Cambridge Companion to Modern Japanese Culture

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274 Junko Kitagawa

A. The genres in which ‘age’ and ‘location’ are considered to be the dimen-

sions determining consumption are: min’y

o; naniwabushi or r

okyoku

(narrative singing with shamisen accompaniment); and enka. In addi-

tion to these genres having high rates of consumption by middle-aged to

elderly people, they also have the following characteristics: min’y

o have

a repertoire peculiar to each part of Japan, with support for min’y

o in the

ohoku region in north-eastern Honsh

u, in particular, having remained

stable over a long period. Naniwabushi, which emerged in Osaka at the

end of the 19th century, received strong support from older age-groups

and regional strata, but its consumption declined in the ﬁnal 25 years

of the 20th century. In recent years, however, though its consumption

could not be called great, some expansion has been seen on the social-

stratum dimension, stimulated by the emergence of players who have

introduced new elements, such as the incorporation of rock phrasing

into their shamisen performance. The relatively new genre of enka has

developed by incorporating musical elements of the other two genres,

including vocalisation and titles. The stylistic similarity arising from this

can be considered a factor in these genres sharing the support of common

strata.

B. In relation to the ﬁve genres from jazz to anime songs, as can be appreci-

ated from the fact that the high-consumption stratum for jazz has shifted

from young people in its early days to middle-aged or elderly people at

present, the relatively young strata which supported ‘new’ music have

sustained their consumption as they have grown older. From this, the

primary dimension relating to consumption is ‘age’, based on the period

in which the genre was ﬁrst experienced, that is, each consumer’s ‘gen-

eration’. Moreover, the fact that opera and orchestral music in category

D were popular among young people in prewar days implies that even

though all kinds of Western music initially were consumed by the young

as ‘new’ across the board, each genre has specialised its strata of con-

sumption over time. With kay

okyoku and J-pop, one can see situations

in which the compartmentalisation of consumers into young people and

middle-aged/elderly strata has begun upon the emergence of new gen-

res within Japan’s popular music, which has continuously incorporated

elements from Western music.

C. In the case of Giday

u and s

okyoku, ‘age’ is considered to be the determin-

ing dimension of consumption. Within h

ogaku, these two genres, whose

artistic aspirations are strong in comparison to the min’y

o and nani-

wabushi of category A, are characterised by their near lack of connection

with any dimension, such as region, except that of age.

D. The dimensions dictating consumption for both orchestral music and

opera are thought to be ‘level of education’ and ‘occupation’, with

Music culture 275

‘income’ predicated on the other two. Opera especially, as I have already

stated, which was a familiar genre until the ﬁrst quarter of the 20th cen-

tury, underwent a transformation in its social positioning in postwar years

to become ‘art’. This changed its dimension of consumption dramatically.

E. Consumption relating to ‘idols’ is basically supported by consumers of

the opposite sex from the singer. That basis stands ﬁrm, though a trans-

formation has been evident in recent years in the consumption of male

idols, whose young female fans have been joined by a surge in fans from

their mothers’ generation, thus expanding the age-range of the high-

consumption group.

In summary, the consumption of musical genres and their rise and fall

includes: category A in cases where the foundation is the same social stra-

tum, but different new genres are consumed over time; categories B and C,

where a certain musical genre is consumed continuously by a ﬁxed social

stratum; and categories D and E where the consuming stratum shifts or

expands.

International comparison

Let me reiterate that Japan came face-to-face with Western music in the

Meiji era and has undertaken its importation and absorption. This, on a

greater or lesser scale, can be said to be an issue which all non-Western

countries have confronted in the process of modernisation. Now let us

locate the music culture of Japan from the perspective of Japan in East Asia.

School education

In Japan in the 1880s, sh

oka (school songs) were developed under a pol-

icy designed to form a compromise between Western and native music.

