Cambridge Companion to Modern Japanese Culture

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314 Naomichi Ishige

Thus we can see that dishes served in Japanese homes today do not

represent a haphazard combination of internationalised, or Westernised, or

Sinosised dishes, but a clear structure of ‘eligible’ combinations based on

the choice of staple food. Bread is always accompanied by Western-style

dishes. In other meals, it is essential that the dishes are linked in some way

with rice in order for an imported dish to be accepted into the everyday

diet of Japanese families. Therefore imported dishes that go well with rice

have been adopted, with the cooking technique and seasoning altered over

time. In this way, foreign dishes have been Japanised to become established

as part of the family meal.

Decline in meal preparation at home

Restaurants serving Japanese food ﬁrst became fashionable in the US

towards the end of the 1970s and there is now a Japanese restaurant boom in

cities around the world. There were 800 Japanese restaurants in New York

and 300 Japanese restaurants in Moscow in 2006. Japanese food has also

come to be perceived as healthy. Sushi, made with rice and raw ﬁsh, is the

most popular dish served in Japanese restaurants overseas, and the general

perception is that Japanese enjoy the longest life expectancy in the world

because they eat large quantities of rice and ﬁsh.

However, traditional Japanese food cannot be described as healthy, lack-

ing animal protein as well as oils and fats. Until the 1960s, the government

conducted promotional campaigns encouraging Japanese to eat more meat

and dishes cooked with oils and fats. As Japanese society became wealth-

ier as a result of the rapidly-growing economy, meat dishes, which at the

time were more expensive than ﬁsh, came to be eaten everyday, so that

the Japanese diet came to be supplemented with animal proteins that had

been lacking from the diet until that time, resulting in improved nutrition

for Japanese people. Other than excessive salt intake and a slight shortage

of calcium in the Japanese diet, the Japanese nutritional balance was close

to ideal by the end of the 70s. As a result, Japan achieved the status of

having the world’s highest life expectancy. Today, however, many Japanese

have grown accustomed to American-style fast foods that contain excessive

meat and fats. Like other developed nations, Japan is also facing the growing

problem of adult-onset diseases resulting from over-eating, and as a result,

there is a high possibility that it will lose its status as the nation with the

world’s highest life expectancy.

Food culture 315

Despite the increase in the amount of meat consumed, there has also been

an increase in ﬁsh consumption. Japan has the sixth largest ocean mass in the

world, with its territorial waters amounting to twelve times that of its land

mass. However, only half of the seafood consumed by Japanese is ﬁshed

in Japan’s domestic waters and Japan’s ﬁsh self-sufﬁciency rate is only 56

per cent, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery’s

2007 ‘demand and supply tables of food’. Although only 50 per cent of

tuna, popular as sashimi or in sushi, is imported, Japan is being increasingly

attacked by international environmental protection groups which claim

that the world’s tuna resources are in danger of being depleted as the ﬁsh is

supplied to the tables of Japanese families.

The food and restaurant industries have grown with the Japanese econ-

omy. Japan’s food industry ranks fourth, in monetary terms, of all the

Japanese industries, after the electrical appliances, motor vehicle, and oil

industries, while the restaurant industry ranks sixth, after the steel industry.

A groundbreaking moment in the Japanese food industry was the inven-

tion of ‘chicken ramen’ in 1958. Simply adding hot water and waiting three

minutes produced Chinese-style noodles in chicken soup. This product was

followed by many different variations, and instant noodles soon achieved

the status of an international product. The Japanese food industry continues

to direct its efforts into developing foods that require little preparation in

the kitchen, such as miso soup and other soups that only require the addi-

tion of hot water, as well as curry and Chinese food that only needs heating

while contained in a metallic envelope. The popularity of these products

throughout Japan means uniformity in taste, ﬂavour, and preference, and

the tastes and ﬂavours unique to home cooking or the distinctive features

of regional cooking are in danger of being lost.

The popularity of eating out is also signiﬁcant. Today one can ﬁnd, as

well as restaurants serving Japanised foreign dishes, Western-style, Chinese-

style, Korean-style, and American fast food restaurants where one can eat

Japanised foreign dishes even in small regional towns. And in cities, one

can also ﬁnd restaurants serving genuine Chinese, French, and Italian meals

prepared by foreign chefs or chefs who studied cooking overseas, as well

as restaurants specialising in ethnic foods such as South Asian, and Central

and South American food.

