential to describe persons and relationships in everyday discourse. Following the notion of enka, as part of a historically grounded practice of love poetry, suggests the roles of flowers is worth examining. Indeed, half of the 14 songs I sang in group karaoke lessons contained significant flower imagery. Their lyrics evoked questions such as: • What does it mean to speak of a woman’s springtime as a wild dance of flowers? • Who is the flower of winter? • What causes a woman to bloom, and what happens when she doesn’t? The data for this section are drawn from female-gendered songs sung by women. Although written by men as songs of women, they are indicated by both referential (i.e., pronouns) and nonreferential (i.e., sentence-final particles) gendered indexicals, and they are sung by women in their massmarket releases,15 which were used as models in our lessons. The segments of each song relevant to my analysis of floral imagery appear below. They are arranged in order of the age of the female referent, as can best be distinguished by the overall theme of the song. The two happy songs in this corpus involve flower imagery, particularly blooming flowers (Hana Ranbu, and Nirinso–). Seasonality pervades the


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lyrics as well; these two songs describe springtime, either of the woman or of the love relationship. In these ways, time, in the sense of a yearly cycle, is used as a trope for human life as well as for the life of the relationship. Time of day is also mentioned in the songs, (seven times) only in the sad songs, in which it is inevitably night. We see from these examples that flowers can be women, their love, or even the loving couple, as a pair of flowers from the same plant. The only flower named specifically is yukiwariso– (hepatica), a flower that breaks through the snow to bloom. This represents a woman’s hope that love will bloom in the man’s heart. The flower provides an image of perseverance through difficult times that are imagined as cold weather. One can envision the “two-flowered stalk” couple in Nirinso– as a similar plant, having endured bitter weather, as the song describes. Hana Ranbu Wild Flowerdance hana wa sai -tara chiru made moeru watashi no inochi mo spring TOP bloom-if scatter until burn I/me GEN life too onaji iro same color A flower, having bloomed, will burn until it dies, my life is the same color Yukiguni Koiningyo– Snowcountry Lovedoll kegare o shira-nu hana no wagami wa itoshii hito to stain OBJ know -NEG flower GEN my body TOP dear person with aa saku inochi sigh bloom life Knowing no stain, my flowerbody, my life will bloom with my sweetheart Sakariba Nagareuta Song of the Drinking Quarters nasake no hana ga ame ni utare-te chit -te yuku love GEN flower SUBJ rain DAT beat -GER scatter-GER go The flower of love is rainbeaten and scattered

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Hito Koishigure Love Drizzle mizore ni furue -te inochi no kagiri haka -nai hana mo drizzle DAT shiver-GER life GEN limit last-not flower even sak -o– to suru wa bloom-HORT with do SFP Shivering in the drizzle, even the short-lived flower tries to bloom to the full extent of its life Ukiyoe Shunju– Sad Seasons itsu ka anata no mune ni saku yuki-wari-so– da to when Q you GEN chest DAT bloom snow-part-plant COP QUOT i -ware-te mitai say-PASS-GER I want Someday, I want to be called [by you] the hepatica that blooms in your heart (lit., chest) Minato Koiuta Harbor Love Song beni mo hito-hake fuyu no hana anata hayaku hayaku lipstick too one -stroke winter GEN flower you quickly quickly kizui -te yo notice-GER SFP With a swipe of lipstick, a flower of winter . . . you/darling hurry, hurry up and notice! Nirinso– Two-flowered Stalk Ho–ra go -ran sukoshi okure-te saku h ana o itoshi-ku hey HON-look little late -GER bloom flower OBJ dear -ADV omot -te kure-masu ka Kayou futari wa futari wa ni –rin -so– travel twosome TOP twosome TOP two-flower-plant Look, a late blooming flower! [Would you] think of it dearly for me? Wherever we go we are a two-flowered stalk


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It is clear from these examples what kind of desire prefigures these poetic narratives of song: the desire for fulfillment–blooming through successful heterosexual pair bonding. Without this, the flower of love may scatter, and the individual is just that, alone, searching, or waiting for the absent beloved. Even in cases of marital difficulty the narratives depict women as enduring until metaphorical springtime comes and love blooms in the husband’s heart. Parenthetically, but no less importantly, is the description given of the kind of person my consultants persisted in attempting to identify and introduce to me as a potential marital partner. He was referred to as sakaseru hito (the man who would make me bloom). Single, I was out of phase for my generation, the targeted market for Saita (Bloomed), a magazine aimed at housewives which debuted in bookstores during that time. In karaoke class, the teacher encouraged us to draw parallels between a song’s content and our lives, hypothesizing that we ourselves had once been “scattered flowers,” that is, women who had loved and lost. In the case of a song’s direct address to the beloved, the teacher encouraged each of us to sing as if we were actually addressing our loves, even the woman whose husband had died. So within this group of women I sang with, the flowery world of enka was not a distant abstraction16 but rather an aestheticization of their own lives, experiences, and desires. It reflected how my consultants lived and further, what they indexed as they told me that surely, naturally, the evergrowing numbers of single women in Japan would come to like enka music, once they had reached sufficient maturity. Once they had lost at love enough. But there was more to these songs than flower talk. In songs which lack the overt mention of flowers as people, other seasonal, temperature or weather-related, and place-related images are used, along coherently figurative lines. Temperature, particularly coldness and damp chill, evokes a woman’s sadness. Travel, a theme which seems contrary to the floral theme, typically includes mention of seasonal indicators. Women, like flowers, suffer the effects of cold weather, and the like. As women travel northward (and their travel in enka is consistently northward, that is, towards To– hoku) in these songs, seasons change towards winter, as in Tabi Makura (Journey) at the beginning of this chapter. (Contrast this with the happy couple in Nirinso– (Two-flowered Stalk), for whom spring is coming.) Travel, in opposition to floral embodiment, saliently tropes a woman’s search for the absent beloved or a desire to rid herself of heartbreak. An uprooted woman is not a woman blooming with love’s happiness. Women travel only to find themselves in locations evocative of transience and loneliness: ocean harbors, train stations, bars. Women appearing as transient, liquid phenomena in songs, such as clouds or ocean waves, are neither flowers nor happy.

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WHAT ARE MEN IN ENKA? In order to compare manly men’s and womanly women’s17 songs qualitatively, six manly men’s songs were extracted from a prepackaged collection of 80 songs (Enka ketteiban ‘[The] Definitive Enka Collection,’ Pijo–n 1998); consultants agreed that the collection was representative of the genre. Although the number of manly men’s songs is smaller, they made the most economical choice for evaluation without introducing additional criteria for data selection. The flower and plant imagery that was so prominent in the women’s songs shows up only twice, in the guise of plants set in water (but notably, not rain): Kyo–daibune Brothers’ Boat nami no tani -ma ni inochi no hana ga futatsu wave GEN valley-interval DAT life GEN flower SUBJ two naran -de sai -te iru line up-GER bloom-GER PROG two flowers of life stand side by side, blooming in the valleys between the ocean waves Omoidegawa River of Memories ne -nashi-gusa da yo nagare no fuchi de ikiru otoko ni root-no -grass COP SFP flow GEN pool at live man DAT naze hore-ta why love-PAST [I am a] rootless grass—why did [you] fall in love with a man who lives in the flowing pools? Drinking and crying behaviors appeared in greater numbers than did flowers. The imagery of liquids perfuses the men’s corpus: the ocean, rivers, and pools, evocative of the floating world of desire. Life’s transience and the religious aspects thereof are prefigured here in the watery world of men’s enka. TRAVELLING MEN. Travel figures even more prominently in the narratives of men’s songs (i.e., in five of the six) than it did in the women’s songs (where travel was mentioned in only three of the thirteen), appearing


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consistently in the first few lines. However, it is often inferred from the narrative rather than mentioned directly. Men travel by boat (in four of five songs) or up a mountain (in the fifth song). As with the women, motion is towards the north, and the weather steadily worsens throughout the song, changing from rain to snow. Thus: Kita Kiko– North Boat to Home kita e, kita e, otoko ga hitori .kita e, north to north to man SUBJ alone..north to kita e, otoko wa kaeru north to man TOP return Northward, northward, I (lit. man) am alone . . . . northward, northward, I (lit. man) go home Kita no Tabibito Northern Traveler tadoritsuitara misaki no hazure akai hi ga finally reach-when cape GEN deserted red light SUBJ tsuku turn on potsuri to hitotsu yoru no kushiro wa ame ni naru pop with one night GEN Kushiro TOP rain DAT become daroo probably When I finally reach the deserted cape, the red lamp pops on . . . . it will probably rain in Kushiro at night In the men’s as well as in the women’s songs, travel is to or in the north, as the titles of the two songs just cited indicate. What is notably different, however, is that the man’s trip is circular, focusing on his return to a particular woman, rather than a linear trip which a woman would undertake in search of a man, as in Tabi Makura (Journey). The journey described in the song just cited, Kita no Tabibito, is made more poignant with the understanding that the woman is no longer in the place where the man seeks her, although she was said to have been there until about six months prior, drinking, and crying in a bar.

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Summary As behavior is naturalized through poetic descriptions of humans as nature and vice versa, the relationships of men and women in enka progress in ways that are therefore made to seem inevitable. Though it has been claimed ad nauseum that Japanese love nature, it is rather that Japanese grammatically subsume themselves within nature, and vice versa. Furthermore, particular aspects and descriptions of nature are used as a naturalizing force, a primary trope in support of socially ordered emotions and gender relations co-occuring in texts and discourse. What happens or is enacted by persons or phenomena as described in the song echoes the kind of relationship and predicts its outcome. Examining these major motifs in corpora of enka lyrics spells out notions of space and time as we move towards an understanding of the natural order inscribed in enka and lived by, or at least accepted as livable by, its aficionados. We can then see To– hoku’s natural place in enka as it aligns to nationalized imagery of Japanese regionality as well as to the emotional tenor of the genre. Amidst the gendered differences in men’s and women’s enka songs there is a consistent theme of northward travel, concomitant with romantic heartbreak and despair. Men are liquid and relatively more mobile. Women, as flowers, are happiest when stationary and protected from cold. Coldness aligns with sadness, which increases with northerly movement. This association grounds enka to To– hoku in the nationalized imagination. To– hoku’s place in the national and local imagination is invoked and reinstantiated by its use as both a named physical place and as a metaphorically emotional one indexed in enka. In this regard enka shares a literary tradition with historical poetic genres. The area where I conducted fieldwork is further drawn into this trope through its own cultural history.

Enka and Identity In the field, the fact that I was interviewing was a great aid in establishing my sincerity and determination to understand a genre that was, in my neighborhood, performatively age-marked for a generation older than mine (50⫹), based on the age ranges of hobby participants. My participation in singing and dancing lessons was encouraged and eventually fostered through these people, who at first found it odd that a doctoral candidate would find enka a worthy topic. That participation, and its vested importance expressed by my consultants, led not only to my embodied under-


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standing of singing enka. It also pointed the way to the conclusion that processural learning-by-doing in enka, as in other arenas of instruction in Japan (Ikuta 1987), was both a practical necessity and an ideological one in the local view. My consultants simply did not provide the answers to my analytic questions in so many words. That they would not, and why, was an important key to understanding native metapragmatics. Rather, they incorporated me into their hobby groups, where I learned that my consultants’ notions of enka as directly reflective of life events was reasonable given their circumstances. As best I could determine from my knowledge of their life situations, they could identify with the discourses of enka. They also preferred that I seek answers to my questions about enka through its discourse, rather than through a metadiscourse I first attempted to foster through decontextualized interviews. And they seemed to project the discourses onto me as well. To identify with enka is, I believe, partly to admit to having had some similar experiences of heartbreak, perhaps also of happiness or of the longing for it. This underlies the commonly expressed belief that one has to have had these experiences in order to appreciate enka. What lies more deeply, however, is identification with a kind of gender differentiation and role complementarity18 that is undergoing considerable critique by younger generations, whose places in the socioeconomic reality of Japan are quite different to those of their predecessors who sang enka with me.