In China at the start of the 20th century, music education shaped around

xuetang yuege (school songs), inspired by their Japanese counterparts, was

initiated by Shen Xingong and others who had studied in Japan. The spread

of xuetang yuege functioned to diffuse the Westernised melodies of Japanese

oka and to popularise both Western staff notation and numbered musical

notation in China. In Korea, in the period from the start of the 20th cen-

tury until 1945, education pivoting on Japanese sh

oka was conducted. The

pentatonic scale which permeated Korea through the sh

oka also inﬂuenced

Korean popular songs. In this manner, when viewed from the perspective

of the importation of Western music into East Asia, Japan played the role of

a mediator at the beginning of the 20th century, through school education.

276 Junko Kitagawa

Importation and absorption of brass band music

Western style military bands emerged in China in the 1890s. As for civilian

bands, there had been a privately established brass band formed prior to

that, in 1885, by a Briton, Sir Robert Hart. This group was augmented

by string instruments in 1890. In both cases, their repertoire is said to have

been limited to Western music. In Korea, Franz Eckert, who had led military

bands in Japan during his sojourn from 1879 to 1899, later led the Korean

Lee Dynasty imperial band. The band’s activities and inﬂuence endured

for only a short period, however, due to the dismantling of the military in

1907. In Japan, the following can be said to be the characteristics of bands:

ﬁrstly, until the establishment of professional orchestras, military bands

functioned as their substitutes; secondly, the repertoire of brass band music

by composers from Japan started to take shape from the end of the 19th

century; and, thirdly, the inﬂuence of military bands extended to the civil

population, and brass band music has continued to be a nucleus of amateur

musicking to the present day.

Absorption of orchestral music

Composers from China, Korea and Japan all produced orchestral works

incorporating traditional elements from their own countries. In China, folk-

songs, ethnic music scales and so on have been used since the ﬁrst half of the

20th century. In Korea, there was rising momentum for the handing-down

and development of traditional music from the mid-20th century onwards,

and in orchestral works the introduction of elements from traditional music

has also been attempted. In the case of Japan, there have been two distinct

time-periods in which composers have created works with an unequivocal

awareness of ‘Japan’: during wartime and from the late 1960s. Such attempts

were made under state policy in the war years, but were based on the con-

sciousness of individual composers from the end of the 1960s. Unlike the

other two areas, Japan has the distinctive feature of having experienced both

state-led and spontaneous music movements.

The music industry

As I have discussed above, the establishment of ‘concerts’ in Japan has

contributed to developing both y

ogaku and h

ogaku, as well as music by

professionals and amateurs. Among Asian countries, one salient feature of

Japan is the growth of its concert business. In addition, Sekine

cites the

uniformity of music recording prices, the expansion of outlets dealing with

record rentals (from 1980), and the world’s highest ratio of singles to albums

Music culture 277

in the CD market as being characteristic of Japan when viewed from the

perspective of the music industry in Asia as a whole.

As we have observed above, though the issue of ‘the traditional music of

their own country’ versus ‘Western music’ is common to all of East Asia,

each area is unique and individual as to how it balances the two, and also in

relation to the process in which music culture has been developed with the

additional support of industry and education.

Points at issue

Given the discussion thus far, I now raise three points in relation to con-

temporary music culture in Japan.

Changes in the meaning of ‘y

ogaku’

Western music imported during Meiji was something ‘new’ and ‘lofty’ to

the people of Japan. With the passage of time, however, these meanings have

changed.

Until the verge of the Second World War, Western music which had

once been consumed as ‘new’ became increasingly difﬁcult to associate

with ‘newness’ in the process of being imported and absorbed over a long

period of time. Instead, among the increasingly segmentalised genres of

music, it is those which boast only minor levels of consumption that have

won the position of ‘newness’.

As for ‘lofty’, as indicated by the diffusion rate for pianos, Western music

has already ceased to be something so lofty that it is out of reach. That being

said, evident by the motivation which spurred the popularisation of pianos

and the consumer strata for orchestral music and opera, Western music

still retains its signiﬁcance as an ‘upper-middle-class’ status symbol. The

construction in metropolitan areas of dedicated music auditoria equipped

with bars and chandeliers from the 1980s makes their meaning as status

symbols both obvious and more easily understood.

