Cambridge Companion to Modern Japanese Culture
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214 Toshiko Ellis
given rise to a new consciousness of identity. This identity is based on the
awareness of differences in one’s historical and cultural experiences. It is
a renewed sense of otherness that has come about as a reaction to today’s
predominating popular culture, so that, even in this age of globalisation,
we are witnessing a renewed rise of nationalism. Confrontations between
different ethnic groups and religious cultures are still stubbornly present.
How Japanese culture will evolve within this world context remains to be
seen.
One area in Japanese literature that has been left largely unexplored to
date is its relationship with other Asian cultures. Perhaps, as Japanese writ-
ers move away from the Japan-West relationship, there will be room for
them to look at their culture and history in relation to the cultures and
histories of their neighbours. Since the beginning of the modern period,
Japanese authors have held an ambivalent attitude towards Asia. In its pur-
suit of Westernisation, Japan’s Asian identity was consciously left behind,
as is reflected in the widely-quoted slogan proposed by Fukuzawa Yukichi,
to ‘leave Asia and enter the West’. When Japan advanced into its neigh-
bouring regions in the name of Asianism, its imperial effort attempted to
impose Japaneseness on the local people through the suppression of their
cultures. During this period, few Japanese writers positively engaged with
their Asian counterparts in their creative pursuits. By and large the situa-
tion has not changed to date; translation of foreign literature has been and
is still dominated by works written by European and American writers. At
the same time, we have seen how the voices of non-Japanese writers have
been creatively challenging the traditional notion of ‘Japanese literature’.
As Japanese literature frees itself from the bonds of nationality, ethnicity
and the discourse of cultural homogeneity, new space should open for it to
expand and develop its encounters with the cultures and literatures of other
Asian countries.
Notes
1. I express my special thanks to Ted Goossen of York University for his help in writing
this article. I would not have been able to put this together without his assistance,
though the entire responsibility with regard to the content is mine.
2. Matsuda (2007: 2–3).
3. The biggest hit to date, Koizora (Love Sky), a high school girl’s love story, attracted
approximately 1.2 million mobile phone readers and appeared on the bestseller charts
soon after it appeared in book form. It was then made into a successful film. Mika
(2007: back page).
Literary culture 215
4. Matsuda (2007: 2–3).
5. Masakazu Yamazaki (1972).
6. Et
¯
o(1967).
7. Morton (2003: 196).
8. Ry
¯
u Murakami (2001: 171). Page reference is to the 2003 reprint.
9. Kazushige Abe (2001: 70). Page reference is to the 2004 reprint.
10. Norihiro Kat
¯
o(2004: 151–60).
11. Takahashi in Kazushige Abe (2005: 222–9).
12. Misaki (2005a).
13. Machida (2003: 187). Page reference is to the 2006 reprint.
14. Machida (2003: 139). Page reference is to the 2006 reprint.
15. Kawakami (1996: 105). Page reference is to the 1999 reprint.
16. Kawamoto in Kawakami (2002: 222). Page reference is to the 2005 paperback edition.
17. Tawada (2003: 31
).
18. T
awada (2002).
19. Otomo (2007).
20. The Jory
¯
u Bungakusha-kai (Society of Women Writers) announced its dissolution in
October 2007, putting an end to its 70-year history. The society was inaugurated by
Yoshiya Nobuko, Uno Chiyo, Hayashi Fumiyo and other women writers who sought
to create a ground for their activities through mutual recognition and criticism during
the decades when writings by women constituted a distinct minority (Asahi Shimbun,
13 September 2007).
21. Korean names are written in accordance with the Japanese pronunciation.
Further reading
Goossen, Theodore (1997), Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories, Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Karatani, Kojin (1993), Origins of Japanese Literature, Durham: Duke University Press.
sepp linhart
12
Popular leisure
A revolutionary change
In 1991 the then prime minister of France, Edith Cresson, in the midst of
an EU–Japanese trade conflict, caught much attention by comparing the
Japanese to ants who stay up all night working. It might be that Cresson’s
impression of the Japanese was partly drawn from the debate on kar
¯
oshi,
death from overwork, which had begun in the second half of the 80sinJapan
and was quickly adopted by those critical of Japan in the West. Such people,
especially American intellectuals critical of the Japanese trade surplus with
the US, the so-called revisionists or Japan-bashers, had accused Japan of
‘social dumping’ in the form of long working hours and short vacations.