The Journey Motif The woman of enka who travels or waits in a place of transition (or liminality) is unhappy, whether she is seeking a man or seeking reprieve from her lovesickness. Men, on the other hand, nearly always travel out to sea, but with the memories and expectations of a woman waiting for them back in port. The most tragic of the men’s songs, Kita no Tabibito (Northern Traveler), describes his fruitless searching for the woman who moved on. The reality of the travelling man is certainly not new; current patterns of long-term work-related separation of businessmen from their families tanshin funin (single posting) are rooted in feudal practice, and exist alongside other traditionally gender-separated work venues such as fishing.19 Sendai is also a city known for its many branch offices, to which upwardly mobile businessmen may be sent to work alone during some point in their careers. It is a given for my consultants, too, that truck drivers are stereotypical enka lovers, particularly of the songs of Yashiro Aki. If we wanted to take a step back into the imaginal history of separation as evidenced in literature, we could consider

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Genji’s banishment to the seashore where he is separated from his beloved, or Basho–’s journey north, or the Tanabata lovers whose once yearly meeting is celebrated so lavishly during Sendai’s brief summertime. Differences in the nature of journeys of men and women in enka, at any rate, reinscribe the notions of woman’s place as fixed versus male mobility. Men’s journeys outwards to the sea or up a mountain are seen as necessary for work or as metaphorically representational of the lifepath. Women, in contrast, take journeys on land out of season, grow thin, and suffer from ill weather as they head north. One scarcely needs to mention how radically this image departs from the reality of many young contemporary Japanese women who pursue international travel as a hobby and appear to thrive on it for both career related and romantic reasons (cf. Kelsky 2001). THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS. We have seen evidence here for the metaphor which exists in Japanese. This is the kind of metaphorization used in cognitive linguistics theory to describe the mechanisms operating at global levels throughout a language, as shared aspects of understanding among speakers, which are elucidated through compilation and analysis of a variety of their instantiations such as those we have seen here. Hiraga states that this metaphor exists particularly in relation to haiku poetry. It coexists with other metaphors, namely, that: TIME IS A TRAVELER, EVENTS ARE ACTIONS, NATURE IS HUMAN, LIFE IS A JOURNEY, LIFETIME IS A YEAR (1995:467). These metaphors operate in enka, along with LOVE’S LIFETIME FOLLOWS A SEASONAL CYCLE. In enka, perhaps the PEOPLE ARE NATURE metaphor is the most important property. It appears neither generically nor randomly, but specifically in gendered patterns that naturalize postwar roles of male income earner and female housewife. Such naturalization emerges from grammatical fusion of the natural and human phenomena into ‘sloppy selfhood,’ a characteristic of Japanese that I have further explicated elsewhere (Occhi 2000, 2001, 2002). This property of enka (as well as other expressive genres) which problematizes neat divisions of the lyrics into discourse versus narrative provides further evidence for a blurred notion of selfhood, in the sense of an imaginal sharing of sentiment and other properties with the natural world.20 Space and place are notions that currently receive much attention in linguistic and sociocultural anthropology. They are inherently interesting to our evaluation of enka, whether taken as literal, mapped locations, or as imaginal ones. The qualitative examination of lyrics presented here also discussed differences in physical location ascribed to men and women relative to their emotional state. Recall that the happy woman is planted, like a PEOPLE ARE NATURE


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flower. Were she married, she, like the married women in my neighborhood, would be referred to as okusan (wife), a term indexing a fixed position, viz., inside the home. As for her husband, he could be described by the expression genki de rusu ga ii (it’s good [that he is] healthy and absent). These are indeed the normative positions and descriptors for the women and couples with whom I was involved in fieldwork: a husband employed outside the home, and a housewife—or in some cases, a widow. Although it is certainly true that married women in Japan may work outside the home, in the demographic represented by my consultants, their labor has been seen as sporadic and peripheral to the domestic role (Sugimoto 2003). With ongoing demographic and socioeconomic changes, however, trends including ever-later marriage age, higher rates of singles, and dual-career households are emerging. Further, resistance to enka’s discourse of normativity at the level of gendered interaction in heterosexual pairs (at least by younger women) emerges in their strongly negative reactions to the addressee pronoun omae. This generational split, however, is reinterpreted by my middle-aged consultants as a natural phase in the lifecycle—these younger women, they told me, will surely come to love enka in time— describing a kind of emotional return to furusato, the heart’s traditional resting place. Further discussion of these changes must await future studies, and will certainly involve an examination of generational changes in female mobility as well.

The Genre and the Map To be sure, there are places other than To– hoku mentioned in enka; specifically, many songs focus on the western Kansai region—arguably a secondary location for furusato projection in the Japanese imaginary—and name places there. In both the male and female lyrics examined qualitatively, however, To– hoku and specific places in northern Japan are prominent in both imagery and specific labels. This may reflect the teachers’ or students’ preference. Singers often adopt imagery-appropriate stage names such as Kitajima (North Island) Saburo or Tendo (a town in To– hoku) Yoshimi. The songs preferentially mention north and movement towards the north and towards the sea, or even motion out to sea with the intention of return, return to one’s furusato hometown. Sendai is seen as furusato-like in nature in that it exploits claims to traditionality and authenticity even as it serves as a major, urban regional center. Its forefronting of Tanabata, the yearly festival celebrating long-separated and briefly reunited lovers, coheres neatly to the themes of longing and separation

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so common to enka. Two of the major historical figures who enjoy association to Sendai, Date Masamune and Basho– Matsuo, partake of these themes in their popular representations. In my own neighborhood, placemarkers and plaques inscribed the passage of both. There is, furthermore, an uncanny set of associations between enka with its notions of separation of male and female, often by water, the Tanabata, and waka love poetry describing the area of the Natori river just south of Sendai (Kamens 1997). These links further encourage the location of enka in the imaginal region shared by other types of poetry and folklore in Japanese which enjoy greater historicity and repute. We see, therefore, that my consultants’ statements about enka are not reflections of local whimsy or personal speculation, but rather, echoes of a national and historical discourse of persons and places within which To– hoku provides ‘heartbreak’s destination.’

Notes 1. The songs and interviews on which this chapter is based are derived from my dissertation research, carried out in Sendai from July 1997 to January 1999, supported by NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant #SBR 9729002 and the UC Davis Women and Research Consortium Graduate Research Award, and also from ongoing research since 2001 partly supported by Miyazaki International College. I am indebted to the gracious assistance of many people, including my advisor Dr. Janet (Shibamoto) Smith, my research assistant Reizo Shibamoto, my enka teachers, and my consultants. 2. Indeed there are those who despise enka, just as there are people who loathe American country music, but as discourses, both genres can tell us much about romantic narratives operating within their respective cultures. 3. Sanriku is the traditional name for three kuni (Rikuzen, Rikuchu– , Mutsu) that are now Miyagi, Iwate, and Aomori prefectures of the To– hoku region. 4. This reinforces Sugimoto’s claim that conformity is learned through emotive means, important among which is collective singing (1997:254). 5. The reader is referred to William LaFleur’s discussion of To– hoku kokeshi dolls as “a folk art related to the mizuko” (abortions or murdered infants) (1992:51–52). 6. http://www.city.sendai.jp/DataFile/History/index-e.html 7. This legend originally emerged from Chinese folklore. 8. For a relatively recent description of those, see Bestor 1989. 9. That designation aligns with its identity as furusato, the home place of traditional values. 10. Okinawa’s musical associations are with Ryu– kyu– folk music and, interestingly, with modern pop music. 11. These features also appear in contemporary music popular with the young who claim to despise enka.


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12. Women’s enka are songs written in a feminine voice and sung by women. 13. Omae and ore appear occasionally in hard rock songs sung by men. 14. However, men do sing female-gendered lyrics, and vice versa. 15. Neither was enka and its discourse of heartbreak a reference to deviant behavior of marginalized others, contra Yano 2002:15. 16. Manly men’s songs indicate masculine gender and are sung by males. 17. Along with this exists an identification with notions of traditionality and authenticity (as contrasted to globalized) Japaneseness. 18. These fit well with the image of separated Tanabata lovers discussed above. 19. How this property of Japanese manifests in other popular genres is my current focus of research.

References Bestor, Theodore C. 1989. Neighborhood Tokyo. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Haranomachi Historical Society. 1997. Rekushi no auymi [A walk through history]. Sendai. Hiraga, Masako. 1995. ‘Blending’ and Interpretation of Haiku: A Cognitive Approach. Poetry Today 20(3):460–481. Hoshino, tetsuro– . 1998. Kita Kiko– . Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers. Ikuta, Kumiko. 1987. ‘Waza’ kara shiru. (Ninchi Kagaku Sensyo 14). Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Syuppankai. Ishimoto, Miyki. 1995. Tabimakura. Teichiku. Kamens, Edward. 1997. Utamakura, Allusion, and Intertextuality in Traditional Japanese Poetry. New Haven: Yale University Press. Kelsky, Karen. 2001. Women on the Verge: Japanese Women, Western Dreams. Durham: Duke University Press. Kizai, Daijiro– . 1998. Kyo– daibune. Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers. LaFleur, William R. 1992. Liquid Life: Abortion and Buddhism in Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Manjo–, Takashi. 1994. Yukiguni Koiningyo–. Tokuma Jyapan Komu– nikeesyonzu. Matsui, Yu– rio. 1988. Hana Ranbu. Teichiku. Miura, Yasuteru. 1998. Omoidegawa. Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers. Miyaginoku Ward Office. 1999. Statistics in Brief. Sendai. Mizuki, Kaoru. 1998. Nirinso– . Terchiku. Occhi, Debra. 2002. Nature and Gender in Japanese Media. Anthropology of Japan in Japan workshop, November 1–2, Tokyo. ———. 2001. The Nature of Sentiment in Japanese Enka Music. Anthropology of Japan in Japan meeting, May 12–13, Osaka; and workshop, November 16, Tokyo.

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———. 2000. Namida, Sake, and Love: Emotional Expressions and Japanese Enka Music. PhD diss., University of California, Davis. Palmer, Gary B., and Debra J. Occhi, eds. 1999. Languages of Sentiment: Pragmatic and Conceptual Approaches to Cultural Constructions of Emotional Substrates. (Advancements in Consciousness Research vol. 18, Maxim Staminov, ed.). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Robertson, Jennifer. 1995. Hegemonic Nostalgia, Tourism, and Nation-Making in Japan. Senri Ethnological Studies 38(9):89–103. Satomura, Ryu– ichi. 1998. Hito Koishigure. Sonii Reko–do. Sendai Municipal Government. 1995. Introduction to Sendai. Public Relations Office: Sendai. ———. 1998. Sendai Shitayori ‘Sendai City Tidings.’ Public Relations Office: Sendai. Sendai Sightseeing Organization. 1995 Fresh and Retro Sendai City Map. Sendai. Shibamoto, Janet S. 1986. Japanese Women’s Language. New York: Academic Press. (Shibamoto) Smith, Janet S. 1999. From hiren to happi-endo: Romantic Expression in the Japanese Love Story. In Languages of Sentiment: Cultural Constructions of Emotional Substrates, ed. G. B. Palmer and D. J. Occhi. 131–150. Advances in Consciousness Research, vol. 18. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Shinki, Kurako. 1998. Ukiyoe Shunju– . Teichiku. Sugimoto, Yoshio. 2003. An Introduction to Japanese Society. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Various. 1988. Enka Ketteiban [(The) definitive Enka collection]. Tokyo: Piju– n. Yanaguchi, Yo– ko. 1998. Kita no Tabiboto. Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers. Yano, Christine R. 2002. Tears of Longing: Nostalgia and the Nation in Japanese Popular Song. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Yoshioka, Osamu. 1998. Minato Koiuta. Sonii Reko– do. Yu– ki, Keiko. 1998. Sakariba Nagareuta. Nihon Koromubia.

Chapter 8

Tradition and Modernity Merged in Tsugaru Nuri Lacquerware Perspectives of Preservation and Promotion, Production and Consumption Anthony S. Rausch

Aomori Prefecture, named after its “blue forests” of Japanese cypress, is the northernmost prefecture of the To– hoku Region. With a population of approximately 1.48 million, spread through three major cities, five secondtier cities, and 59 towns and villages, Aomori is clearly rural. The prefecture ranks low on most standard criteria of development and is experiencing a net loss of population, an aging population, and high social welfare dependency.1 On the other hand, Aomori is blessed with a strong agricultural and fisheries base and is a major domestic producer of apples, garlic, scallops, and yams. Aomori also boasts of natural beauty and historical importance, most notably the Shirakami Mountains (designated by UNESCO as a World Natural Heritage Site), and the Jo– mon-period Sannai Maruyama archeological site (estimated to have been inhabited 5,500 years ago). Depending on one’s point of view, Aomori is either cursed with rural isolation, a function of its geographical distance from the political and cultural capitals and underdeveloped infrastructure, or blessed with abundant nature and a fiercely independent spirit, a carryover from its long status on the periphery of both old and modern Japan. There are two well-recognized districts within Aomori, the Tsugaru to the west and the Nambu to the east. Separated by the Hakkoda Mountain Range, which runs south from Mutsu Bay, these two districts are distinct entities, with separate histories, dialects, and festivals. Cultural representations of Tsugaru include Tsugaru Shamisen music, Tsugaru Koginzashi embroidery,

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the Tsugaru Kagura and Tsugaru Minyo– Te-odori dance forms, and Tsugaru Nuri lacquerware. This chapter discusses Tsugaru Nuri, the lacquerware of the Tsugaru District, presenting it as one means of examining the dimensions of tradition and modernity in rural Japan, played out in specific elements of the history, policies, preferences, and practices of lacquerware craftworkers, government agencies, and Japanese consumers. The various perspectives contextualizing Tsugaru Nuri, emphasized in the processes of traditionalization by government, market accommodation, craft innovation by lacquerers, and consumption by Japanese consumers, aptly portray both the dimensions of tradition and modernity (related to traditional representations of rural Japan), and the manner in which these representations are cast in specific cultural styles (as appropriate to the evolving objectives of these various groups). These perspectives, and the resulting cultural styles, reflect the variety of conceptualizations of traditional crafts in modern society: in the tension between tradition and merchandising (Chalmers 1992); in the contrast of tradition versus traditionalization; the creation of social meaning surrounding tradition (Staub 1988); and in the causality of modernity as a necessary precondition for the conceptualization of tradition (Sekimoto 2000). However, the traditionalization of Tsugaru Nuri as a craft, while understandable given increased recognition and valuation of traditional Japanese crafts that occurred in the 1970s, does little to ensure its future. It is rather in the true tradition of Tsugaru Nuri, a tradition incongruously based on a thoroughly modern model of market accommodation and craft innovation, that a future for Tsugaru Nuri will be secured.