The ﬁrst fast food outlet capitalised with American funds opened in

Japan in 1970, followed by the rapid development of chain restaurants. By

the late 1970s, restaurant chains known as ‘family restaurants’ where families

316 Naomichi Ishige

could eat out at affordable prices began to appear, and people began eating

out frequently, which resulted in a decline in home cooking.

The food industry represents society’s kitchen, while the restaurant

industry can be described as society’s meal table, and Japanese today are

enjoying quality meals as a result of the development of the social kitchen

and dining table. Meanwhile, there is a growing sense of anxiety that the

social kitchen and the social dining table are eroding the Japanese family’s

kitchen and its meal table. One of the major issues facing food culture in

the future is how to best achieve a favourable balance between meals in the

home on one hand and meals in ‘society’, or meals outside the home, on

the other. This is perhaps an issue that not only applies to Japan but to all

developed nations in the world today.

Notes

1. For a full analysis of the relationship between Japanese modernisation and food, see

Ishige (2001a; 2001b) and Cwiertka (2005).

2. The term ‘sushi’ derives from the Japanese word sui, which means sour.

3. See note 11 of the Overview of this volume.

4. Ishige (2007: 80–92).

5. In 1877, there were 558 gy

unabeya restaurants and shops selling beef in Tokyo. See

Okada (2000).

6. By around 1900 there were around 1500 to 1600 y

oshokuya in Tokyo. See It

o Kinen

Zaidan (1990: 249–50).

7. Ishige (2005: 92–108).

8. Ishige (2005: 183–9).

9. Ishige (1991: 69).

10. Ishige (2001a: 178–219).

11. NHK H

o Bunka Kenky

usho Yoron Ch

osa-bu (NHK Broadcasting Culture

Research Institute, Public Opinion Department) (2008).

12.

A team of investigators based at the National Museum of Ethnology, led by the present

author

, conducted this survey in 1975, with a sample of 50 households. Despite the

limited sample size and the fact that the survey was held 35 years ago, the pattern that

it showed should still apply to people today because no new conditions have emerged

to alter it since then.

Further reading

Bestor, Theodore C (2004), Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World, Berkeley:

University of California Press.

Cwiertka, KatazynaJ (2006), ModernJapanese Cuisine: Food, Power and National Identity,

London: Reaktion Books.

Ishige, Naomichi (2001), The History and Culture of Japanese Food, London: Kegan Paul

International.

miho koishihara

Sports culture

Sport, as an idea, has come to mean a fusion of modern forms and

traditional exercise in Japanese culture. Modern forms of sport represent the

inclusion of foreign culture in Japanese thought. Since the Meiji Restoration,

traditional physical exercise has represented traditional culture and has been

practiced in close relation to Shinto rituals or the samurai code. These

activities include sumo wrestling, ky

usha (ceremonial Japanese archery),

kenjutsu (traditional Japanese fencing and the predecessor of kendo) and

ujutsu (judo’s predecessor). During the Meiji Restoration, physical training

was systematised into taiiku (physical education) through the introduction

of modern school education systems and Western-style military training.

When attempting to understand Japanese sports culture, we must bear in

mind that it is a complex amalgamation of physical exercise, including

foreign sports, traditional culture that follows uniquely traditional codes,

and physical education carried out in the school system.

This fusion of foreign and traditional physical exercise cultures takes a

particular shape. The paradoxes contained in this fusion have often caused

disagreement over Japan’s comprehension of its own sports culture. In

particular, the fact that foreign sports were initially established for students

to emphasise the signiﬁcance of training mind and body through activity,

prioritised seriousness over enjoyment in practising sports. This remains a

key feature of contemporary Japanese sports culture.

This chapter will provide an overview of Japanese sports culture, incor-

porating an outline of historical changes leading up to the present and a

discussion of current forms of Japanese culture that are recognisable in

sport.

318 Miho Koishihara

Japan’s unique sports

The foundation of Japanese teenagers’ exercise/sports practice rests in

extracurricular club activities (commonly known as bukatsu), for which

schools secure time, space and instructors to support student participation.

