MEDIA, CULTURE, AND EDUCATION IN JAPAN: Culture without Class

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Culture without Class

Publication Date:199203
Book title: MEDIA, CULTURE, AND EDUCATION IN JAPAN [A COLLECTION OF PAPERS]
Publisher : National Institute of Multimedia Education

"Mito Komon" is one of Japan's most popular TV programs today. It is set in the early Tokugawa Period, around the middle of the 17th century, and the title role is a retired vice-Shogun. He travels about through the length and breadth of Japan in disguise with only two retainers to accompany him. Komon himself is disguised as a retired merchant. He travels in the manner of a common citizen, putting up at roadside inns, eating everyday food and making friends with the poor farmers and craftsmen he meets along the way. No one is aware that he is a man of supreme political power. Sometimes old farm women give him advice on how best to care for crops. In other words, by going about in disguise, Komon is able to continue to learn about the conditions of society. Also, he sometimes discovers feudal lords or their underlings involved in graft or exploitation of the people. At such times, he takes the side of the people in resistance activities against such corrupt regional government officials. These bad guys, of course, do their best to harm or even kill Komon and his retainers. Komon's retainers protect him, and at the last moment, he shows his badge of office ( his family crest ), revealing his true identity, and using his authority to punish the bad guys.

There are many period dramas that resemble this one, and their plots always follow the same pattern. The heroes of all of these TV dramas are persons of double identity who appear to be just ordinary citizens but who, in actual fact, hold positions of power and have a good conscience. Of course, this type of double-social-identity fiction is not exclusive to Japan. "The Prince and the Pauper" is a good example of a Western tale of this type. But in the context of Japan's popular culture, there is a particular fondness for stories like "Mito Komon" in which people of the elite classes go beyond the confines of social class to move about freely and enjoy the life of a commoner. And this is definitely not a product of the "democratization" that has taken place in Japan since 1945. Japanese popular literature has been full of stories of this sort since the beginning of the 20th century. The existence of social classes is an incontrovertible fact. But the idea that people are capable of breaking down the walls of class to communicate and that this is the way things should be is a concept that is deeply rooted in the hearts and minds of the people of Japan. Such heroes are expected to be "like a commoner" no matter how high their social position may be.

And this concept is not limited to the world of fiction. Even in the real world, Japanese people move about and act as equals no matter what their social class or position may be. Of course, in feudal society, social class was strictly delineated, but the late 18th century writer Sanba Shikite created humorous word pictures of warriors and townsmen as all the same "plain people" after all in his "Bath of the Floating World" ( Ukiyo Furo ) that is set in a public bath. His basic premise is that it is only clothing and possessions that create social distinctions, and that when all such ornamentation is stripped away, people are all the same. The philosopher Shunsuke Tsurumi called this "public bath democracy."

This tradition still remains is effect today. For example, group trips are often sponsored by such Japanese organizations as companies or neighborhood associations to promote friendship among their members, and the destination is almost always a spa. At these spas, there is always a huge public bath where everybody takes a leisurely soak while chatting with each other. Here there is no distinction between company presidents and common workers. All are literally stripped down to their bare humanity and become equal with each other. Also light sleeping kimonos known as yukata are provided for all guests by these spas. Since all of the yukata are of exactly the same pattern and fabric, the minute the guests shed their own clothing and change into these yukata, the social class and position normally held in their organization to which they belong completely disappear. And when they enter the public bath, the highest executives and the newest young company members communicate with each other naturally. In the Japanese language there is an expression that translates literally "to become mutually naked and have a talk" that means to have a straightforward conversation. It means to talk together with no lies, no exaggeration, and no reserve. It may well be that this expression includes the image of the popular group trip to a spa.

Differentiation based on social class is particularly repugnant to the Japanese, particularly the Japanese people of today. To give a concrete example, there is no first class on the railways of Japan. In other countries, there are special roomy compartments that are more expensive and are called "first class," but in Japan, cars like this are called "green cars" instead of "first class." The name here comes from the green stickers that are placed on the outside of these special cars. Also, on the domestic airlines of Japan, there are special seats that would normally be called "first class," but they are called "super seats." Since passengers who wish to use these seats naturally pay a higher price, any other culture would call them "first class," but in Japan's transportation industry, an "invisible" distinction is made while the actual terms "first class" and "second class" are strictly avoided. Perhaps what we see at work here is such feelings of "shame" or "hesitation" toward conspicuous social privilege.