Tsugaru Nuri Lacquerware: Origins and Establishment Tsugaru Nuri itself is in many ways a mystery. Most locals of course know what it is: the locally made lacquered chopsticks, bowls, tie clips, and tables. However, few clearly understand its history, nor even how the distinctive Tsugaru Nuri patterns are created. As described by Sato (1977), Tsugaru Nuri is the “joining together of wooden base forms with precious lacquer sap in once secretive, now mysterious techniques, which, through a labor-intensive and time-consuming process of lacquering and polishing, result in a variety of lacquered goods with intricate and inexplicably detailed surface patterns and astonishing

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longevity” (translation by the author). From the standpoint of the craft tradition, Tsugaru Nuri is a piece of lacquerware based on (a) the Tsugaru lacquering techniques, (b) any one of the four designated Tsugaru lacquerware patterns, (c) the traditional Tsugaru coloring, and (d) being of the Tsugaru District in origin. The pieces range from the ordinary and everyday— chopsticks, trays, and bowls—to the extraordinary and prized—a zataku (grand Japanese-style low table), a fubako (stationary box), and a suzuri (calligraphy set). The artistic and complex character of the four representative patterns of Tsugaru Nuri are varied: the mysterious and random multicolored speckling of kara-nuri; the minute uniformity of the circle patterned nanako-nuri; the soft shading and subtle design of monsha-nuri; and the combinative intermixing of these styles in nishiki-nuri. The processes that create these patterns are at first mysterious, then all but unbelievable. It is in multiple applications (as many as 40 total applications of lacquer for a single piece), of base lacquers, then pattern lacquers, and finally surface lacquers, that the patterns and deep tone of Tsugaru Nuri emerge. The colored surface patterns of Tsugaru Nuri are dictated by the thicknesses and patterns of the pattern lacquer layers, created with a spatula-like tool in kara-nuri, dried rapeseed spread on the surface in nanako-nuri, and likewise burned rice husks in monsha-nuri. After application of the surface lacquers, these patterns are brought out with sanding and polishing, which works down through the layers of lacquer, revealing the pattern of what lies underneath. Some have called Tsugaru Nuri the fool’s lacquerware, as only a fool would work so hard for one piece. Others attribute the time committed to each single piece of Tsugaru Nuri to be a function of the Tsugaru winters, which are long, cold, and dark.2

Origins: Innovation and Secrecy While evidence of the use of lacquer can be found throughout Japan’s history, the origins of Tsugaru Nuri, as with most regional Japanese lacquerwares, lie in the quest for originality on the part of the local elites in the Edo period. As such, the early history of Tsugaru Nuri can be characterized by both accommodation to the tastes of these elites and resulting innovation in craft technique and design, as lacquer craftsmen competed fiercely for the patronage-based support of the ruling clans. While the peace and prosperity of the Edo period brought practical functionalism in lacquerware for the rich merchant classes, the demand for originality and novelty by feudal elites brought sumptuous, intricate, as well

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as gaudy and overworked lacquer designs. New techniques were developed and new styles created, which led to the universal, but neither technique- nor pattern-specific terminological classification of kawari-nuri, literally, changed lacquer, considered to include all the nonclassical lacquering techniques that were emerging at the time. The level of innovation in this period is reflected in upwards of three hundred variations of saya-nuri (sword-scabbard lacquering) identified as from the Edo period (von Rague 1976). The tradition of Tsugaru Nuri lacquerware, a kawari-nuri born of similar social processes, was likewise one of meeting such demand. Following a period of struggle for regional control by several local groups, the Tsugaru family emerged victorious in 1589 and formal recognition was granted the Tsugaru Domain by the Tokugawa government. In 1610, the Tsugaru clan began building a castle in what was to become Hirosaki City, and following the practice of the time, sponsored craftsmen from the southern castle towns to lead the construction. Among these carpenters, stoneworkers, and blacksmiths were lacquermasters, who, in response to the demand for original lacquer designs and supported by the patronage of the Tsugaru family, established the local lacquer industry, leading to what would become Tsugaru Nuri lacquerware. Mochizuki (2000) reports numerous entries in feudal clan diaries showing issuance of invitations and provision of rice and property to lacquer masters throughout the 17th century. This demand for identity and originality, and the awards that accompanied success in meeting that demand, generated continual innovation in lacquerware, and new materials, new techniques, and new designs and patterns were constantly developed. The recent discovery of 514 te-ita (sample pieces) produced for displaying both creative design and technical skill, in a house owned by the Tsugaru family, attests to the level of local innovation of this period.3

Establishment: Transition and Recognition The abolition of the Tokugawa system in 1868 brought the end of localized clan control and the associated patronage. Tsugaru Nuri, like other regional lacquerwares, entered a period of transition from patronage support to market mechanism. It was in this period of transition that the term Tsugaru Nuri itself was coined. Throughout the Edo period, what would come to be called Tsugaru Nuri lacquerware was referred to with the catchall term kawari-nuri, as well as a variety of other terms which reflected either technique or pattern (Sato 2001). The official designation, coined to


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distinguish Tsugaru Nuri from other regional lacquerwares, came about with the lacquerware’s inclusion in the Vienna International Exhibition of 1873 (Sato and Hashimoto 1987). Lacquerware production in Tsugaru reflected factors both internal and local as well as national and global. As shown in table 8.1, while good fortune following the Meiji Restoration was followed by setback with World War I, by the mid- to late-Taisho era (1912–1926), the industry achieved a relative degree of internal stability, with legal corporations being formed and various educational and production associations emerging. The fortunes of Tsugaru Nuri lacquerware turned again as the global economic depression, which occurred in the early Showa era (1926–1989), and World War II, adversely affected lacquerware production. Tsugaru Nuri was recognized as an important local business, with its designation as a Prefectural Small Business Promotion Product, in 1949. Popularization of the craft led to diversification in both form and quality, as the use of plastic, as opposed to wooden, base materials became common in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1975, Tsugaru Nuri was officially traditionalized with its designation as a Traditional Craft Object. Production peaked shortly thereafter, in 1978, and there has been a steady decline in production, with future production projected to be at 1970s levels. The key point to note in contextualizing the origins and early history of Tsugaru Nuri is that the local lacquerware of the Tsugaru, which became known as Tsugaru Nuri, originated in the patronage relationships between elites and lacquerers; gained through innovative designs developed to meet the demand for originality; and was ultimately displayed on the sword scabbards and tobacco chests of these elites. This historical reality contradicts the traditionalization of most Japanese crafts, based, for the most part, in the Mingei (Folk Crafts) tradition of Yanagi Muneyoshi, that was developed in the 1920s. Yanagi (1972) held that mingei, as folk craft, could be differentiated from bijutsu (fine art) (which was created for aesthetic appreciation alone), on the basis of functionality, large-scale production, low price, and created by anonymous laborers, who worked without thought of self-expression.4 Yanagi’s conception of mingei contextualizes the enactment of the Cultural Properties Law of 1950 by the Japanese government, which broadened the concept of cultural assets and allowed for governmental participation in the preservation of folk crafts and traditions. While one could argue that Tsugaru Nuri does not fit Yanagi’s conception of mingei, one of the principal oversight bodies of Japanese craft has, however, placed Tsugaru Nuri clearly in the context of traditional craft.5

Table 8.1. Historical Trend of Tsugaru Nuri Lacquerware Production Year

Production (Yen)

Major Events

1881

5,697

1897

9,079

1906

45,056

Tsugaru Nuri Production Association2 established (1907)

1910

47,169

Prefectural Industrial School3 established in Hirosaki (Lacquer Industrial Science included; abolished 1918)

1914

26,000

start of First World War

1921

140,337

market in Tohoku and Hokkaido Districts enlarged

1928

129,600

55 lacquer enterprises—98 employed

1936

202,337

79 lacquer enterprises—233 employed

1939

153,171

Second World War begins

1947

830,700

1949

13,950,144

Tsugaru Nuri designated Pref. Small Business Promotion Product4

1958

203,100,000

suspension of imports of Chinese lacquerwares

1967

380,000,000

1973

1,535,000,000

establishment of the Tsugaru Nuri Danchi

1975

1,930,800,000

designation of Tsugaru Nuri as Traditional Craft Object5

1980

2,186,690,000

production peak in 1978: 2,397,695,000; 678 lacquer craftsmen identified

1995

1,840,000,000

449 lacquer craftsmen identified (1996)

2000

1,121,000,000

310 lacquer craftsmen identified (2001)

2005

1,227,000,000

projected as of 2001

Tsugaru Nuri included in the 2nd Domestic Promotion Exhibition1

Mochizuki (2000); (1) dainikai naikoku kangyo– hakurankai; (2) Tsugaru Nuri sangyo– kumiai; (3) kenritsu ko– gyo gakko– ; (4) aomoriken chu– sho– kigyo– shinko– taisaku; (5) dento– ko– geihin.


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Traditionalization: Perspectives of Preservation and Promotion Tsugaru Nuri was designated a Traditional Craft Object in 1975 at the discretion of the dento–teki ko–geihin sangyo– shinko– kyo–kai (Association for the Promotion of Traditional Craft Industries) under the Law for the Promotion of Craft Industries of 1974, and thus it is included in the shinko– jigyo– ni kakaru dento–teki ko–geihin (Traditional Crafts Products Promotion Plan).6 The Association, under the guidance of national and regional authorities, is “active in the promotion of traditional crafts at a grass-roots level while ensuring that these traditions are passed on to the next generation.”7 In order for a craft item to be designated a Traditional Craft Product, it must satisfy the following criteria: (1) The item must be used mainly in everyday life. (2) The article must be primarily manufactured by hand. (3) The article must be manufactured using traditional techniques. (4) The materials should be those which have been traditionally employed. (5) The industry must be of a regional nature. The scope of assistance activities in the promotion of local traditional craft areas are designated by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and include official recognition of master craftsmen, public commendation as well as financial awards, promotion of awareness of traditional craft products on a national level, polling of consumer opinions and undertaking of surveys of the actual state of craft production, as well as the issuance of certificates of authenticity for each traditional craft.

Table 8.2. Principal Activity Areas in Promotion Plan Activity Plans 1. Securement and training of successors 2. Maintenance and reform of techniques

1.1 training in traditional techniques 1.2 training in specialized techniques 2.1 training ensuring succession/ reform of techniques 2.2 development of educational materials/activities

(continued)

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Table 8.2. Principal Activity Areas in Promotion Plan Activity Plans (continued) 3. Activities for securement of raw materials

3.1 cultivation of lacquer trees 3.2 research on development of new lacquer sources

4. Activities related to development of demand

4.1 opening of exhibitions (local) 4.2 opening of exhibitions (national)

5. Improvement of working conditions

5.1 investigation of working sites 5.2 proposal for communal use working sites

6. Cooperative-based activities

6.1 cooperative securement of raw materials 6.2 cooperative securement of packaging materials 6.3 cooperative sales activities

7. Provision of product information

7.1 on traditional craft products 7.2 development of product liability handbook 7.3 cooperative advertising

8. Activities associated with aged society

8.1 public welfare system activities 8.2 recreation oriented activities 8.3 health maintenance for lacquerers

9. Promotional activities for Traditional Crafts

9.1 production of catalogs 9.2 development of appraisal system 9.3 development of educational materials 9.4 participation in the Japan (lacquer) Summit 9.5 training in sales practices for sales outlets 9.6 provision of lacquering seminars for consumers

Source: Based on Second Stage Promotion Plan Activity and Status Report and Third Stage Promotion Plan Proposal. Translation by author.

The Promotion Plan: Preservation versus Promotion The First Stage of the Promotion Plan for Tsugaru Nuri lacquerware was undertaken over the period from 1976 to 1984, the Second


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Stage from 1996 to 2001, and the third stage is now underway, projected to last until 2006. The activities of the First, Second and Third Stages are clearly identified in the respective Promotion Plan Activity Reports, grouped into nine principal areas of activities, each further divided as shown in the budget plans and actual expenditures for each of the activity areas within the Promotion Plans for the First and Second Stages and the budget plan for the Third Stage are shown in table 8.3. As important to note as the drop in expenditures over the period is the focus of activity within the plan, seen in the provision of funds as directed by budget plan and realized in expenditure from the First Stage to the Second and Third Stages. In the First Stage, both plan and expenditures are concentrated on cooperative activities and improvement of working conditions, together accounting for over ninety percent of the total expenditures. In the Second Stage, the plan was much broader, with the budget spread between prioritizing development of demand, activities for promotion of Traditional Crafts, working conditions, securement of raw materials and maintenance of technique. However, expenditures ultimately focused primarily on development of demand and promotion of Traditional Crafts, which together accounted for over 75% of total expenditures. In the budget plan for the Third Stage, the focus is further concentrated, with over 80% of the budget directed toward development of demand. Closer examination reveals further concentration of effort in specific areas, indicative of the prioritization of certain objectives over others. As shown in table 8.4, within the 18% of overall expenditure given to improvement of working conditions in the First Stage, over 95% went to the formation of an industry site which includes several affiliated factories, an exhibition center, and office, meeting, and storage space. Of the 76% of overall budget expenditure given to cooperative activities, just over 70% went to coordinating securement of raw materials, with another 25% to coordinating sales of the lacquerware. By the second stage, over half of overall expenditures went to development of demand, with another quarter to promotional activities. Of the former, slightly more than 60% went to opening and participating in exhibitions outside of Aomori Prefecture. Of the latter, 97% went to participation in and hosting (1996) the yearly Japan Urushi Summits, the meeting of a national network of regional lacquerware producers with the aim of promoting the industry overall. The budget plan for the third stage shows 84% of overall budget expenditure set to be allocated to development of demand, of which nearly three-quarters will go to activities set to increase sales.

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Table 8.3. Promotion Plan Budgets and Expenditures by Stages (%) First Stage Activity Area

Second Stage

Third Stage

Plan

Expend

Plan

Expend

Budget

1. Successor Training

2.9

1.4

2.9

3.7

6.5

2. Technique Preservation/Reform

0.1

0.01

9.8

2.6

1.7

3. Securement of Raw Materials

3.9

2.7

10.9

2.8

3.0

4. Development of Demand

1.3

1.9

25.4

52.8

84.2

5. Working Conditions

35.4

17.8

18.0

0.0

0.0

6. Cooperative Activities

55.3

75.5

3.5

3.5

1.1

7. Product Quality

0.6

0.4

1.5

3.2

1.3

8. Aged Society Activities

0.2

0.1

4.4

7.4

0.0

9. Industrial-Arts Crafts Industry

0.3

0.2

23.7

24.0

2.2

100 Total Budget (in 000,000 yen)

100

100

100

100

1,191 1,584

61

38

29

“Plan” ⫽ budget plan; “Expend” ⫽ budget expenditures. Source: First and Second Stage Promotion Plan Activity and Status Reports, Third Stage Promotion Plan Proposal.