During the 90s, official Japanese economic policy changed, most probably in
response to these critics: becoming prime minister in 1991 Miyazawa Kiichi
(1919–2007), one of the LDP’s most influential politicians for many decades,
announced that the aim of his government was to make Japan a ‘great
country to live in’ (seikatsu taikoku). Consequently, the Labour Standards
Law (R
¯
od
¯
o kijun h
¯
o) was amended in 1993, providing workers with a 40-
hour working week and 125 per cent overtime payment. Since management
had been very reluctant to accept any further statutory reduction in working
hours since the introduction of the 48-hour working week in 1947, this can
be called a truly revolutionary change.
Furthermore, Japanese culture, which – apart from a considerable export
of traditional culture such as ikebana flower arrangement or haiku poetry –
never had had an important status in Japanese foreign policy, was sud-
denly seen in a more positive light by Japanese diplomats. Around 2005,
Japan even came to be called ‘cool Japan’; a catchphrase much used by
the Foreign Ministry. Leisure and youth culture, which for a long time
Popular leisure 217
had almost been regarded as ‘social evils’, were re-evaluated and prioritised
in cultural exports. Manga cartoons, anime films, playful Japanese design,
J-pop music and Japanese-style cooking had first been eagerly absorbed
in Japan’s neighbour states and later all over the world. While for a long
time Japan had been exporting the hardware for leisure to the world, now
it is also exporting the software, and these exports seem to become ever
more important year by year. The stereotypical view of Japan as a grey
nation of working bees or ants, as expressed by Cresson, has given way
to one of a colourful and youthful nation in which modern-style play is
much more important than old-fashioned work ethics stressing diligence
and devotion to one’s employer. The German boys’ pop group with the
strange name Tokio Hotel, which formed in 2005 and has since become one
of the most successful bands ever in middle Europe, is said to have taken its
name because ‘Tokyo is the most glittering city in the world’.
In this overview of contemporary leisure I use the framework of the
convergence theory, meaning that economic development has a strong uni-
fying impact on social institutions. Since Japan is one of the most advanced
economies of the world, its society is likely to exhibit the features of a
post-industrial society’s leisure culture. This does not necessarily mean that
Japan’s leisure culture is completely adopting that of advanced Western soci-
eties, but that the importance of work ethics and related values is lessening,
while privatisation and individualisation is increasing.
1
Another essential
question is whether individual leisure behaviour has been emancipated from
economic and political organisations, and to what extent Japanese citizens
have achieved the freedom to use leisure not as other-directed but as inner-
directed individuals, as defined by Riesman.
2
Debates and controversies
One of the fundamental questions when dealing with leisure in Japan con-
cerns the appropriateness of the Western concept of ‘leisure’ in the context
of Japanese society.
3
Japanese critics of this concept like to point to the
use of the loanword rej
¯
a for leisure as proof that this concept is alien to
Japan. Even so, there also exists a Sino-Japanese compound word, yoka,
as an equivalent for leisure, but critics tend to stress its negative meaning
vis-
`
a-vis the positive connotation leisure has in English or Freizeit has in
German. Yoka means amaru hima, the free time (hima)leftover(amaru),
they argue, and yoka thus is nothing but a residual category in the time
management of individuals. The genuine Japanese words hima and itoma
218 Sepp Linhart
signifying ‘free’ or ‘available’ time are not used for leisure, but in sentences
like, Imao-himadesuka?(Are you free now to do this and that?) By con-
trast, one expression for ‘to work’, itonamu, has its origin in ito nashi,‘to
have no free time’, a hint at the high value placed on free time relative to
work in years past.
4
Rej
¯
a is a relatively new word, which, according to economic historian
¯
Otsuka Hisao, entered the Japanese language shortly after the high eco-
nomic growth period began in 1955.
5
Around 1960, Japan experienced its
first rej
¯
ab
¯
umu (leisure boom), heralded by the mass media. Rej
¯
a was a
fashion word of the year 1961,
6
which points to its novelty at that time.
Although it is a word of foreign origin, one can argue that it has now
been in use for around fifty years and thus is thoroughly Japanised. This is
clearly visible in words such as rej
¯
a-sangy
¯
o (leisure industries) or rej
¯
a-zei
(leisure tax), kamitsu rej
¯
a (overcrowded leisure) or kamikaze rej
¯
a (leisure
in a kamikaze fighter style, that is, until exhausted), which combine the
foreign loanword with a (Sino-) Japanese word.