In other words, the ideal of the Japanese of today is to be "ordinary" or "average." And they want others to recognize them as such. This is obvious from the results of public opinion polls. According to numerous polls taken by such organizations as the prime minister's office more than 90% of all Japanese people consider themselves to be of the middle class. There are extremely few who think that they belong to the upper class, and equally as few who place themselves in the lower class. All are in the middle class. And there is sufficient reason behind this phenomenon. First, the basic philosophy behind the Japanese tax system is equal distribution of wealth, and the income tax is based upon a graduated scale. On top of this, thanks to the existence of an inheritance tax, it is a quite impossible for a family to remain extremely wealthy generation after generation. In other words, it is safe to say that the tax system itself is constantly aimed toward the creation of an "equal" middle class. Also, thanks to the farm land reform of 1946, all farmers became independent, placing them in the middle class as well.

On top of this, the Japanese education system, particularly in terms of the popularization of higher education, contributes greatly to the nurturing of "average people." In Japan today, the ratio of people who go on to high school after their nine years of compulsive education is upwards of 95%, and more than 35% of all high school graduates go on to university or junior college. This also contributes to further promotion of the homogeneity of the population. Against the background of such standardization of income and education, it is not surprising that the sense of equality mentioned above has proceeded at an increasingly accelerated pace. And neither the lifestyle nor the way of thinking allow for establishment of classes in the social system of Japan.

This can be easily understood even by looking at the mass media of Japan alone. In most countries of the world, the newspapers can be easily divided into "quality papers" and "popular papers." The former newspapers are targeted toward the intellectual class and deal with the international situation and financing conditions, while the latter often strive to excite the curiosity of the masses on a day to day basis through sensationalism. In other words, in most countries of the world, you can easily guess the social class and even the profession of a person by the newspaper he or she reads. In direct contrast, all Japanese newspapers are aimed at all the people. There are three or four daily newspapers in Japan today that have a distribution of several million copies, but their contents are a combination of all the different types of articles found in both the "quality papers" and the "popular papers" of foreign countries. They are filled with everything from serious editorials to literary criticism, the world situation, political problems, entertainment world gossip, sports, and murders. While the different newspapers do indeed have their own unique personality, there is no way to determine the social class of the reader by the newspaper he or she reads. The prime minister, farmers, university professors, and factory workers all read the same newspapers.

Thus it becomes clear that Japan is truly a "popular society" ruled by the middle class where no such dichotomies as high class and low class, elite and the masses, privileged and underprivileged exist. And by extension this means that Japan is in a state of cultural equality at the present time. So it follows that it is correct to refer to Japan's present day culture as a "culture without class." Sociologists often speak of the dichotomy of "high class culture" and "common culture" when they discuss the phenomenon of culture, but it is normally difficult to apply this dichotomy to Japan. For example, there is no case in which a certain sport reminds one of a certain social class in Japan. In the past, golf was considered a high class sport, but in Japan today, salaried workers in their thirties often spend their Sundays golfing. Skiing is also a sport of the masses today. Everybody from students to waitresses, artists, taxi drivers, and people in all other walks of life are skiers in Japan and they number around one hundred million. Baseball is a sport that was imported from America during the latter half of the 19th century, and the first people to take an interest in it were university students, giving rise to college baseball teams. Then during the 1930s, professional baseball put in its appearance. Thus both the playing and the watching of baseball became a national hobby. When one goes to a Japanese professional baseball stadium today, one cannot help but notice that the grandstands are filled with people of all professions and all social levels. There are executives of giant enterprises and there are janitors. There are students and there are senior citizens. One finds car salesmen sitting next to university professors. From this cultural phenomenon it becomes obvious that the cultural nucleus is neither high brow nor low brow. If it must be given a name, it can only be called middle brow culture.