As shown in table 8.2, the Promotion Plan lists a wide range of activities relevant to the future of Tsugaru Nuri. The data outlined above reflects a clear shift in focus over the three stages, from internal, infrastructural improvements and promotion of cooperative activities, undertaken in response to the internal needs of the industry in the process of its traditionalization, to the development of demand for Tsugaru Nuri and overall promotion of the lacquerware crafts. While it is obvious that a task completed leads to a refocussing on new tasks, it is important to note to which sector of activities the focus has been directed. The budget and expenditures data of the Promotion Plan presented herein indicate that little attention in the promotion plan is now being directed to the preservation and promotion of lacquering techniques and study of the history of Tsugaru Nuri. Instead, the Plan now emphasizes demand and sales, placing the institutionalized support of Tsug-


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aru Nuri clearly in an economic, market-based context. The traditionalization of Tsugaru Nuri in 1975 has clearly given way to the economic realities of the 1980s and 1990s.

Table 8.4. Expenditures within Activity Areas (by percent) Section as % Overall Budget

Activity as % Overall Budget

Activity as % of Section

First Stage 5. Improvement of working conditions 17.8 5.1 instruction in improvement 5.2 formation of industry site

0.5 17.3

3.5 96.5 100

6. Cooperative activities 75.5 6.1 coordinating raw mat’l securement 6.2 coordinating sales of product 6.3 cooperative facilities

53.4 20.0 2.1

71.0 26.0 3.0 100

Second Stage 4. Development of demand 52.8 4.1 opening of exhibitions: local 4.2 opening of exhibitions: national

19.0 33.8

36.0 64.0 100

9. Provision of promotional activities 24.0 9.1 production of catalogs 9.2 development of appraisal system 9.3 development of educational materials 9.4 Japan (Urushi) Summit

0.7 0.06 0.04 23.2

2.5 0.35 0.15 97.0 100

3.1 61.0 19.1

3.6 72.8 22.9 100

Third Stage 4. Development of demand

84.2

4.1 activities for Lacquer Day 4.2 activities for enlarging sales 4.3 activities for development of design

Figures are percent of overall budget for section, percent of overall budget for activity, and percent of section budget for activity. Source: First and Second Stage Promotion Plan Activity and Status Reports.

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Accommodation and Innovation: Perspectives of Production, Consumption and Characterization The production of crafts has been placed in many varied constructs: as a means of preserving a tradition; as a means of maintaining long-established relations within social systems; as a means of generating income enabling survival and resulting in empowerment for the craftsperson; and as a means of communicating oppression and resistance. Increasingly, craft production has also been linked to the development of tourism in an area and even as a function of therapy (Allen Dickie and Frank 1996; Frank 1996). The consumption of crafts can be contextualized with Clammer’s (1997) summation of the patterns of overall consumption in Japan, which he states: can be an expression of the self or an attempt to create an identify; . . . can a gesture of nostalgia or evidence of “social competence”—the ability . . . to produce a “correct performance” in a given setting; . . . can be a way of dealing with the internal tensions of contemporary Japanese society, a way of accumulating cultural capital and of achieving status in a society that denies the validity of class. (167)

The Perspective of Production A 1993 “Tsugaru Nuri Production Area Investigation Report” provides the most recent comprehensive snapshot of the Tsugaru Nuri business, reporting on production, sales, and consumption. Much of what follows was gleaned from this report.8 At the beginning of the First Stage of the Promotion Plan in 1976, there were 673 identified lacquer craftsmen in Hirosaki City. By 1996, the number had fallen to 449, and as of 2001, the Promotion Plan materials list 310 craftsmen in 140 lacquer enterprises. The vast majority, over 90 percent, are unincorporated, with slightly over half being sole proprietorships. The ownership is aged, with around 30 percent of principals above the age of 60 and another 50 percent from 50 to 60. This pattern is seen in the workers as well, as just over 30 percent of lacquer craftsmen are over 50, another quarter from 40 to 49 and another quarter from 30 to 39. The issue of successors in Tsugaru Nuri is on everyone’s mind: just under onefifth of respondents reported having identified a successor. Over 80 percent rely on lacquerware production as their sole means of income and 90 percent indicated that they would like to continue, with the aspect of a family


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business and prospect of continuing without incurring major financial commitments being the major positive factors. On the other hand, low profits, fierce competition, and long working hours were cited as negatives to the lacquer craft. Just over half of respondents reported sales down over the previous five-year period, with a quarter indicating that their sales networks had been reduced and just over half indicating that profits were down, with a drop in demand cited as the most problematic aspect of Tsugaru Nuri production. That noted, just over 60 percent indicated that all of their sales were within Aomori Prefecture, with Aomori accounting for three-quarters of the market share for sales of Tsugaru Nuri, of which over 60 percent is sold in Hirosaki City alone. Over 80 percent indicated production primarily on the basis of preorder, with the remainder producing primarily for open market sales. The 1993 Report indicated that the high cost of raw materials was the second most cited concern in the industry. One unchanging reality of lacquerware production in Japan is its near total dependence on foreign sources of raw lacquer sap, which constitutes around 80 percent of the material production cost of Tsugaru Nuri. Mochizuki (2000) reports on measures undertaken by local Tsugaru craftsmen to ensure supply of Chinese lacquer as early as 1904. As of the first year of the First Stage of the Promotion Plan (1975), 97 percent of the raw lacquer sap used locally, equaling 94 percent of the value of sap used, was imported from China. As noted, one the issues that the First Stage of the Promotion Plan set out to address was cooperative efforts in importing raw lacquer. However, while the value of imported lacquer has decreased slightly as of 2001, the import quantity has remained constant over this 25-year period.9

The Perspective of Consumption In data gathered by the Association for the Promotion of Traditional Craft Industries in 1990, Tsugaru Nuri garnered name recognition nationwide by 33 percent of respondents overall, the lowest of the five regional lacquerwares listed, and 75 percent among the To– hoku-Hokkaido respondents. Highest name recognition was for Wajima Nuri, at 95 percent overall (89 percent in To– hoku-Hokkaido), followed by Aizu Nuri.10 Summarizing the sales and consumer data from the 1993 Tsugaru Nuri Report, the most popular Tsugaru Nuri items sold in markets outside Aomori were trays and bowls, while within Aomori, lacquered chopsticks were the overwhelming leader, outselling the second-ranked item three to one.

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Less than half of prefectural sales outlet respondents indicated that they saw the future sales for Tsugaru Nuri as stable, with the majority predicting either decline or dramatic decline. On the other hand, a slight majority of nonprefectural sales outlet respondents predicted a stable future. Those involved in selling Tsugaru Nuri within Aomori prioritized increased concentration on the products which are popular as the means of securing a future, while those outside Aomori were split between such a popular-product focus and continuing to produce the complete line of Tsugaru Nuri lacquerware. Turning to consumers, ninety percent of prefectural respondents indicated having some Tsugaru Nuri, with over eighty percent indicating that they had received a Tsugaru lacquerware good from someone as a gift and 45 percent indicating having purchased Tsugaru Nuri themselves. Likewise, around 90 percent of nonprefectural respondents indicated possession of some regional lacquerware, 40 percent indicating Wajima Nuri, 35 percent Aizu Nuri, and 27 percent Tsugaru Nuri. As was the case for prefectural respondents, around 80 percent indicated receiving the lacquerware as a gift, with about 40 percent having purchased a piece of lacquerware themselves. Tsugaru Nuri was considered to be of high quality by two-thirds of prefectural respondents and 80 percent of nonprefectural respondents, with the pattern and coloring rated particularly high within Aomori, but less so by nonprefectural respondents. On the other hand, the form (function) of the item and the price were criticized by prefectural respondents but rated as either good, acceptable or not a factor in the evaluations of Tsugaru Nuri by respondents from outside Aomori. While nearly threequarters of prefectural respondents indicated that Tsugaru Nuri was expensive, only 40 percent of nonprefectural respondents felt likewise. The Report also included free responses on Tsugaru Nuri, revealing a mix of opinions regarding image, design, tradition, and hopes. On the one hand, there were those who praised the high quality, the specialization of the craftsperson, the tradition and the historical sense of the product, as well as its strength, its calming influence, and its value, both cultural and economic. On the other hand, there were also responses that alluded to its uniformity of design interpreted as a lack of individuality, and the darkness and complexity of the pattern as being depressing. The fact that, on the one hand, Tsugaru lacquerware is too expensive to buy and on the other hand too expensive to use if you do buy it, underscores the fact that there were no Tsugaru Nuri products for everyday use by young people.


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Summarizing the data from the 1993 Report, the following key points are clear: The Tsugaru Nuri industry can be characterized as smallscale, stagnant, and facing declining sales and profits, with little potential for cutting costs; the consumer base is weak outside Aomori Prefecture, even outside of Hirosaki City. Purchases of Tsugaru Nuri are based to a large degree on gift-giving obligations and, while seen as a high-quality product, Tsugaru Nuri is subject to a variety of sentiments, some clearly negative, regarding price, pattern, and form.

Accommodation and Innovation Given the significance of the above summation for Tsugaru Nuri producers, some adjustment by the industry was clearly needed. While dropping demand and low selling price were cited as the primary problems facing the industry, the revitalization strategies cited by the producers in response stressed creation of new products, improvement in the quality of products, and strengthening of the design capability of the industry. Even before the release of the 1993 Report, there were moves by lacquerers within the industry to address these needs. Mochizuki (2000) reports on the establishment of the Haikara Kurabu, written using the characters for “new color-together-enjoy-group,” in 1990, with the purpose of focussing on the “next generation of lacquerers by encouraging freedom of color in expression” (137). The Young Lacquerers Group, established in 1993 as an organization within the Traditional Industrial Crafts Tsugaru Nuri Association, provides lacquerers and consumers the opportunity to meet and exchange ideas and opinions at its once-a-year exhibition events. The necessity of a shift toward new products expressed by the lacquerers can be seen in recent lacquerware production, where there has been a clearly identifiable shift from the mid-1970s and 1980s to the present, with production of tables, tea and cake-related goods, and trays and boxes giving way to eating utensils (principally lacquered chopsticks) and the other category of craft item (table 8.5). While the product number proportion for tea and cake servers and trays and boxes halves, the figure doubles for eating utensils and jumps tenfold for other items. Likewise, while the value proportion attributed to lacquered tables halves, the proportion for eating utensils and others triples. Clearly the production trend is away from big items and toward small; from highpriced to affordable.

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Table 8.5. Production by Item Category 1974

1980

2000

2005

3.2 39.5

— 29.4

.27 18.6

.27 18.7

table

number value

furniture

number value

tea/cake servers

number value

41.4 24.6

— 29.3

14.5 27.7

14.5 27.7

trays/boxes

number value

12.2 19.0

— 25.8

5.3 12.8

4.9 12.7

eating utensils (chopsticks)

number value

37.1 6.7

— 8.6

69.5 19.9

70.2 20.0

other

number value

1.2 4.5

— 2.6

10.4 19.5

10.2 19.5

Total

number value

0.02 3.4

410,735 1,842

— 2.1

— 2,186

.02 1.5

329,463 1,121

.02 1.5

324,970 1,227

Item category figures in percent for year on basis of numerical production and value production (may not equal 100% due to rounding); item category value shows production value in millions of yen units. Source: First and Second Stage Promotion Plan Activity and Status Reports, Third Stage Promotion Plan Proposal.

Likewise, there is a clear trend from traditional to nontraditional items as well (table 8.6), seen in the decreases of both numbers and value of traditional items produced for most categories and the increases for nontraditional items. Given that the definitional break with traditional Tsugaru Nuri comes in either variation of pattern design, color scheme, or function of the piece, rather than in the lacquering technique, it is clear that Tsugaru Nuri lacquerware is experiencing a transition of pattern and form, from the traditional items of a traditionalized craft, to the nontraditional items of the innovative lacquer artisan.

Table 8.6. Production by Traditional versus Nontraditional Craft

table

furniture

1974

1980

2000

2005

100 100

— 100

100 100

100 100

nontraditional number value

— —

— —

— —

— —

traditional

100 100

— 100

100 100

100 100

— —

— —

— —

— —

traditional

number value

number value

nontraditional number value tea goods/ cake servers

traditional

number value

88.2 83.3

nontraditional number

— 85.1 11.8

55.3 80.1 —

55.3 80.3 44.7

44.7 trays/boxes

value

16.7

14.9

19.6

19.7

number value

91.5 95.1

— 95.1

61.2 88.1

62.5 88.5


8.5 4.7

—

38.8 11.9

37.5 11.5

traditional

eating utensils traditional (chopsticks)

number value

nontraditional number value other

Overall

traditional

4.9

100 100

— 100

86.9 80.7

87.3 80.8

— —

— —

13.1 19.3

12.7 19.2

number value

90.0 90.0

— 89.9

37.5 73.1

36.4 76.6


10.0 10.0

— 10.1

62.5 26.9

63.6 26.4

traditional

number value

93.0 94.5

— 94.1

75.9 83.9

76.3 84.1


6.0 5.5

—

24.1 16.1

23.6 15.9

5.9

Item category figures in percent for year on basis of numerical production and value production. Source: First and Second Stage Promotion Plan Activity and Status Reports; Third Stage Promotion Plan Proposal.