Of course the Japanese have always not only worked, but also liked to
play. The verb asobu and the noun asobi denote this activity. Johan Huizinga
in his 1938 fundamental study on human play, Homo ludens, already noted
this Japanese expression and discussed its meaning, while at the same time
pointing to the term majime (earnestness) as its contrary.
7
In the 8th century, asobi was something connected with the sacred cult.
Professional groups of ‘players’ (asobibe) performed dances and played
music at religious occasions: these ‘plays for the gods’ were called kami
asobi,laterkagura. Typical occasions were ‘field plays’ (ta asobi, later called
dengaku), festivals in the spring, which were held to pray for a rich harvest.
It seems that asobi (Sino-Japanese reading: y
¯
u) was imbued with a negative
connotation only when it came to be applied to purely sexual amusement,
like in the words y
¯
ukaku and y
¯
uri (red light district) or y
¯
ujo (prostitute).
Asobi in modern Japan retained this negative connotation. Further examples
of this usage are words like asobinin (playboy) or asobite (rake), which have
their positive counterpart in hatarakimono (hardworking person).
From the Meiji Restoration to the end of the Pacific War, the ruling
elites tried to enforce a puritan samurai ethic on the whole of Japan. Every
Japanese was expected to work for Japan’s modernisation first and for the
establishment of a huge Japanese empire second; time and infrastructure for
play or leisure was lacking, with the exception of the larger cities during the
1920s and early 1930s. After the Pacific War, however, a change of values lead
to a ‘revolution of consciousness’ (ishiki kakumei), as social psychologist
Minami Hiroshi announced in 1960 in a book with the same title, in which
Popular leisure 219
he tried to give proof of these changes. From the late 1980s, to play and
to enjoy one’s free time finally became well-acknowledged goals in life, at
least as long as they were not conflicting with one’s professional or family
life.
Turning to the academic study of leisure, it is notable that in several series
of multi-volume sociology readers published in Japan from 1958 onwards,
the 1995 edition was the first to contain a special volume on Shigoto to
asobi no shakaigaku (The Sociology of Work and Play). Prior to that, leisure
or play had never had a place in these readers, an indication of their low
evaluation in Japanese sociology up to the 1990s. This does not mean,
of course, that the study of leisure had been completely ignored: already
in the 1920s, Gonda Yasunosuke had initiated empirical research on the
amusement and leisure behaviour of Japanese workers and urbanites.
One argument often put forward by those advocating Japanese unique-
ness is the notion that the Japanese need no time for play or for leisure
except as recreation from work fatigue. This idea was expressed as far back
as 1919 by Mut
¯
o Sanji, the representative of the Japanese government at
the convention of the newly founded International Labour Organization
that planned to introduce a legally guaranteed 48-hour working week in
all industrialised nations, including Japan. Mut
¯
o argued that the Japanese
are used to working 10 or 12 hours per day and do not need more free
time, because they are not accustomed to it. If Japanese workers were given
more spare time, he argued, they would most probably only misuse it.
8
At the World Conference for Leisure and Recreation in Hamburg in 1936,
Kitayama Junyu, the most active Japanese propagandist in Nazi Germany
and professor for Japanology at Prague University in 1944–45,stressed
firstly that Japanese workers in the family state
9
need no individual leisure
for themselves, but only a creative break (sch
¨
opferische Pause). Secondly, in
Japan, he contended, all holidays were related to the religious cult or the
state. Moreover, to Japanese women, concepts such as leisure and recreation
were totally unknown and meaningless, since they had to devote themselves
entirely to the care of their children and husbands.
10
After 1945, similar thoughts reappeared in a different form. The firm now
replaced the family state as the institution to which workers had to devote
everything. Adherents of this philosophy fought against the idea of leisure
being an independent sphere in life and stressed that work and leisure must
not be separated as in the West. MITI official Namiki Nobuyoshi, when
reporting about MITI’s 1971 industrial structure vision for Japan, stressed
the necessity for a ‘monistic acceptance of work and leisure’, the ‘meaning
of life [lying] in the unification of work and leisure’.
11
It was imperative,
220 Sepp Linhart
he argued, to reject any dualistic view of work and leisure. Hence, after the
introduction of the five-day working week, many big companies turned to
appropriating Saturdays for the education of their workers.