Let us look at a few more examples. Anybody who has visited Japan has probably noticed that the game known as pachinko is found everywhere. It consists of a board covered with a complex pattern of protruding nails among which a number of holes are scattered. Steel balls of one millimeter in diameter are flung up along the board with a spring, and if it goes into one of the holes as it rolls down the board, the player wins a prize. In other words, it is a simple type of gambling. In Japan today, there exist at least two million pachinko machines. This game has the character of a national pastime in Japan. This is clearly substantiated by the fact that the pachinko industry enjoys an annual sales figure of 1.5 billion yen, an amount equivalent to 20% of Japan's national budget. And the people who play the game are definitely not limited to any special social class. There is a larger ratio of men than women, but there are still many women who play it. There are great pachinko fans among the famous authors and the Dietmen of Japan. A look at the history of the game reveals that it began as a minor hobby of the working class, but today it is loved by people of all professions and all social levels. No one would ever think of frowning at an intellectual for playing pachinko today. A new form of popular entertainment called "karaoke" began to catch on in Japan around the beginning of the 1980s. "Kara" means "empty" or "devoid" and "oke" is an abbreviation of "orchestra." In other words, Karaoke is orchestral accompaniment devoid of a singer. Most karaoke consist of taped recordings of popular songs, with laser discs beginning to appear recently. Amateurs sing with a microphone in their hands while listening to the sound tapes or listening to and watching the laser discs. As I mentioned earlier, Japanese enterprises often sponsor spa trips for their employees where everybody "gets naked" together and enjoys chatting with each other. After bathing, they all go to the dining room where they eat and enjoys singing to the karaoke. Executives, typists, secretaries, and factory overseers all join together, taking turns in front of the microphone. This may seem like a strange sight to many people, but to the Japanese people it has become a part of everyday life. This does not, however, mean that all Japanese people are totally absorbed in the singing of popular songs. There are not a few people who have a high level of education who play the violin themselves or frequent the classical concert halls. But even such people as these find themselves participating in karaoke gatherings, for such participation proves that a person is "ordinary" which, as I explained earlier,is the ardent desire of all Japanese people.

This concept of equality permeates every corner of life in industrial society. For example, the dining rooms of almost all Japanese companies are shared by both executives and workers. They all line up in the same cafeteria to receive the same food as everyone else there. Here we observe the same thorough-going "democracy" as that of the public baths at the spas. And as the company employees eat their lunch, the president often unofficially seeks the opinions of his field workers. People often wonder why production is so high and quality so superior in Japan's manufacturing industry, and I am convinced that this sort of "democracy" is one of the major secrets behind this phenomenon. In a word, it is because there is no sense of class in either Japanese society or culture. It is for this reason that I believe that the term "culture without class" is appropriate in describing Japanese culture.

Originally Japanese society possessed an extremely strict class system. While there were indeed no suppressor or suppressed in the Marxist context, there was a sharp division between poverty and wealth. No matter how widespread higher education may be today, it does not mean that all Japanese people possess a truly high level of knowledge and culture. In reality, the exact opposite is the case, for even among the salaried workers who are university graduates, there are not a few who are intellectually poverty-stricken in the extreme. While there are a number of educated persons and businessmen who are active on the international scene, there are numerous other people who have never ventured away from the village in which they were born. The graduated income tax system does indeed exist, but this does not mean that income is entirely equal. In term of property, in this age of extremely high and further rising land price, one's social life differs greatly depending upon whether or not one owns land. There are also large discrepancies between full-time salaried workers and retired senior citizens. There is an equal employment rights law for men and women, but it cannot be said that men and women receive totally equal treatment in the actual work place. Social classes or strata do exist here.

But, still, I am convinced that the cultural mainstream consists of a "middle brow" stratum that goes beyond the bounds of social class. At least, it is certain that the Japanese people live in accordance with the basic principle that they are all "ordinary" people. One must not either rise above or drop below the "ordinary" level. Everybody eats the same kind of food, sings to the same karaoke, goes on the same group spa trips, and watches the same television programs as everyone else... And no one ever even so much as considers doing anything that would be socially conspicuous. This is the ironclad rule. If a person happens to be a capitalist with great power, if he displays it ostensibly or brags about it, it will cause society to scorn and repulse him. It is considered the greatest of virtues to always act ordinary, always associate with others in an ordinary manner, and to never reveal one's wealth or power unless absolutely necessary. The Mito Komon whom I introduced at the beginning of this essay is a perfect example of the ideal human being in this context. And it goes without saying that it is not only the general public who watch the television program of which he is the star, but also people who would be considered of the elite class in other societies, for it is a program targeted toward "ordinary" people, so everybody who aims toward being an "ordinary" person is almost duty-bound to watch it. This includes even the type of Japanese person who dreams of visiting London. If you were to ask any Japanese from a politician to a student, a man, a woman, or anyone of any age if they are familiar with the character named Mito Komon, the answer would be invariably "of course." If you were ever to discover a Japanese who answered no to your query, you can be assured that he or she would be lying about his or her citizenship. And you are best advised to avoid any further communication with such a person.

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