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The Perspective of Characterization The trend in production of Tsugaru Nuri away from traditional representations and toward those more in line with contemporary patterns of consumer preference noted, a final element in constructing the contemporary production consumption picture of Tsugaru Nuri is the characterization of the representation of lacquerware, for which there are two very clear patterns. On the one hand, there is the promotional representation, which is clearly and dominantly oriented on the lines of tradition. Materials prepared by both the Tsugaru Nuri Sales Association and the Hirosaki City Products Association stress the essence of Tsugaru Nuri as a dento–teki ko–geihin, a traditional craft, with that tradition expressing the kokoro (heart) and gi (skill, art, or technique) of Tsugaru, as well as a jimoto no kurashi no chie, local knowledge or wisdom of living. Heralding Hirosaki City’s hosting of the annual Japan Lacquer Summit in May, 1996, the leading block of text in a full-page announcement carried in a local newspaper states that “Lacquer is tied to our Jo– mon history and our regional future.”11 In a full page announcement declaring the establishment of November 13 as Urushi no Hi (Lacquer Day) later in the same year, the largest block of text stresses the “Artist’s Skill,” while the adjoining text calls on us to “protect the tradition of Tsugaru.” Accompanying this is an approximately 500-character description of the history of Tsugaru Nuri. Other, more frequent promotional representations have included references to Tsugaru Nuri as a furusato-hin, a product of one’s nostalgic homeplace, and more recently, in 2002, Tsugaru Nuri being a “folkcraft of the people” and the importance of “seeking the opportunity of discovering Tsugaru through the traditional craft of Tsugaru Nuri.” On the other hand, there are informational representations of Tsugaru Nuri in the newspaper media which portray the lacquerware in a much more modernistic light, prioritizing the aspect of innovation. A 1994 Graph-Aomori magazine article reports on the Yu– Kobo Studio, written with a character meaning “to wander or play,” casting it as a Tsugaru Nuri factory characterized by “freedom, potential, and extravagant design.” A 1996 newspaper article introduces a local lacquer craftsman as “pursuing modern creative originality” and a 1997 article introduces a craftsman who sees lacquer sap as a living thing, something the craftsman must creatively harness in order to leave something meaningful to the future. Headlines also represent the orientation of accommodation by the lacquerware producers: articles reporting on the opening of the annual Hirosaki City lacquerware exhibition, dubbed the Tsugaru Nuri Exhibition of Excellence, place Tsugaru Nuri in the context of contemporary lifestyle, stressing the “warmth of lacquerware” (1994) and the “abundance of living


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with lacquerware” (1995). The 1997 introductory article focused on ‘Tsugaru Nuri in Architecture,’ citing works in the exhibition promoting the potential for Tsugaru Nuri in both the actual construction design of houses (door handles, countertops, etc.) and in innovative furniture and art objects, while the 1999 article, ‘Tsugaru Nuri as a Lifestyle Accessory,’ connected Tsugaru Nuri to fashion accessories such as bracelets, broaches and pins. Mochizuki (2000) reports on the coining of the term NEO TSUGARU in 1998 to refer to innovations based on the “polishing of techniques leading to new kawari-nuri” (139).

Tsugaru Nuri Lacquerware: Tradition and Modernity Merged This chapter set out to discuss Tsugaru Nuri as one means of examining dimensions of tradition and modernity in rural Japan. Conceptualizations of tradition and modernity in the realm of crafts have been organized on frameworks highlighting the purity of tradition being compromised with accommodation to modernity on one extreme and the notion that tradition can not exist without modernity on the other. Chalmers (1992) asserts that the conventional notion of tradition in crafts, holding that production of crafts is undertaken solely for the sake of the craft itself, is ultimately in tension with the reality of modernity, which places craft in a context of consumption. He argues that accommodation to market in the form of innovation in the craft object solely to generate demand ultimately casts the tradition of the craft itself to the side. While the process of merchandising the craft professionalizes the craftsperson and improves his or her economic position and standing on the one hand, according to Chalmers, it does so at a loss of the sense of the craft itself, as “to produce craft objects for the merchandising arena is to negate the relevance of aesthetic roots whereby contemporary crafts evolve” (33). Chalmers also claims that there is a fundamental incongruity between the source of craftwork in emotive experience and its historical function and the kinds of products required of crafts producers by merchandising professionals. In closing, Chalmers contends that to argue that progress demands accommodation to contemporary economic conditions denies the profound difference that exists between objects created as craft and objects produced primarily for the marketplace. Pointing out the importance of social significance in craft, Staub (1988) concurs, noting that a craft tradition is not found in the craft object itself, but rather is rooted in social life, both past and present. Objects themselves are not traditional, the tradition lies in “the relationship

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between present experience and the past, between the object and its historical antecedents, between the craftsworker and preceding generations, and between the community and its historical memory” (30). However, Staub also allows that the tradition of crafts is found in a multitude of relationships manifested in the present—between artifact and maker, between maker and user, and between craftsworker and community—adding that the traditions of craft are not static, but “constantly recreated, renewed, and relived as individuals and communities ‘traditionalize’ aspects of their experience to create social meaning and cultural cohesiveness” (30). More recently, Sekimoto (2000) contextualizes traditional craft on the basis of emerging traditions, stating that “tradition is a part of contemporary reality” (29) and that “it is exactly the modern development of batick (an Indonesian traditional textile) that has given birth to the traditionalist view of it” (30). Sekimoto contends tradition and modernity are intertwined in our present condition, stating that, “[T]he traditionalist view of batick regards tradition and modernity as mutually incompatible, but modernity is a necessary precondition on which consciousness of the tradition of batik is formed” (30). Moeran (1981; 1984) concurs, pointing out tradition is a concept that, while imbued with a sense of history and nostalgia, is also a measurement of progress, a measure that ultimately “gains currency in the wake of change” (1981:32). Martinez (1990) places tradition clearly in a modern economic context when she notes that the invention of tradition in a rural Japanese setting was “good business” (109).12 The relationship between tradition and modernity, thus conceived, can be seen as antithetical, accommodating, causal, and even economic. I would contend, however, that the relationship between tradition and modernity, as cast in the case of Tsugaru Nuri, is one of correspondence and confirmation. Tsugaru Nuri originated in processes of market accommodation and craft innovation by lacquerers in the Edo period; it then emerged and was established, in a broader social sense, in response to the continued necessity of a market orientation in the Meiji period. Tsugaru Nuri was then traditionalized by its designation as a Traditional Folk Craft and its inclusion in the Traditional Crafts Products Promotion Plan in the late 1970s, and framed by the five criteria of the Association for the Promotion of Traditional Craft Industries, that: 1. the item be used in everyday life, 2. be manufactured by hand and by traditional techniques using traditional materials,


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3. be regional in nature, 4. produced on the basis of the criteria of the Tsugaru Nuri lacquerware tradition, the Tsugaru lacquering technique, or any one of the four traditionalized Tsugaru lacquerware patterns and traditional Tsugaru Nuri coloring, 5. be of the Tsugaru district in origin. However, given the fact that the focus of this traditionalization in the Promotion Plan was increasingly oriented toward development of demand, it appears that this was in fact “empty traditionalization.” The gap between the traditionalized Tsugaru Nuri and the reality of modern consumption was recognized and tradition gave way to accommodation and innovation. Somewhat incongruously however, Tsugaru Nuri is at present marketed primarily through promotional material and in media-based advertising on the basis of such a traditional designation. This historical examination shows the transition of Tsugaru Nuri from a craft born in processes of market accommodation and creative innovation to a traditionalized artifact designated on the basis of romanticized constructs of craft tradition and currently marketed on the basis of that romanticized construct. However, as is clear from the content presented in this chapter, adherence to such notions and practices of tradition will likely bring the demise of Tsugaru Nuri, as it is clear that the consumer base for Tsugaru Nuri in its present form is fragile. And thus, contemporary Tsugaru Nuri is experiencing a re-emergence of its original tradition, accommodation and innovation. Accepting the premise of Tsugaru Nuri as a traditional craft, and by extension the social construction of a Tsugaru Nuri craft tradition, then one must also accept the origin and early history of Tsugaru Nuri as the representation of that tradition. The origin and historically true tradition of Tsugaru Nuri is a lacquerware born in creative innovation and market accommodation. This true tradition is emerging again in contemporary Tsugaru Nuri lacquerers, who, in accommodating contemporary market demands, merge traditional techniques with innovative thinking to produce new designs and new products. Considered in such terms, Tsugaru Nuri may represent a new formulation of tradition, a tradition which in its origin corresponded to elements of modernity and a tradition in which the modernistic practices currently underway reflect that original tradition. In short, the tradition of Tsugaru Nuri is modernity—accommodation to changing circumstances and innovating form and design.

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In terms of how the respective groups in this story of Tsugaru Nuri (consumer, government, lacquerers) have worn, and continue to wear, the cultural style of Tsugaru Nuri, it is clear that the lacquerware has been adopted as a sign of status. It is now a mechanism for cultural signification, an expression of personal independence, and a status symbol, both in terms of cultural behavior and as a representation of status. The elites of the Edo period clearly used Tsugaru Nuri as a symbol of their status. The government then used the designation of Tsugaru Nuri as a Traditional Craft Object to reify a romanticized Japanese past and to promote (read preserve) the tradition of Tsugaru Nuri by encouraging development of demand. Consumers likewise wear Tsugaru Nuri in two cultural styles, as an appropriate item to be given as a gift, a “correct performance” in a highly ritualized, very important social act, and as a high-quality and highly valued item. In response, the modern lacquerers of Tsugaru Nuri protect the tradition of Tsugaru Nuri technique, keeping alive certain essential elements of the lacquerware, while also heeding the tradition of accommodation and innovation that characterized its origins, increasingly producing nontraditional, artistic lacquerware. Thus, while Tsugaru Nuri itself has been cast in many forms in various social sectors, throughout its history, and has been worn in specific cultural styles to meet varying objectives, the true tradition of Tsugaru Nuri, the tradition that was played out in the Edo and the Meiji periods and is being played out today, is ultimately one of modernity.

Notes 1. The three major cities are Aomori: pop. 297,000; Hachinohe: 245,000; Hirosaki: 177,000; the five cities are within a population range of 40,000 to 7,000. Although now discontinued, the Economic Planning Agency generated People’s Life Indicators, prefectural rankings generated on the basis of 144 economic and social indicators such as housing standards, working conditions, standards of childcare, education, medical and welfare facilities, leisure and social activities and the environment. In the 1998 rankings, published by the Daily Yomiuri newspaper (January 12, 1999), Aomori Prefecture was sixth from the bottom, ahead of Fukushima, Miyagi, Osaka, Okinawa, and Saitama Prefectures. Prefectural population migration stands at minus 1.6 percent over the period 1996–1999, the population pyramid has 16.2 percent under the age of 14, 66.5 percent from 15 to 64, and 17.3 percent over 65; the social welfare dependency ratio is 10.9/1,000 (national average: 7.1/1000). For a complete examination of Aomori Prefecture, see Rausch (2001). 2. Interestingly, lacquer cures very well in the closed-in, high-humidity environment of the lacquer workplace over the long winter; hence the many Japanese lacquerwares found along the west coast, the Sea of Japan side of Japan, noted for


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long and humid winters. These west coast lacquers include Wajima Nuri and Yamanaka Shikki (shikki being another term for lacquered goods in Japan), lacquerwares of Ishikawa Prefecture, Echizen Shikki of Fukui Prefecture, and Takaoka Shikki of Toyama Prefecture. Other snow-country lacquerwares include Aizu Nuri, the lacquerware of Fukushima Prefecture, Kawatsura Shikki of Akita Prefecture, Kiso Shikki of Nagano Prefecture, and Hida-Shunkei lacquerware of Gifu Prefecture, each located in the mountainous central areas of Honshu. 3. Reported in a February 22, 2002 newspaper article carried in the local Mutsu Shimpo– . Hirosaki City will allocate ¥648,000 of the 2002 municipal budget to Tsugaru Nuri Technique Preservation and Folklore Activities in order to categorize and analyze the 514 te-ita. 4. Yanagi actually differentiated between mingei, as folkcraft and ko– gei, the utilitarian craftwork made for practical use, but allowed that the characteristics of ko– gei make it a broader and more inclusive notion than mingei. Yanagi Muneyoshi’s (1889–1961) ideas are published in The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight into Beauty under the name of Soetsu Yanagi (1972). 5. Yanagi (1972) separated crafts into Folkcrafts, comprised of guild crafts and industrial crafts, and Artist Crafts, comprised of aristocratic crafts and individual crafts (198). Folkcrafts are “unself-consciously handmade and unsigned for the people by the people, cheaply and in quantity,” while industrial crafts are “made under the industrial system;” individual crafts are “made by a few, for a few, at a high price,” and aristocratic crafts are “made under the patronage of a feudal lord” (198). The definitional quagmire in the realm of craft which Staub (1988) refers to is a problematic theme often referred to in theorizing craft (Ioannou 1992, Tawa 1992). 6. The necessity of translation from Japanese to English only complicates the definitional quagmire (see Note 5), as the Japanese dento– teki ko– geihin is rendered in characters for “traditional” and “industrial arts good,” which is then translated in English as “traditional craft” (see Note 7). 7. The material pertaining to the Association for the Promotion of Traditional Craft Industries is cited from the “Traditional Crafts of Japan Homepage” at . 8. Sponsored by the Aomori Prefecture Economic Affairs Bureau, the Hirosaki City Chamber of Commerce and the Prefectural Industrial Experimental Station, the 1993 “Tsugaru Nuri Production Area Investigation Report” is based on responses by 115 lacquerware enterprise and six wood products enterprise respondents; 24 lacquerware sales enterprises within Aomori Prefecture and 61 outside as well as the 120 participating consumers within the prefecture and the 113 from outside. Some of the information included in this section also comes from a 1989 “Hirosaki City Regional Industries Conditions Report,” undertaken by the Chamber of Commerce and a 1998 “Aomori Prefecture Traditional Craft Industries Promotion Plan—Development of Demand Activity Report,” undertaken by the Aomori Prefecture Lacquerware Association.

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9. On the other hand, throughout the history of lacquerware production in the Tsugaru District, wood base materials have been exclusively domestic, in many cases local. 10. See Note 2. 11. The following representations were taken from the two local newspapers of Aomori: the TooNippo, which has prefectural-wide circulation and the Mutsu Shimpo– , which is based and circulated primarily in and around Hirosaki City. The parenthetical references refer to the year of the article. 12. Moeran’s (1981, 1984) work focuses on the pottery of Onta, a village in Kyushu, and Martinez’s (1990) work focuses on pearl divers in Mie Prefecture.