Changes in the meaning of ‘h

ogaku’

The status of Japanese traditional music, which in Meiji times was imbued

with such sentiments as ‘backward’ and ‘vulgar’ vis-

a-vis Western music,

has also undergone changes.

In the case of Japanese traditional musical instruments, until about 1950 a

practice persisted in which different notation was used for different instru-

ments, and even with the same instrument, there was almost no mutual

278 Junko Kitagawa

exchange between rival schools. From the mid-1950s, attempts were made

under the auspices of broadcasters to cultivate young players of Japanese

instruments, leading to changes in this situation. Through the teaching of

staff notation, the way was opened for combined performances by dis-

parate schools and with different instruments. In the same period, moves

by Japanese-instrument players to commission new works from composers

of ‘Japanese y

ogaku’ began to occur. In this way, from the late 1950s

onwards, Japanese traditional instruments started to take on a tinge of

‘newness’.

Changes also emerged in folk music. Music rooted in ‘regional areas’

began to be transmitted to and accepted by a wider audience. One example is

the Tsugaru-jamisen (Tsugaru shamisen).

In the 1960s, the Tsugaru-jamisen

enjoyed a boom, thanks to Takahashi Chikuzan (1910–98), and its inﬂuence

even extended to Europe and America through Takahashi’s overseas perfor-

mance tours in the 1980s. In the 21st century, the genre-crossing activities

of young performers such as the Yoshida Brothers (Yoshida Ky

odai) have

reignited the boom, and Tsugaru-jamisen tunes have also joined the ranks

of mobile telephone ringtones.

The policy of reappraising Japanese traditional musical instruments,

which was hammered out in school education at the end of the 20th century,

has given rise to several concrete moves. The instrument industry responded

swiftly, developing such products as a compact koto whichiseasytousein

the classroom, and a shakuhachi made of plastic. Moreover, it was decided

that enka songs would be included in senior high school music textbooks

from the 2008 academic year.

A reappraisal of ‘Japan’ can be seen also in the realm of popular music.

A 21st-century male idol group, Kanjani 8, has made hits with songs which

combine Kawachi-ondo and Japanese-language rap.

Numerous examples above show that for the people of Japan, who

have achieved such proﬁciency in Western music, a paradoxical situation

has arisen where Japanese traditional music, rather than Western music,

is considered ‘new’. Further, while forging close connections with both

education and industry, ‘traditions are being invented’ in the present tense

in Japan.

Transformations in consumption

Changes have also occurred in patterns of consumption. Since the 1990s,

it has become difﬁcult to consider age, location, level of education and the

like as dimensions determining consumption. Against a background of the

Music culture 279

compartmentalisation of popular music into ever smaller subgenres, for the

youth of today music has become a means by which to identify others who

share the same taste, using musical preference as a clue.

Additionally, when, for example, young people sing karaoke,theyvary

their choice of song according to the people accompanying them. In other

words, music has come to function as an antenna for testing the ‘air’ around

individuals and ﬁnding a place where one can feel at ease with one’s presence,

or, in a more negative sense, as a tool for ameliorating an uncomfortable

atmosphere. Music is consumed while being used in different ways accord-

ing to the venue.

Conclusion

If we synthesise the three issues discussed above, contemporary music cul-

ture in Japan has taken a vastly different trajectory from the ideas of the

Meiji era, when only ‘Western music’ was valued. We can now see the

emergence of a kind of grassroots cultural relativism which evaluates and

consumes a diversity of music on an equal basis. However, the fact that such

cultural relativism has provoked a ‘reappraisal of Japan’s own culture’ in a

country that has taken Western music as its benchmark, represents both its

greatest distinctive feature, and a kind of perversity.