Bukatsu plays an important role in the formation of Japanese sports prac-

tice. For many junior and senior high school students, it occupies a very

important place in school life. These activities are held at school after hours

and are roughly divided into cultural/artistic and sports activities. School

teachers are assigned to speciﬁc clubs as advisors and lead club activities

in liaison with students’ initiative. Most students choose to pursue one of

these activities and work hard to achieve in this regard. In 2005,asurvey

found that 77 per cent of male and 57 per cent of female junior high school

students, and 35 per cent of all high school students, participated in school

sports clubs. The three types of sports with the largest numbers of registrants

were: baseball, soccer and soft tennis among junior high school boys; soft

tennis, volleyball and basketball among junior high school girls; baseball,

soccer and basketball among high school boys; and volleyball, basketball

and badminton among high school girls.

The popularity of team ball games

seems to be a phenomenon unique to Japanese teenagers’ sports activities

within the bukatsu tradition. However, many students also work on other

sports, including non-team sports, such as track and ﬁeld, swimming, and

martial arts such as judo, kendo and ky

o (Japanese archery).

Well-known representatives of uniquely Japanese sports culture include

ozum

o (grand sumo tournaments), K

oyaky

u (National High School

Baseball Championship or High School Baseball), radio tais

o (radio gym-

nastic exercises), soft tennis and ekiden ky

o (long-distance relay road

race). With the exception of sumo, all of these sports have developed after

the arrival of foreign sports during the Meiji period. All continue to occupy

important positions in contemporary Japanese sports culture.

Sumo

Sumo is a Japanese martial art with deep traditions. Its ﬁrst appearance

in literature dates back to the 8th century, in the oldest work of Japanese

history: Kojiki (Records of ancient matters). Sumo takes place in a round

earthen ring of about ﬁve metres diameter, called dohy

o. In the most com-

mon pattern, two wrestlers stand face-to-face in the ring, grapple with each

other, and one gives the other a hard pull and throws him to the ground.

Sumo developed and matured as a unique culture of physical exercise by

Sports culture 319

blending Shinto ceremonial elements and agricultural rituals with an enter-

taining contest of strength, fought by wrestlers gathered from all over the

country. In 1927 the Dainippon Sum

oKy

okai (Great Japan Sumo Asso-

ciation) was established, in which four ofﬁcial tournaments were fought

each year by professional wrestlers. This was the beginning of modern

sumo. Live radio broadcasts of grand sumo tournaments began the fol-

lowing year. Once television became widespread, grand sumo tournaments

were broadcast live on NHK (Nippon H

oKy

okai or Japan Broadcasting

Corporation), and this further promoted sumo’s popularity as a specta-

tor sport. The present six-tournament-per-year system was established in

1957. High-ranking wrestlers in divisions called makuuchi (senior grade)

and j

ury

o (intermediate grade) each have 15 bouts per tournament in 15

days, while those in the makushita (junior grade) or lower divisions each

have seven bouts. The winner is determined for each division by the number

of bouts won. In this modern competition, sumo wrestlers wear topknots

and wrestle naked save for their loincloths. Before each bout, the wrestlers

throw salt to purify the ring and rinse their mouth with water called chikara

mizu (literally, power water) to ‘purify’ themselves. The sumo referee, or

oji, gives the command to start the match and decides and declares the

winner. The gy

oji wears traditional costume and supervises the bout by giv-

ing oral instructions with unique intonation. The distinctive atmosphere of

the grand sumo tournaments containing these Shinto ceremonial elements

has attracted many tourists from all parts of Japan and from abroad.

High school baseball

Of all foreign sports to be introduced to Japan since the Meiji period, base-

ball is the most popular. Beginning in 1915 as a sport for middle school

students under the old system of education (today’s high school students),

inter-school matches have developed into the Y

ush

oYaky

uTaikai(Baseball

Championship Tournament) national competition. This was the beginning

of today’s K

oyaky

u, or High School Baseball, which symbolises high

school baseball as a uniquely Japanese sports culture with a popular and

proud tradition emphasising strict discipline and order. In this champi-

onship, preliminary tournaments take place nationwide, with about 4000

schools participating today. Every summer season, after winning local pre-

liminary tournaments, school teams represent local districts at the K

oshien

Stadium in Hy

ogo Prefecture. The K

oshien Stadium is not only a holy place

for high school baseball players; for spectators, it is a symbol that evokes

recollection of attachment to hometown school teams.