References Allen Dickie, V., and G. Frank. 1996. Artisan Occupations in the Global Economy: A Conceptual Framework. Journal of Occupational Science: Australia 3(2): 45–55. Chalmers, J. 1992. Merchandising Crafts: The Road to Inertia. In Craft in Society: An Anthology of Perspectives, ed. N. Ioannou. Pp. 153–164. South Freemantle: Freemantle Arts Center Press. Clammer, J. 1997. Contemporary Urban Japan: A Sociology of Consumption. Oxford: Blackwell. Eades, C., J. Eades, Y. Nishiyama, and H. Yanase. 2000. Houses of Everlasting Bliss: Globalization and the Production of Buddhist Altars in Hikone. In Globalization and Social Change in Contemporary Japan, ed. J. S. Eades, T. Gill, and H. Befu. Pp. 159–179. Victoria: TransPacific Press. Frank, G. 1996. Crafts Production and Resistance to Domination in the Late 20th Century. Journal of Occupational Science: Australia 3(2):56–64. Hitchcock, M., and W. Nuryanti, eds. 2000. Building on Batik: The Globalization of a Craft Community. Hants: Ashgate. Ioannou, N., ed. 1992. Craft in Society: An Anthology of Perspectives. South Freemantle: Freemantle Arts Center Press. Martinez, D. P. 1990. Tourism and the ama: The Search for a Real Japan. In Unwrapping Japan, ed. W. Ben-Ari, B. Moeran, and J. Valentine. Pp. 79–116. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Mochizuki, Y. 2000. Tsugaru Nuri. Tokyo: Rikogakusha. Moeran, B. D. 1981. Tradition, the Past and the Ever-changing Present in a Pottery Village. In Tradition and Modern Japan, ed. P. G. O’Neil. Pp. 32–36. Kent: Paul Norbury Publications. Moeran, B. 1984. Lost Innocence: Folk Craft Potters of Onta, Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press. Rausch, A. 2001. A Year with the Local Newspaper: Understanding the Times in Aomori, Japan, 1999. Lanham: University Press of America. Sato, T. 1977. Tsugaru Nuri. Hirosaki: Tsugaru Shobo.


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———. 2001. Tsugaru urushi kohin no kosho nitsuite [Regarding the naming of Tsugaru lacquerware goods]. Nenpo– Shishi Hirosaki 10:122–133. Sato, T., and Y. Hashimoto. 1987. Tsugaru Nuri Shikki. Aomori: Asahi Insatsu. Sekimoto, T. 2000. Innovation, Change and Tradition in the Batik Industry. In Building on Batik: The Globalization of a Craft Community, ed. M. Hitchcock and W. Nuryanti. Pp. 23–31. Hants: Ashgate. Staub, S. 1988. Craft and Community: Traditional Arts in Contemporary Society. Philadelphia: Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies and the Pennsylvania Heritage Affairs Commission. Tawa, M. 1992. Poesis and Praxis: Craft, Modernity and the Techne of Architecture. In Craft in Society: An Anthology of Perspectives, ed. N. Ioannou. Pp. 269–284. South Freemantle: Freemantle Arts Center Press. von Rague, B. 1976. A History of Japanese Lacquerware. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Yanagi, S. 1972. The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight into Beauty. New York: Kodansha.

Epilogue

To– hoku: A Place L. Keith Brown

Place is highly significant in Japanese culture, seemingly more so than in other advanced, industrial societies, though such things are hard to quantify with the methodological tools available in the social sciences today. Natal house, natal village, natal community, natal town, one’s school at various stages of education, places of natural, historical or national significance, and, finally, the place where the ashes of one’s ancestors and ultimately oneself are interred, all receive significant attention in Japan. This concern about place derives, in part, from the intergenerational continuities that we are more likely to see in residence, work, and ritual in Japan than we see in the very mobile United States, where frequently each generation strikes out on its own with little regard for ancestors or continuing a family or business line. One can easily change church membership in much of the United States, for example. Changing membership in a temple where the ancestors are memorialized, and must continue to be memorialized, is much more difficult. The ancestral temple is a place of great significance for many Japanese, and with it a number of other local places. Of course people in the To– hoku region, even family successors, do on occasion move, through economic necessity or personal preferences about a desirable place to live. Moreover, there are some areas, and some ethnic groups, in the United States where mobility is minimal. Certainly in parts of Europe there are families who have remained in the family home for generations. Nevertheless, as we will see later in this chapter, the concerns about the ancestors and the social capital that comes from staying “in place” in parts of To– hoku result in levels of residential continuity that are unusual in much of the rest of the modern advanced industrial world.

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In a study with Jack Roberts and Saburo Morita on the conceptual categories of sacred places and the deities in the Japanese pantheon, we asked our informants to list the places they considered sacred. We asked for a response from the personal level, not what they thought would be standard or socially acceptable. Each of our informants had no difficulty in identifying 50 to 60 sacred places that were salient in their own lives (Roberts, Morita, Brown 1986). When I asked a number of American informants the same question, a listing of sacred places was not readily forthcoming. Ultimately, the question was thrown back to me, in other words, what did I mean by sacred place? Place appears to be much less significant for my American friends, and for me. The place that ties together this volume is To– hoku, the Northeastern Region of Japan. Most of the chapters of this book, however, are about certain places within To– hoku, and not the region as a whole. The exception is the nicely crafted chapter by Debra Occhi in which she describes To– hoku as a place of longing and nostalgia in the enka of the karaoke singers of the large cities. They croon their ballads with images of mom, the mountains, persimmons hanging to dry from the eves in late autumn, crystal clear streams, drinking sake together with friends, loves of long ago or imagined in the future, and mostly the place of one’s origins, if not birth, in the “North Country,” in other words, To– hoku.1 Kitakuni no Haru (Spring in the North Country) recorded by Sen Masao is one of the more famous enka of this genre. The nostalgic images created by this beautiful song resonate both with the To– hoku natives and in the national discourse about the To– hoku region. That Sen Masao himself is a native of To– hoku from the Hanamaki region in the prefecture of Iwate gives his music a special authenticity and authority that adds to his popularity in To– hoku and throughout the country among enka fans. Enka fans tend to be older. Young people in To– hoku and throughout the country share little of the feelings of longing for family and the countryside of one’s native place. For them exciting experiences are to be had in the large cities rather than in the countryside. Snow-capped mountains invite the youth more for skiing and less for dreaming about a more tranquil past of one’s native place. That comes later in life, for the To– hoku native and core urbanites alike.2 To– hoku as a place has minimal meaning to the people who live there. Their identities are tied more to local places where their important and closest social relationships occur, rather than to the region as a whole. To– hoku has the greatest meaning for those in the urban centers of the core areas of Japan to the south of To– hoku. They use their images of To– hoku

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to create a pure, unsullied, more traditional “other” in Japan to contrast with the artificialities of the lives they see themselves leading in their fastpaced concrete cities, where human relations are seen as distant, contractual, feeling, and lacking in warmth, trust, and intimacy. In this discourse, To– hoku is where the core values of Japan still survive, lagging behind the rest of Japan as it inexorably moves in its modernizing and Westernizing path. This image of To– hoku has a long history in Japanese culture. In 1694, Matsuo Basho– , the great poet of Japan, wrote his famous Oku no Hoso-michi (Narrow Roads of the Back Country), the travelogue of his 156 day journey through To– hoku. His quest in this long pilgrimage-like journey was “for the ultimate beauty of nature and of man, which had been lost in the steadily decaying contemporary society” (Ueda 1983:145). Ueda says that Basho– “trod the narrow road far into the rugged north in search of a simple and sturdy culture remaining from olden days.” This 17th-century travelogue of To– hoku, intertwining the narrative with some of the finest haiku ever written, has become a classic in Japanese literature. To– hoku can do that to people. As a graduate student I went to To– hoku to study a kinship system, – dozoku, that was thought to have existed throughout much of Japan in earlier premodern days, but survives in its final forms only in To– hoku. The great Japanese scholars I read in preparing for that field trip had done their studies in To– hoku for the same reasons (cf. Ariga 1939 and Yanagita 1975). Do–zoku consists of a main (stem) family and its various branch families. Most of the early studies of do–zoku concerned an economic structure assumed to be basic to do–zoku, that is, the relationship of the main family–landlord with the branch family–tenants. The cultural evolutionary model saw that do–zoku was being replaced by more independent and autonomous wage-earning families with a greater sense of individualism. This process of course was thought to have occurred first in the core areas of Japan. The postwar land reform and other social and cultural changes presumably were destroying, or had already destroyed, the economic base of the do–zoku system (or so we thought). There was some urgency to do a study before do–zoku disappeared, even in To– hoku. I set off to do my autopsy of this kinship system as it belatedly died off in its last refuge, its hospice, in the living museum of Japan known as To– hoku. Even today, the do–zoku model of Japanese society is occasionally used to describe the relationship of the Emperor (the honke or main, original, house), to the rest of the Japanese people (the bunke or branch households). According to this discourse, by looking at To– hoku we can see the real Japan of years past, and the essence of Japanese culture.

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However, Shinjo– , the village in Mizusawa that I have been visiting for all these years to study do–zoku, has become high-tech, cosmopolitan, internet connected, and worldly. Shinjo– belies the stereotype of To– hoku as a mountainous backwater of modern Japan. The Hitachi factory in the middle of the village now manufactures parts for cell phones and other miniaturized electronic appliances. Some of the natives of Shinjo– , who work for Hitachi, regularly make trips to China and elsewhere to do business with the offshore plants connected to the Shinjo– facility. This clearly is not a cultural museum of historical Japan for the people living there, even though the enka and other popular cultural images of an innocent, traditional, and archaic Japan, remain. “Tibet of Japan,” a common label for Iwate, is an appellation heard less and less, though it still crops up occasionally in some of the popular media. The recent film Fukuro, The Owl, portrays contemporary To– hoku in ways consistent with images of a backward To– hoku, but with a modern twist (the two protagonists scheme to get passports and visas to flee to South American with new found illbegotten riches). The discourse about To– hoku, as the refuge of Japanese culture long superseded by the modernity of other core areas of Japan, and the reality of To– hoku for those who live and study there, are not compatible. To– hoku, as a place of unsullied, traditional Japan, also has a negative image in the popular discourse. It is seen as backward, quaint, feudal, patriarchal, rigid, and oppressive, especially if you are young or female. If a Japanese film or television show has a provincial or country-bumpkin-type character, there is a high probability that the person will speak some variant of the zu– zu– -ben dialect that is assumed to characterize the To– hoku region. On the positive side, the To– hoku people are seen as disciplined, hard working, and ideal for unskilled factory work; and perhaps easy to exploit. The To– hoku employee is likely to be willing to work for less money than the urban population. This image has had its positive effects, making the decision to build manufacturing plants in the region an attractive option for the Tokyo executive. The hierarchy is clear. The management for the parts and assembly plants in To– hoku that cluster along the railroads and superhighways mostly come from the core urban centers and company headquarters in Tokyo, while the assembly line workers, and some foremen, are local. The people of To– hoku are aware of these images. They fully participate in the popular culture of Japan and this gives them ample opportunity to witness how others perceive their region. The flourishing tourist industry exploits that image. As with the city folk looking at To– hoku as a monolithic place, the young people of the various regions of To– hoku look at life in the cities in stereotypical images gleaned from television and the popular

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media. Young people in To– hoku may buy into that image and flee to the more exciting cities if they see an opportunity. To the natives of the region, To– hoku is too big, without cohesion, and much too varied to be seen as a meaningful place in and of itself. They talk about specific places and things: the hot springs of Hanamaki; the Fuji apples of Aomori; the beautiful women of Akita; the great skiing on Hachimantai; Chu– zon-ji temple at the northern capital of the Fujiwara in Hiraizumi in the 11th and 12th centuries; the spring Noh performances; and the literally thousands of festivals, famous and not so famous, that occur throughout the region. They talk about how the people of Nambu conduct their traditional weddings in one way, singing particular songs, while the people of the former Date or Sendai domain do things differently and sing their own ritual songs. And of course they frequently point out to the foreigner, who is struggling to learn one Japanese language, that people across the river, or wherever, have different linguistic patterns, and a bit different vocabulary. In fact, the zu– zu– -ben dialect, that is a major part of the To– hoku image for the city folk of the core, has many variations. Place is a cultural construction, not given to us by nature. Physical features may help us define places, but ultimately we provide the definitions.3 At the very basic level, the home is the most intimate place in the hearts and minds of many To– hoku people. Its term, “ie,” confounds both the physical place of the house, and the social family associated with that house. The term “ie” carries with it a suggestion of a stem family, continuing from generation to generation in the same house site. This gives the physical and social place of ie a permanence, an everlasting existence, a solidity or concreteness that can provide security in the identity of its members. Because the definition of the ie is constructed by the people, the fact that the actual physical properties of the place change repeatedly is not significant. Typically, each generation builds or rebuilds a new and more modern house on the same site, but the place of the ie, the culturally defined physical house site and the stem family associated with it, continue unabated. The importance of the place of the ie for the people of Mizusawa, a relatively small To– hoku castle town about 400 kilometers and 2 hours 56 minutes straight north of Tokyo by bullet train, is evident everywhere. For example, 39 percent of the merchant families who were in the central – shopping area of Omachi in Mizusawa in 1872 are still there, in the same place. For most, the focus of their business has changed in a century of dramatic changes and modernization, and they now are selling different commodities compared to their wares of the 19th century. Some of the more – successful merchants, headquartered at the Omachi site, are running chain