From here forward, the cultural relativism which is emerging in current

Japanese music culture has the potential to move in two different directions

according to whether or not it again undergoes a process of relativising

its ‘own culture’. If it does undergo another process of relativising, it will

slip out of the robust framework used in connection with music of ‘Japan’

versus ‘other than Japan’ and head towards cosmopolitanism; if not, it will

follow a path leading to absorption into the framework and on to soft

nationalism.

Notes

1. This is a neologism coined by music scholar Christopher Small (1987), based on the

desire to think of music not as a noun, but as a verb of action that ‘people do’.

2. Aoyagi (2000).

3. Cabinet Ofﬁce, Economic and Social Research Institute (2003).

4. Masui (1980: 49).

5. Hiroshi Ogawa (1998: 45).

6. Masui (1980), NHK H

o Yoron Ch

osa Kenky

ujo (1982), ‘Sedai koete uta wa tanoshi

(Songs enjoyed across generations)’, Yomiuri Shimbun (4 December 2003).

280 Junko Kitagawa

7. Sekine (2007).

8. In 2006, however, the gross sales revenue for user-pays music distribution in the form

of songs downloaded via the internet to personal computers and mobile telephones

surpassed that of single CDs. Nihon Record Ky

okai (Recording Industry Association

of Japan) (2007).

9. Tsugaru is one area in Aomori Prefecture, at the northern tip of Honshu. The Tsugaru-

jamisen is distinctive in the way it is played by striking the strings with a plectrum.

Further reading

Galliano, Luciana (2002), Y

ogaku: Japanese Music in the Twentieth Century, Lanham: The

Scarecrow Press.

Stevens, Carolyn S (2008), Japanese Popular Music: Culture, Authenticity, and Power,

London: Routledge.

Wade, Bonnie C (2005), Music in Japan, New York: Oxford University Press.

ann waswo

Housing culture

Housing codes

On encountering the term ‘housing codes’, most people are likely to think

of building regulations: what kind of dwellings can be built where, what

provisions need to be made for gas, electricity and sewerage, etc. Such

regulations certainly do exist – and constitute one of the major ways in

which public policy impinges on the ‘private’ realm of the home – but I use

‘housing codes’ in another sense here, to mean the prevailing assumptions

we have about houses and the standards we have internalised for evalu-

ating the exteriors and interiors of the houses we encounter. Just as we

are inﬂuenced by ‘dress codes’ and ‘dietary codes’, so too are we inﬂu-

enced by ‘housing codes’, and these codes are both socially constructed

and variable over time.

A remotely controlled iron gate leading to a gar-

den and off-street parking or a front door just a few paces from the street;

a spacious entry hall or immediate access to the living room; a separate

dining room or an eat-in kitchen: these and other design features convey

messages not only about the type of house we are visiting, but also about

the lifestyle of its occupants. The ‘novel’ layout of rooms – bedrooms

on the ground ﬂoor and social space on the ﬂoor above, for example –

may suit the site or the occupants, but it will strike most visitors as a

reversal of the prevailing code for the location of ‘private’ and ‘public’

spaces.

Japan’s housing codes, and domestic dwellings themselves, have changed

dramatically since the late 19th century, reﬂecting not only the economic

and demographic transformation of the country but also its ideological

transformation, especially after the Second World War. The cumulative

result of these changes has been the emergence of a new housing culture,

282 Ann Waswo

which is similar in most respects to the housing cultures of other fully

developed countries elsewhere in the world.

Around the time of the Meiji Restoration of 1868 and for some decades

thereafter, Japan was still a predominantly agrarian society, with 80 per

cent of the population living in the countryside and some 70 per cent of

the labour force engaging primarily in farming activities. In rural villages

home and workplace overlapped, and the typical dwelling included space

for farm tools and a few chickens or trays of silkworms as well as for the

farm family itself. Even in Japanese cities, the separation of these two basic

loci of human existence – one of the signiﬁcant developments wrought by

modernisation throughout the world – had only just begun. A relatively

few government ofﬁcials, factory owners and factory workers commuted

from home to work – on foot or by rickshaw or horse-drawn tram – but

most urban residents were either shopkeepers or artisans, who ate, slept

and raised their children in or just behind the same premises in which they

earned their livelihoods.