In spite of such views, more and more Japanese over the last quarter
of the 20th century have adopted an individual lifestyle not so different to
that found in the West. With the exception of a small stratum of dogged
‘company people’ (kaisha ningen), they regard free time as their private
time that they can use according to their individual liking and without any
interference on the part of their employer.
Time for leisure
From 1992 onwards, Japanese workers have worked less than 2000 hours
a year. If one compares this figure with international statistics, Japan is no
longer among the top working nations regarding working hours. Scheduled
working hours in establishments with 30 or more employees decreased
between 1976 and 2003 from 162.9 hours to 141.7 hours per month, and total
working hours, that is, scheduled working hours plus overtime, similarly
decreased from 174.5 to 153.8 hours.
12
The above statistics are based on the Ministry of Labour’s Maitsuki kinr
¯
o
t
¯
okei ch
¯
osa (Monthly Investigation of Work Statistics) and only report paid
hours of employment. Japan, however, is famous for employees working
overtime without getting paid, either in the workplace or at home, which is
known euphemistically as ‘service overtime’ (s
¯
abisu zangy
¯
o).
The Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecom-
munications (S
¯
omu-ch
¯
o) conducts its own Investigation on the Work Force
(R
¯
od
¯
oryoku ch
¯
osa). In this survey, workers themselves fill out the question-
naires, and the resulting working hours are considerably longer than those
reported by the Ministry of Labour. Even if we take into account the pos-
sibility that workers might exaggerate their work load, this alone does not
explain the wide gap between results. In fact, workers often are expected
to arrive at their workplace a quarter of an hour or so before work starts,
and similarly feel compelled not to leave immediately after the end of their
required hours.
What is also missing from the statistics is commuting. Workers in the
Keihin area (Tokyo, Kawasaki, Yokohama) in particular, but also in the
other big urban agglomerations, suffer from very long commuting times
in overcrowded trains. In 1990 Reng
¯
oS
¯
oken, the research institute of the
biggest Japanese trade unions’ association, conducted a comparative study
Popular leisure 221
of work-related time in five nations. Even though this report must be read
with caution due to its authorship, the results are enlightening. Summing
up commuting time, time at work and times of rest during work, while
excluding eating time during work, Japanese workers, with approximately
twelve hours per day, work 1.5 hours more than Americans and 2.5 hours
more than Europeans (British, French and German). These working time
patterns obviously have consequences for the time left for leisure purposes.
While the Germans enjoyed 4:15 free hours on an average working day, the
Japanese had to cope with only 2:28 hours, or nearly two hours less.
13
Since many leisure activities take place on weekends, the forced intro-
duction of the five-day 40-hour working week in all companies from 1997
onwards has brought about a great change in leisure behaviour and activi-
ties. IBM Japan had pioneered the establishment of the two-day weekend as
far back as 1953. For the whole country, however, this revolutionary change
took as long as 44 years to take place!
Japan today is the world’s leading nation in number of public holidays.
Over the years, the government has designated more and more public hol-
idays to compensate working people for the postponement of the two-day
weekend and for the small amount of paid vacations. The idea that the
Japanese need more free time in order to be able to consume more, which
again should stimulate the economy, might have been the ultimate motive
behind these policies. The ‘Happy Monday System’, which instituted sev-
eral Mondays as public holidays instead of holidays on fixed dates, guar-
antees that employees are able to celebrate national holidays. This makes it
possible for people to enjoy three-day weekends on these occasions. Short
vacations for two or three days to hot springs, ‘leisure lands’, theme parks
or famous scenic spots correspond with traditional Japanese behaviour and
are still very popular.
Three periods of the year are also by now customarily connected with
longer absence from work: the time of the New Year festival, when most
companies close for at least three days, although only New Year’s Day is
a national holiday; ‘Golden Week’ between 29 April and 5 May, with a
cluster of national holidays; and the time of the Bon festival in the middle
of August, at which time many Japanese return to their original homes to
visit their ancestors’ graves. Many companies take this traditional custom
as an opportunity to close for a whole week or so. Needless to say, many
Japanese nowadays also use these periods to travel abroad.
The most peculiar Japanese practice in regard to free time is Japanese
employees’ use of paid vacations. The amount of paid leave to which
222 Sepp Linhart
Japanese workers are entitled is 10 days, but after six months with the
same employer and a minimum attendance rate of 80 per cent, paid leave
increases for two days per year until 20 days are reached after six and a
half years. Of all industrialised countries, in terms of paid leave, Japan is
second from lowest: only in the United States is there no legal guarantee
for paid leave at all.