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store operations throughout the To– hoku region. Throughout all these changes, however, the center of their business, and their ie, remain in the same place. Increasingly, with the hollowing out of small towns such as Mizusawa and the development of the large supermarkets and box stores in the easily accessible suburbs, small mom-and-pop stores in the middle of town can no longer compete. Occupations have changed. The current generation of residents, with a history of at least 400 years, includes teachers, bureaucrats, wage earners, and high fashion boutique shops typically started by a daughter of the house. Place is important to them, even though an outsider looking at their situation may wonder why they do not sell and move to Tokyo, Sendai (the regional capital of To– hoku), or to some other, more promising economic site. However, they have built up extensive social cap– ital in their inherited place in Omachi over the generations and this social capital is not easily forfeited. And of course the ancestors are there; ancestors who require unending care (Traphagan 2004). – All who did leave Omachi did so because of bankruptcy; some literally left in the middle of the night. If their business situation had allowed, they would have stayed in place, but they were forced out. One case of reputed fraud by a partner caused a prominent family to leave; another longstanding resident had to sell out because of financial difficulties resulting from too much time and money lost at the regionally famous Mizusawa Race Track. Extensive historical research on those who left found none who simply outgrew this small regional town and its limited markets. There always was a problem. Place is important. Research in a nearby samurai neighborhood of this old castle town revealed a similar pattern. The 400 samurai retainers of the Mizusawa castle lord lost their jobs with the Meiji Restoration in 1868. However, many remain in their hereditary place even though they had no family enterprise and no job, to keep them there. Of the samurai families living in one residential neighborhood immediately outside the castle grounds in the 1820s, 25 percent were in the same place 160 years later. Today, that neighborhood has teachers, city office bureaucrats, doctors and dentists, college professors, judges, and other professionals, as well as salary and wage earners and small shopkeepers. Except for the more transient young people who live in the new apartment houses in the neighborhood, many of the residents are descendants of the former samurai. Their ancestral place, and the social capital that comes with it, are important to them. However, not everyone stays in place. The castle lord left Mizusawa after the Meiji Restoration and established a permanent residence near

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Tokyo, where his direct descendants live today. Prior to Meiji sankin ko–tai (the alternate residence system) imposed by the Sho–gun on his provincial daimyo and other higher ranking retainers, required them to spend alternate years in Edo, where their families lived full-time as shogunal hostages. This provided a strong residential and working place for the Mizusawa castle lord in the new Tokyo following the Meiji Restoration. His direct descendant, not surprisingly, works for a prominent Japanese multinational corporation in the Tokyo region. The former castle site, his ancestor’s home, was turned into a government office building for much of the Meiji Period. It then became an elementary school, and now appropriately is the site of the state-of-theart city office. Even without a natal home to come back to, the current head of the lord’s stem family returns to Mizusawa every year with his family to participate in the local festival for his ancestors and the community. The place is still important to him and his family five generations after they left Mizusawa. Farmers, of course, are expected to remain in place, working the land of their ancestors. Virtually all of the rural families in my three-hamlet study sample, of the larger village of Shinjo– in 1872, are still there today.4 In 2005, the 75 households in that sample included some recent branch families of older members, and some, but very few, newcomers from the outside. Newcomers tend to be more transient, especially those who came back to the village to escape the bombings of Tokyo in 1945, or were repatriated from the colonies after the end of the war. Once they recovered from the war, financially and bodily, they moved on. In contrast, all of the old timers, that is, those family there in 1872, remain in place unless forced out by bankruptcy, even though many no longer farm their own land. Several of the older families have left in bankruptcy in the past century, done in by the usual problems of gambling, drinking, and the heavy expenses associated with divorce. These kinds of problems force them to sell their land and homes, and move out. The gossip about those failed families is heated and long lasting; leaving their place in the community rarely brings applause and admiration. Most families remain in place, generation after generation. Place is important to them. In the past 50 years there have been two massive land rationalization projects in Shinjo–. The first, completed in 1962, regularized the paddy fields into perfectly rectangular ten are (1/4 acre) plots. This was a big improvement over the small, irregularly shaped fields of the past, and paved the way for the extensive mechanization that was to follow. The second, completed in 2003, increased the size of the individual plots, wherever pos-

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sible, to one hectare (2.2 acre) or more. This massive construction project included the installation of underground tiling for drainage and a massive system of underground and aboveground pipes to irrigate the fields. The depth of irrigation water in the fields, generally about five centimeters, is controlled by automatic sensors that do not require daily attention from the farmer. The social implications of this last land rationalization project are extensive and deep. The average land holding for the people of Shinjo– is about one hectare of rice land, that is, a single plot. The large transplanting and combining machines can work one hectare in two or three hours, or less. Thus the big jobs facing an average rice farmer today can be done in a matter of hours with very expensive machines. Farmers understandably do not want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy machines that are used only a couple of hours a year. Consequently, most medium- and small-scale farmers use large-scale contractors, or co-ops to do the big jobs of plowing, transplanting, and harvesting. The government plan to increase the scale of rice farming is working in Shinjo–. To this Iowan farm boy accustomed to seeing the scale of agriculture in the Midwest inexorably progress to drive out the family farm in favor of large scale corporate operations, the immediate question for these Shinjo– farmers is why do they not sell out and retire to town, to Tokyo, or even to the coastal areas of Australia. During this period of increasing scale in agriculture, out of 75 families in the three hamlets, only one has sold her land and that was a widow with average land holdings who recently lost her husband who farmed full-time. She could not work the land and tend the prize winning wagu– beef cattle herself and needed the money to survive. Interestingly, she kept the farmhouse and continues to live there. All the others, to the person, say they cannot sell the land they inherited from their ancestors. The construction of new paddy fields in the rationalization projects makes it impossible to identify precisely what land a farmer received from their own ancestors. Ancestral land was melded with the land of their neighbors’ into larger fields that were later allocated to individual farmers. In most cases, the allocations took into account land that was scattered in small plots in their own hamlet, as well as in other hamlets, sometimes at a considerable distance away. The land rationalization projects consolidated the land into larger plots more convenient for the farmer to work. A significant amount of travel time was saved. However, it is no longer possible to identify a particular piece of land as ancestral land. When this is pointed out to the farmers, they say it is not a specific piece of land that is critical in this consideration, but rather the whole idea of an ancestral estate that

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was received from the ancestors and cannot be alienated from the family line. Thus, they do not sell even if they do not work their own land. Place is important for them. This profound sense of natal place may be greater in Mizusawa, and indeed in most of the To– hoku region, than in many other parts Japan. Mizusawa, after all, did not suffer the massive displacements experienced by Tokyo, devastated by the Kanto Earthquake of 1923, and then by the horrendous firebombings of March, 1945. Mizusawa, as with most of To– hoku, had a rural base during the war years and was not a target for the massive Allied bombing that left so many homeless in Tokyo Mizusawa as a place has a long history, dating back to the feudal period. The Mizusawa castle lord, the Rusu family of the Date or Sendai domain, came to Mizusawa with 400 samurai retainers in 1629, transforming this post town into a castle town. The administrative city, Mizusawa-shi, was created in 1945 in a consolidation of the town of Mizusawa-cho– with several surrounding villages, including Shinjo– . The process of consolidation to form larger and larger administrative unit continues. In the latest round, with strong pressure and some financial and other inducements from the national government, Mizusawa joined with a neighboring city, Esashi-shi, two neighboring towns (Isawa-cho– and – Maesawa-cho–), and a village (Koromogawa-mura) to form Oshu– -shi, effec– tive February 20, 2006. Oshu– is a regional name with a long and distinguished history, made prominent by the NHK series on Yoshitsune, the Minamoto warrior who escaped assassination in Kyoto in the 12th century – to go to Hiraizumi, the northern capital of the Fujiwara, in Oshu– . Names that symbolize places of meaning and significance themselves become important to the natives. The debates over the name for newly consolidated administrative units invariably are heated. In many cases the negotiations for consolidation have broken down over a disagreement about what to call the new unit. Mizusawa finally succumbed in its efforts to call the new enlarged city Mizusawa and compromised with its consoli– dation partners in agreeing on the more neutral name of Oshu– . Hiraizumi, some say, refused to enter into any consolidation effort with larger nearby cities because of the strong desire to retain its historically significant name. Place, and with it the place name, are important to the natives of Hiraizumi. Hiraizumi also has strong value as a tourist attraction, adding further pressure to keep its place name. Sendai, two hours straight north of Tokyo by bullet train, is the exception in To– hoku. It was a large industrial area that during the war suffered massive destruction from the bombings of 1945. This commercial,

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financial, and educational center of To– hoku is the former castle town and headquarters of the powerful Date feudal domain that controlled much of To– hoku. Because of postwar reconstruction, a fate not shared by Mizusawa and much of To– hoku, Sendai has newer, well-planned commercial and residential areas. It gives less of an impression of being a traditional city, but some does remain particularly at the old Aoba castle site, which is a significant tourist attraction. Sendai may be a To– hoku outlier, more like Tokyo, with respect to the appearance of a transient and rootless citizenry, than Mizusawa and other To– hoku cities and towns. From Tokyo, however, Sendai has the image of a To– hoku provincial town, with its own local products, an image Sendai promotes to attract the big city tourists. To the north, Morioka, the castle town of the Nambu domain and the capital of Iwate, retains much of its prewar character. Morioka was spared the devastation of the war. Once one leaves the modern bullet train station and ventures into the central shopping district, there are small specialty shops selling things displayed as representative of the region and its rich historical traditions. Of course, these shops share the shopping district with fast-food establishments, several large department stores, electronic outlets, and modern book stores. Morioka exudes the atmosphere of a traditional and provincial town, in spite of the fact that some of the world’s leading electronic companies have major manufacturing facilities immediately south of the city. The expression of the importance of place for Mizusawa natives is not hidden by the effects of earthquakes, bombings, or other tragic, external events that forced massive displacements. Consequently, many of the residents of Mizusawa and Morioka have remained in their ancestral place. This contributes to the popular image To– hoku has in the imagination of the city folk of Japan: a place of stability that is slow to change. The great literature of Basho– , of the 17th century, and the popular culture and enka enjoyed by karaoke singers in the southern cities, draw on feelings of nostalgia and longing for a place they experience only from a distance. This image is reinforced in contemporary Japan. Perhaps it is useful for Japan to have the imagined “other” that To– hoku provides, to remind the cosmopolitan core of the goodness their constructed, traditional Japan left for them. This image of To– hoku also makes them aware that some of the baggage that comes with that imagined conservative culture is not something they want to experience on an everyday basis. In that sense To– hoku is much like myth, and the people of the core areas of Japan make of it what they want according to their own circumstances. As this impressive volume shows, the real To– hoku is something different. It is highly complicated and varied; not only a place that stimulated

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some of the world’s greatest literature and haiku, but one that produced some of the most important figures in Japanese political and cultural life. The organizers, editors, and all those who contributed papers to this volume should be congratulated for their contributions to our understanding of this important and interesting place in northeastern Japan. Hopefully, readers will be encouraged to journey on the narrow roads of the back country, after arriving in To– hoku by the bullet train, the divided expressway, or by airplane from Tokyo.

Notes 1. Kitaguni no Haru, Spring in the North Country, recorded by Sen Masao and known by memory by most of the older people of Mizusawa, is one of the more famous enka of this genre. 2. Tears of Longing: Nostalgia and the Nation in Japanese Popular Song by Christine Yano is an excellent source on the place of this kind of music in the natioanl imagination. 3. For a different argument, one giving primacy to the natural topography in the development of individual villages in Japan, see the work of the eminent sociologist Suzuki Eitaro (1940) concerning the “natural village.” 4. Mizusawa now has a population of slightly over 60,000 people. Mizusawashi now is participating with nearby towns in another round of amalgamations to create an even larger administrative unit.

References Ariga, Kizaemon. 1939. Nambu Ninohe-gun Ishigami-mura ni okeru daikazoku seido to nago seido [Large Family System and the Nago System in Ishigami Village, Ninohe County, Nambu District]. Tokyo: Attic Museum. Roberts, John M., Morita, Saburo and L. Keith Brown. 1986. Personal Categories for Japanese Sacred Places and Gods: Views Elicited from a Conjugal Pair. American Anthropologist 88(4):807–824. Suzuki, Eitaro. 1940. Nihon No– son Shakaigaku Genri. Tokyo: Nihon Hyro– nsha. Traphagan, John W. 2004. The Practice of Concern: Ritual, Well-Being, and Aging in Rural Japan. Durham: Carolina Academic Press. Ueda, Makoto. 1983. Basho– (1644–1694). In Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan. Tokyo: Kodansha. vol. 1, Pp. 144–145. Yanagita, Kunio. 1975. The Legends of To– no. Trans. Ronald A. Morse. Tokyo: Japan Foundation. Yano, Christine R. 2002. Tears of Longing: Nostalgia and the Nation in Japanese Popular Song. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Contributors

L. KEITH BROWN is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh where he served for several years as Director of the Asian Studies Center. He has been conducting fieldwork in the To– hoku region of Japan for more than 40 years. His primary research interests focus on community patterns of cooperation, including kinship and neighborhood, farmer production decisions in a global economy, religion and ethnicity, and rural/urban comparisons in changing household composition. WILLIAM W. KELLY is Professor of Anthropology and Sumitomo Professor of Japanese Studies at Yale University. He is author of Deference and Defiance in 19th-Century Japan (Princeton University Press, 1985) and numerous articles on Japanese society. JOHN A. MOCK is a professor at Akita International University in Akita, Japan. He is the author of Culture, Community and Change in a Sapporo Neighborhood 1925–1988 Hanayama (Edwin Mellen Press, 1999). His research interests include rural-urban migration, the political geography of regional and national policies, and local history. DEBRA J. OCCHI is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Miyazaki International College in Miyazaki, Japan. She is the author of numerous articles related to cross-cultural studies and anthropology including the cultural construction of emotions in Japan. Her research interests include contemporary Japanese language and culture, emotion, nature, gender, education, and leisure activities. Occhi is coeditor (with Gary B. Palmer) of Languages of Sentiment: Cultural Constructions of Emotional Substrates, 1999 John Benjamins. ANTHONY S. RAUSCH is Foreign Lecturer at Hirosaki University, located in Aomori Prefecture, Japan. His research interests have focused on Aomori Prefecture, examining volunteerism, lifelong education, and culturerelated topics. He is coauthor of The Birth of Tsugaru Shamisen: The Origin

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and Development of a Japanese Folk Performing Art (Aomori University Press, 1998) and author of A Year With the Local Newspaper: Understanding the Times in Aomori, Japan, 1999 (University Press of America, 2001). NANCY R. ROSENBERGER is Professor of Anthropology at Oregon State University. She is the author of Gambling with Virtue: Japanese Women and Sense of Self in a Changing Nation (University of Hawaii, 2001). Rosenberger is currently engaged in a longitudinal project that traces the changes in women’s lives in Tokyo and Tohoku. She also conducts research in Central Asia on women and NGOs. At Oregon State, she codirects the program in Anthropology of Business and Organizations. CHRISTOPHER S. THOMPSON is Associate Professor of Japanese Language and Culture in the Department of Linguistics at Ohio University. He is also Director of Ohio University’s study abroad program at Chubu University in Nagoya, Japan. Thompson (2002) is the author of numerous articles on the rural culture of northeastern Japan including, “Recruiting cyber townspeople: local government and the Internet in a rural Japanese township,” Technology in Society 24:249–360. JOHN W. TRAPHAGAN is Assistant Professor of Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He is former editor-in-chief of the Journal of CrossCultural Gerontology, the author of Taming Oblivion: Aging Bodies and the Fear of Senility in Japan (State University of New York Press, 2000) and The Practice of Concern: Ritual, Well-Being, and Aging in Rural Japan (Carolina Academic Press, in press), and editor (with John Knight) of Demographic Change and the Family in Japan’s Aging Society (State University of New York Press, 2003). TOMOKO WATANABE TRAPHAGAN holds a Ph.D. in foreign language education from the University of Pittsburgh, and currently is a Humanities and Social Science Research Associate at the University of Texas at Austin. Her main interests include ethnographic research, learner autonomy, learning in naturalistic situations, interactional competence, and instructional technology.