Of course, dwellings varied in size and quality, reﬂecting the socioeco-

nomic status of their occupants. The poor occupied small dwellings, some-

times little more than crudely built shelters against the elements. Afﬂuent

Japanese, whether rural or urban, had larger, better-built dwellings, which

included space for servants and for the celebration of familial and communal

events – there being hardly any restaurants and certainly no funeral par-

lours, wedding chapels or community centres (other than local shrines and

temples) in those days. Such differences in housing standards were accepted

as normal, a reﬂection of the natural order of things in a society where social

stratiﬁcation was taken for granted and, as in much of the West at roughly

the same time, where poverty was regarded as the result of lax behaviour

and moral depravity on the part of the individuals concerned.

A ‘proper’ house at this time was considered to be one that provided

accommodation for members of an ie, the multi-generational stem family

discussed by Imamura earlier in this volume, and like the ie itself, space

within the house was arranged hierarchically. The prime space – usually

opening onto a garden – was reserved for the male head of the household,

or patriarch; rooms in the dark recesses of the dwelling were occupied by

servants and/or employees of the patriarch’s business; and at least one ‘good’

room in between was used by family members other than the patriarch for

sleeping, meals and diverse daytime activities. The kitchen tended to be in a

remote corner of the house, usually in a lower, dirt-ﬂoored area, reﬂecting

both the need to protect the rest of the dwelling from the ﬁres that were

Housing culture 283

lit there on a daily basis and the lowly status of women and women’s work

within the household.

In the countryside and in the less densely populated districts of cities, the

house itself would be set apart from other houses by a gated wall or hedge;

in the more congested ‘downtown’ districts of cities, where row houses

predominated, a rather stern facade with few, if any, windows would face

the street. In all cases, and essential to the ‘proper’ house, the outer sliding

entry door would lead to a genkan (vestibule) at ground level, marking

a signiﬁcant boundary between outside (soto) and inside (uchi) the resi-

dence. Here, casual visitors would be dealt with, and here too occupants

of the house or the invited guests of the head of the household would

remove their footwear before stepping up into the raised interior. Also

essential were a tokonoma, an alcove in the ‘best’ room in the house – that

is, the patriarch’s room or a larger reception room nearby – where a sea-

sonally suitable hanging picture scroll and ﬂower arrangement would be

displayed, and a butsudan, or Buddhist altar, for commemoration of the ie’s

ancestors.

The architectural design of these ‘proper’ houses in the early Meiji era

incorporated key elements of the sukiya-zukuri style of architecture devel-

oped during preceding centuries for the dwellings of Japan’s elites. The

houses were one- or at most two-storied, with a superstructure of thick

wooden posts and beams bearing the weight of a heavy tiled or thatched

overhanging roof. Rooms other than the genkan and kitchen were raised

at least 30 centimetres above ground level and their ﬂoors were covered

with one of a set number of woven tatami mats. There were thin, full-width

sliding doors between most interior rooms and sliding doors with rice-

paper insets to let in light along the veranda under the overhanging roof,

and these made it possible to open up larger interior spaces as and when

needed and to provide ventilation during the humid summer months. In

most rooms there were ﬂoor-to-ceiling cupboards for the storage of futon,

ﬂoor cushions, individual lacquered dining trays and other items that would

be needed as the use of rooms changed during the course of a day. Rooms

were not only of modular size (4.5 mats, 6 mats, 8 mats, etc.) but also mul-

tipurpose: sleeping, eating, playing games, sewing, etc. Co-sleeping, that is

the bedding down of family members other than the patriarch in one room –

with young children or a mother and her youngest children often sharing

one set of bedding – was the norm.

Such houses were, of course, well beyond the reach of poor Japanese,

or even those with ordinary incomes. Yet it is likely that they visited such