14
Taking into account the fact that Japanese companies
have several regulations for additional days of paid leave, Japanese workers
are not so badly off in comparison to workers in other highly developed
countries.
What is truly astonishing is the low usage rate of paid holidays. Until
1995, the number of days of paid leave taken rose to 9.5 days per year, but
since then it has started declining again and reached 8.4 days in 2005,which
corresponds to a usage rate of only 46.6 per cent.
15
This rate is higher in
large companies than in small ones. A study conducted in 2001 established
that most workers avail themselves to the full of the regulation that unused
days of paid leave can be saved for two years. In a sample of 3000 workers,
men on average were allocated a total of 30.1 holidays, but consumed only
7.4 days, while women had 24.6 days and consumed 8.7 days. Even young
women in their 20sand30s who are often said to constitute a ‘leisure
aristocracy’ did not deviate significantly from this pattern.
16
The most often mentioned reason for saving a considerable part of the
paid leave one is entitled to is a very rational one: employees want to have
some days in reserve in order to use them when they get ill, despite the
fact that sick leave is available to them. Thus they can boast of a perfect
record of attendance, even in case of illness. Other reasons often mentioned
relate to the working environment: to take too many holidays would affect
one’s colleagues; the working climate does not encourage one to take longer
leave; etc. Some people even say that they do not know what to do with
their days of paid leave. A Japanese government study in 2002 revealed that
the full use of paid holidays and concomitant consumption would result in
considerable economic growth and in the creation of 1.5 million jobs for
people in the service industry.
17
From a purely economical point of view,
Japanese frugality in holiday use is perceived to have considerable negative
consequences.
Leisure activities
The relatively undeveloped state of leisure in Japan in the 1960sresultedin
the creation of various institutions for the study of leisure which since then
Popular leisure 223
have resulted in a host of interesting research reports and data concerning
leisure activities.
The Leisure Development Center (Yoka Kaihatsu Sent
¯
a) was created in
the early 1970s by MITI, when the economic importance of leisure could
no longer be overlooked, in order to obtain the necessary basic data on the
leisure activities and wishes of the Japanese people. These were considered
necessary in order to provide the leisure industries with data for their invest-
ment decisions. One of the activities of the Center consisted in the publica-
tion of a yearly Whitebook on Leisure, which reported the latest trends in
the leisure activities of the Japanese. In 2000, the Center was renamed into
a more fashionable, but short-lived Society for the Design of Free Time
(Jiy
¯
u Jikan Dezain Ky
¯
okai). It was dissolved in 2003 and became part of
the Japan Productivity Center for Socio-Economic Development (Shakai
Keizai Seisansei Honbu) as Yoka S
¯
oken (General Research Institute for
Leisure), which continues to publish the Whitebook on Leisure to this day.
Another important institution is the Japan Recreation Society (Nihon
Rekuri
¯
eshon Ky
¯
okai), which is financed by the Ministry of Education and
Technology (Monbu Kagakush
¯
o) and has branches in every prefecture.
Apart from research activities, it tries to provide the people with information
on desirable forms of play. Furthermore, national broadcaster NHK has
been investigating the time budget of the Japanese for many years for the
planning of its TV programs, and these data are equally important for people
professionally concerned with leisure.
A look into the Japan Statistical Yearbook reveals many interesting facts
about the leisure habits of the Japanese. Leisure activities tend to differ on
weekdays and on weekends, and according to gender. Table 12.1 shows
that for most leisure activities more people engage in them on weekends
than on weekdays and that they also spend more time on these activities
on weekends, especially on Sundays. However, there are some exceptions:
Fewer women exercise or play sports on weekends; and fewer men and
women listen to the radio or read newspapers on Sundays, or take a rest on
weekends. But the time engaged in conversations, exercise and sports, out-
ings and walks, hobbies and television increases considerably on weekends.
Fewer women than men participate in exercise and sports, have hobbies, or
read newspapers, but more women seem to care for conversations, reading
magazines and listening to CDs. What is also interesting is that there is no
activity besides viewing television in which more than 50 per cent of all men
and women engage. The other most common activities are reading newspa-
pers and resting, at around 40 per cent, while hobbies, entertainment and