320 Miho Koishihara

Radio tais

o (radio gymnastic exercises) is free exercise conducted to the

music and instructions broadcast on an NHK radio program for 10 minutes

from 6.30 am every morning. These exercises were originally modelled after

a program employed by the United States post ofﬁce insurance business.

The Seimei Hoken Kaisha Ky

okai (Life Insurance Companies Association

of Japan) and NHK started radio tais

o in 1928 and spread it throughout

Japan for the purpose of promoting health. Radio tais

o are now also broad-

cast daily on television. After several revisions, the exercises took on their

current form after the Second World War and have been established as a

form of physical exercise known to every person in Japan. A particularly

signiﬁcant contributing factor for this is summer holiday programs for pri-

mary school children employed in all parts of Japan, which encourage chil-

dren to participate in radio tais

o exercises every morning so they can keep

early, regular hours during their summer holidays. Most Japanese people

share the same memory of summer holiday mornings during their primary

school years, of gathering in a park or an open space in the neighbourhood,

doing the radio tais

o and having their attendance card stamped. How-

ever, a signiﬁcant number of people – mainly those of middle or advanced

age – habitually do these exercises alone at home. For these people, the

radio tais

o is their essential daily routine and familiar habitual exercise. The

exercises are so well known that they are often employed as warming-up

exercises at school or community ﬁeld days. In this regard, although low in

intensity, radio tais

o is representative of life-long participation in Japanese

sport.

Soft tennis

Lawn tennis was introduced to Japan during the Meiji period. A shortage in

supplies resulted in the use of rubber balls as an alternative to conventional

tennis balls. Tennis played using these rubber balls was named ‘soft tennis’

and became widespread in Japan. Soft tennis is characterised by its light-

weight rackets and balls vis-

a-vis those used for lawn tennis and is easier

to play, a fact that enables soft tennis players to continue to enjoy playing

the game later in life. Soft tennis matches are played in either singles or

doubles, with procedures and rules basically similar to those of lawn tennis.

It remains a relatively minor amateur sport unique to Japan, due to the

lack of recognition by international sport competitions and the absence of

professional players. Soft tennis, like lawn tennis, is competitive in nature,

has high exercise intensity and has great excitement associated with games.

Sports culture 321

These features make it particularly popular as a junior high school bukatsu

activity. Teenagers, housewives and retired people are the most common

soft tennis players. In this regard, it seems to be another representative

lifetime sport of the Japanese, loved by people of all ages from children to

the elderly.

Ekiden ky

o is a track and ﬁeld sport in which several athletes run respec-

tive legs of a long distance relay race. It is a sort of traditional Japanese

sport, in that it was invented in Japan in 1917.Intheekiden ky

o, the run-

ners wear a sash of cloth called tasuki across the chest from one shoulder,

instead of carrying a baton, and pass the sash to the next runner. This long-

distance team race, which demonstrates the runners’ loyalty to their team,

their patience and determination to carry on, and strong ties among team

mates, has touched the hearts of spectators and has aroused strong sympa-

thy among Japanese people who value moral integrity. The Hakone Ekiden

race, which takes place on the 2–3 January each year, is particularly popular

as a spectator sport. In this race, 10 runners who are college or university

students run 217.9 kilometres (approximately 134 miles) in a round-trip

between the centre of Tokyo and Hakone in two days. In addition, late

autumn and winter seasons see a number of ekiden races, including the

national high school championship, inter-prefectural competitions, com-

petitions between corporate teams and international competitions. Many

of these competitions are broadcast on television. Ekiden ky

o has now

become a spectator track and ﬁeld sport as popular as marathon among the

Japanese people.

Current sports practice

These above-noted culturally unique sports are complemented by interna-

tional forms of exercise and sporting practice. The sports which are widely

practised by or are popular among Japanese people clearly reﬂect the posi-

tion occupied by sport both in Japan’s history and in its contemporary

culture. This chapter now draws upon various data on the trends in sports

participation by Japanese people published in Sports hakusho: Sports no

kachi no aratana hakken (Sports white paper: Rediscovery of the value of

sports) issued by the Sasagawa Sports Foundation.

The practice rates by

age are shown in Table 17.1, with a total percentage calculated across all age

groups in the far right-hand column.