Name Index

Abraham, S., 7 Allison, A. 4 Appadurai, A., 78 Ariga, K., 198 Averbuch, I., 125, 138, 147 Bailey, J. H., v, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 125 Befu, H., 5, 6, 127, 131, 133, 138 Bestor, T., 125, 168 Bourdieu, P., 16 Brown, L. K., viii, 5, 7, 9,67, 197 Bryman, A., 5 Chalmers, J., 172, 189 Clark, S., 5 Cohen, A., 126, 139 Condroy, I., 4 Crane, G., 146, 147 Creighton, M., 7, 124 Dickie, A., 182 Dore, R., 8 Eads, J., 5, 6 Ferguson, J., 6 Fowler, E., 4 Foucault, M., 79 Francks, P., 57, 60 Frank, G., 182 Fukuoka, Y., 5

Geertz, C., 77 Giddens, A., 78 Gill, T., 5, 6 Goto, J., 31 Grapard, A., 133 Gupta, A., 6, 79 Hall, S., 78 Hamabata, M., 5 Hayami, Y., 69 Hannertz, U., 7, 18 Hashimoto, R., 12, 125 Hashimoto, Y., 172, 174, 175 Hirano (Hirayama), 11 Honda, Y., 125, 127, 128 Ikuta, K. 165 Ino, R., 69 Ioannou, N., 193 Ishihara, S., 96 Isobe, T., 60 Ivy, M., 5, 124 Jinno’uchi, Y., 57, 58 Jolivet, M., 6 Jussaume, R., 31, 67 Kamens, E., 168 Kaplan, D., 5 Kaplan, M., 5 Kase, K., 69 Kasuga, K., 99

209

210

Name Index

Kawada, M., 127 Kelsky, K., 166 Ketelaar, J., 131 Kikuchi, K., 136 Kitamura, S., 96 Kelly, W., vii, 4, 6, 19, 47, 56, 124 Kelsky, K., 79 Knight, J., 5, 6, 31, 124, 125 Kojima, S., 146, 147 Kondo, D., 5, 79 Kriska, L., 5 LaFleur, W., 168 Latz, G., 69 Lee, W., 39 Long, S., 5 Lu, D., 8, 9 Marshall, A., 5 Martinez, D. P., 124, 125, 190 McConnell, D. 96 McVeigh, B., 5 Meguro, Y., 96 Minakata, K., 125 Mochizuki, Y., 174, 176, 183, 185, 189 Mock, J., vii, 5, 25, 43 Moore, R., 31, 69 Morishita, K., 11 Moeran, B., 190 Morita, S., 197 Morse, R., 124, 127 Mulgan, A., 69 Naganuma, G., 56, 69 Neko, H., 138 Nishida, Y., 60 Nitobe, I., 127 Nonini, D., 77, 78 Oba, M., 57 Obara, M., 135, 136, 137, 140, 147 Occhi, D., viii, 151, 166 Odashima, M., 18, 136

OEDC, 13 Ogura, T., 69 – Okado, M., 68 Ong, A., 77, 79 Papinot, E., 10, 20, 21 Rausch, A., viii, 171, 192 Raz, A., 5 Roberts, J., 197 Robertson, J., 14, 124, 125, 126, 134 Rosenberger, N., viii, 7, 73, 79–83 Sato– , S., 56, 69 Sato– , T., 171, 174, 175 Schnell, S., 4, 125, 148 Schlesinger, J., 5 Sekimoto, T., 172, 190 Sen, M., 206 Shibamoto (Smith), J., 157 Shimpo– , M., 7, 125 Shimura, H., 56, 69 Siegal, M., 106 Smethurst, R., 60 Smith, R., 81, 138 Staub, S., 172, 189, 190 Sugimoto, Y., 167, 168 Suzuki, E., 206 Suzuki, H., 4 Taira, K., 67 Tamanoi, M., 3 Tanaka, H., 100 Taylor, C., 77 Tawa, M., 193 Terry, E., 5 Thompson, C., vii, viii, 2, 5, 12, 13, 15, 124, 125, 126, 146, 147 Traphagan, J., vii, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 16, 17, 43, 116, 125, 136, 201 Tsubohari, M., 11, 124, 146, 147 Turner, V., 135, 147 Ueda, M., 198

Name Index

van Bremen, J., 124, 125 von Rague, B., 174

Wiswell, E., 81 Wood, C., 5

Watanabe, H., 96 Watanabe Traphagan, T., vii, 73–74 Waldren, J., 7 Weiner, M., 5

Yanagi, S., 175, 193 Yanagida, K., 11, 125, 198 Yano, C., 169, 206

211


Subject Index

depopulation (effects of), 38–40 deterritorialization, 6 derivative culture, 6 dichotomy, 7 diversity, 6

acceleration of diversity, 6 Ainu, 9 agrarian sentimentalism, 74 agriculture, 2–4, 7, 31, 47–50, 66, 67 Akita-ken no– gyo– kyo– do– kumiai chu– o– kai , 17 anthropological agenda, 7 antipodal oppositions, 5 Association for the Promotion of Traditional Craft Industires, 183 Aum Shinrikyo– , 5

Edo period, 4, 133, 173, 190, 192 Emishi, 9 emic, 4, 7 Emperor Seiwa, 10 Enka, 74, 151–68 Equal Opportunity Law (1986), 80 Ethnography, 4–5

Bangaku (a variety of Kagura), 39 Basho– Matsuo, 30, 153, 166, 198, 205 bunka, 3 center (core) – periphery, 171, 199, 205 change, 5 complexity, 5 conf lict, 5, 142 consumption, 75, 82, 182, 189 creolization, 6 culture, 3–5 Cultural Properties Law of 1950, 175 cultural styles, 2, 7, 47, 75, 96, 118, 192 Date han (domain), 10, 11, 200, 205 Date Masamune, 10, 21n, 153, 154, 204 Decentralization Promotion Law, 15 dento– teki ko– geihin sangyo– sinko– kai (Association for the Promotion of Traditional Craft Industries), 177 depopulation, 19, 34–36, 96, 115

family, 5 farm crisis, 65 farming, 19, 31 farm family, 48–50 farming (part time), 31, 48, 67 farming (full-time), 31, 48 folk performance (minzoku geino– , kyo– do geino– ), 124–25, 127–28, 134, 138 folk performance preservation, 124, 126 folk tradition, 4, 138, 141 foreign residents (see also population [of foreigners]), 43, 96, 108, 121–22 foreign residents (registered), 99 foreign (wives), 44, 99 Fujiwara family, 10, 200, 204

213

214

Subject Index

Furusato So– sei Undo– , 14, 15 furusato, 74, 152, 153, 154, 155, 167, 188 gender, 5 gendered, 158 gender-differentiated, 74 gender-structured, 80 gender role(s), 155 Genji, 165 Gigaku (ancient masked drama), 130 Ginza, 3 global, 8, 20, 75, 77–78, 81, 93, 175 global cultural ecumene, 7 global ecumene, 2 globalization, 6, 20 GDP (national), 13 Green Revolutions, 48 habiti, 17 habitus, 18, 44 haiku (poetry), 152 Heian period, 9 Heian poetry, 156 heterogeneous culture, 5 homogeneous, 6 Household Code of 1898, 81 ie, 80, 94, 99, 200–1 Imperial state, 9 Immigration, 35, 43 industrial, 7 international, 74, 127, 166 international exchange activities, 101–2, 118 internationalization (see also kokusaika), 74, 97, 102, 116–20 intra-To– ho– ku migrants, 15, 16 irrigation channels, 4, 52–54, 57–58, 62 Irrigation Cooperative Ordinance of 1890, 56

Japanese anthropology, 5 Japan Lacquer Summit 1996, 188 JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching), 94, 100, 104–05, 107, 111–14, 120–21 Jo– mon period, 4, 11, 171, 188 Kasuga Ryu– Ochiai Shishi Odori (see shishi odori) kenko– to cho– ju no machi, 4 knowledge-power systems (metanarratives), 77–84, 86–87, 90–93 Kojiki, 4, 20n kokusaika (see internationalization), 96 kokusai ko– ry u– (international exchange), 96, 105, 108, 114 kokusai ko– r yu– oin (international exchange staff), 104–5 knowledge-power system kyo– do– geino– (see folk performance) Law for the Promotion of Craft Industries of 1974, 177 Land Improvement Law of 1949, 61 Liberal Democratic Party, 5, 34, 66, 68 local, 8, 20, 75, 77, 93, 120, 126, 175 local lifestyle, 7 Mahoroba no sato, 4, 20n Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries, 55, 61, 62, 68 Ministry of Construction (now Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport), 34, 40, 55, 68 Meiji Agricultural Methods, 57 Meiji government, 56 Meiji period, 131, 190, 202 Meiji Restoration, 10, 11, 153, 175, 201 Minamoto-no-Yoshitsune, 9, 20n, 204 Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, 177 Ministry of Home Affairs (Jichi-sho– ), 103

Subject Index

215

minzoku geino– (see folk performance) modern, 2, 5, 7–8, 19, 73, 93 modernity, 2–4, 18–19, 73–75, 77–79, 81, 86, 120, 171–72, 189–92 modernization, 6, 74, 97 modernization theory, 5 modernization vectors, 96 Mutsu, 8, 9, 20n

rationalization initiatives, 13, 62, 65 regional dynamics, 7 Rice Revolutions, 48, 52–56, 60–62 rural, 2–5, 7, 20, 77, 84, 171 rural-urban dichotomy, 8, 75 rural-urban influences, 75 rural-urban shift, 25

Nambu District, 171 Nambu han (domain), 10, 11, 200, 205 nameko, 3 Nara period, 9 Nippon Retto– Kaizo– Ron (Proposal to Remodel Japan), 14, 126 nostalgia, 124, 153, 154, 182, 188, 190, 205

Sakanoue-no-Tamuramaro– , 9 Sannai Maruyama archeological site, 171 self, 83, 87, 92–93 Sewa Genji line of Minamoto, 10 shacho– 118 Showa era, 175 Shi Cho– Son Gappei Tokurei Ho– , 18, 31, 40–42 shishi odori (The Ochiai Deer Dance), 75, 124–45

part-time agriculture, 31 patriarchy, 5 personality, 4 place, 196–206 polysemic, 3–4 population aging, 32 population (Akita), 27–29 population (Aomori), 171, 192n population boom (postwar), 34 population decline, 32, 96 population (of farmers), 48 population (of foreigners), 96, 121–22. See also foreign residents population (Iwate), 122n population (“Kitasawa”), 121n population (Mizusawa), 206n population (national), 13 population (Sendai), 16 population (To– hoku), 16, 17 Prefectural Small Business Promotion Product, 175 preservation, 75, 124, 126, 128, 177 promotion, 177, 183 Promotion Plan For Tsugaru Nuri Lacquerware, 178–81

Taika Reform (645), 20n, 133 Taisho era, 3, 175 Takeshita Noboru, 14 Tanaka Kakuei, 14 tax structure, 12, 31, 40–41, 56, 58 technopolis strategy, 14 Tokugawa period, 20n, 52, 174 Toyotomi Hideyoshi (Shogun), 10 tradition, 2–5, 7–8, 18–19, 74, 75, 77, 124, 171–72, 184, 188, 190–91 traditional, 2–5, 7–8, 18–19, 73, 75, 76, 92–93, 156, 167 traditionalization, 172, 175, Traditional Craft Object (designation), 175, 177, 92 Tsugaru District, 171, 173 Tsugaru family, 174 Tsugaru Nuri Lacquerware, 75, 171–92 urban, 2–5, 7, 20 urbanization, 31, 44 U-turn, 35 Vienna International Exhibition of 1873, 175

216

Subject Index

waka (poetry), 152 Winter Olympics, 3 women (Japanese), 76–84, 86–88, 92, 94, 157, 158, 161, 165–67 workplace, 5

Yamato State, 8, 9 Yayoi period, 8 yu– ko– toshi (friendship city), 103–4

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