322 Miho Koishihara

Table 17.1 Changes in sports practice by age (%)

Practice 20–29 30–39 40–49 50–59 60–69 70–79

Year level yrs yrs yrs yrs 6yrs yrs Total

1994 Level 040.338.544.057.363.571.850.1

Level 136.442.934.122.810.69.428.3

Level 26.75.18.66.27.13.46.6

Level 37.44.05.59.89.411.17.5

Level 49.29.57.83.99.44.37.6

2004 Level 017.220.220.526.232.544.826.6

Level 143.

744.22

9.922.215.813.228.1

Level 29.07.914.010.96.66.59.2

Level 314.512.819.224.326.221.920.0

Level 415.714.816.416.418.913.516.1

Level 0: Practised no exercises or sports during the previous year.

Level 1: Practised exercises/sports at least once per year but less than twice per week

(1–103 times/year).

Level 2: Practised exercises/sports at least twice per week (≥ 104 times/year).

Level 3: Practised exercises/sports at least twice per week, at least 30 min per time.

Level 4: Practised exercises/sports at least twice per week, at least 30 min per time,

at exercise intensity of ‘fairly hard’ or harder.

Source: Sasagawa Sports Foundation (2006), p. 27.

The results found in Table 17.1 demonstrate that age disparities in sport-

ing participation at levels 2 through 4 (those who exercise regularly at least

twice per week) are comparatively minimal, while those at level 0 (who

practise no exercises or sports) increase with age and those at level 1 (who

exercise on an irregular basis) decrease with age. This implies a general ten-

dency for people to exercise less with increasing age. This trend has not

changed for 10 years. Conversely, people at levels 3 and 4, who exercise

regularly and relatively actively, have increased in proportion during the

decade. In this regard, the white paper points out that with increasing age

people tend to divide into two groups – those who do and those who do not

practise exercises/sports.

The past decade has also seen, in all age groups, a

signiﬁcant reduction in the proportion of people at level 0 andanincreasein

the proportion of people at levels 1 through 4. These results show that the

Japanese people’s participation in exercises and sports has steadily increased

during the past decade.

An analysis by sex reveals that more men than women participate in

exercises/sports on a regular basis, but this difference is small.

Similarly, an

Sports culture 323

analysis by region seems to indicate that there are no signiﬁcant differences

in sports practice rates among different regions in Japan. However, differ-

ences are observed in types of sports preferred in different regions in Japan,

due to the geographical characteristics of the Japanese Archipelago which

extends north and south and has seasonal changes. In particular, in cold

regions such as the northern parts of Japan and mountainous regions, skiing,

skating and other winter sports have traditionally been practised actively.

From these survey results analysed by age, sex and region, the level

of participation in exercises/sports practised by adults (aged 20 years and

older) in contemporary Japan is generally on the increase.

A similar survey on exercises/sports practice has been conducted among

people aged 10 to 19, and the distribution of people of this age group across

different practice levels (by frequency, time and intensity of exercise) has

been calculated. The results of this survey, conducted in 2005, are shown in

Figure 17.1.

The particularly high proportions of those who practise sports at level 4

during the junior and senior high school stages (46.4%and36.9%, respec-

tively) are likely to be due to sports bukatsu activities at schools. As men-

tioned above, junior and senior high school students seem to be pouring

signiﬁcant portions of their youthful power and energy into sports through

bukatsu. Among adults, high-ranking exercises/sports practised by those

who exercise at least twice per week (the total of levels 2 through 4) include:

‘strolling’, ‘walking’, ‘gymnastics (light physical exercises, radio tais

o,etc.)’,

‘swimming’, ‘strength training’ and ‘jogging/running’. These are types of

exercises/sports that people can enjoy individually to develop their physical

strength. This suggests that the characteristics of sports that Japanese people

can (easily) continue to practise on a regular basis are that the sport does not

require particular equipment, place or partners and can be practised easily

at any time.

The survey determined that high-ranking exercise/sports practised reg-

ularly by people aged 10 to 19 years included soccer, basketball, baseball,

volleyball and badminton.

These sports roughly correspond with those

noted as popular bukatsu sports above.

Another survey conducted in 2005 by the Sasagawa Sports Foundation

has revealed the numbers of people practising selected competitive sports.

The largest sport population in terms of the number of registered individual

players is kendo, which is practised by 1 386 404 ﬁghters. This is followed

by soccer (862 045 players), basketball (597 597 players) and soft tennis

(540 271 players). In terms of the number of registered teams, baseball is the