Japanese Society Today Some Conce.E Tual Maps

Japanese Society Today Some Conce.e_tual Maps

David L. SWAfN

LIKE A COMPUTER. screen gone haywire, di the scholarly labors of others, gleaned pri verse images of Japan have careened wildly marily through a prolonged study of Japan across the public consciousness in recent ese science history with physicist Sugimoto months. Reckless Japan-bashing in the Masayoshi and later others,1 and urban United States and mindless counter-slurs studies under the guidance of former Keio from Japan have done much to amplify University professor Yazaki Takeo.2 These Japan's international exposure but little to two areas of study indicate my conviction deepen understanding. Watching this crazy that modern Japan is marked by its extraor kaleidoscope made me wish for a steadier dinary success in adopting and adapting gaze at enduring realities of longer historical modern science and technology, as well as and broader social scope-what might be in developing the cities required by its large called the basic dynamics of Japanese soci population and limited inhabitable land ety. In this essay I attempt to fulfil.l my own space. 3 The other source of ideas and per wish by focusing on certain basic dynamics spectives is simply my four decades of life in and by providing figures as "conceptual maps" in which readers can perhaps find Japan, including thirty work camps, count some coordinates of their own experiences: less committees and conferences, wide The ideas presented and the figures used spread organizational ties in and beyond the are my own. They first took specific form Christian community, and extensive travel and were gradually refined in talks made by foot and every means of vehicular trans over the years at various schools, churches, port except the fabled jinrikisha. It bears repeating that this is an essay, not seminars, and conferences. The principal an academic thesis; citations are made to sources are of two kinds. Most important are illustrate, not to "prove", a point and to sug gest collateral reading. Moreover, I offer no David L. SWAIN, a United Methodist mission final conclusions, only some reflections on ary for forty years with the United Church of missional implications for Japan. With that Christ in Japan, served eight years as editor of The said, I turn now to the first part of a struc Japan Christian Quarterly, predecessor to the tural depiction of Japanese society, and later Japan Christian Review. His major works include to a broad-stroke historical perspective. Science and Culture in Traditional Japan (MIT Press, 1978) and a joint translation with Dr. BASIC COMMITMENTS Ishikawa Eisei of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Physical, Medical, and Social Effects of the The term "commitment" is used here to re Atomic Bombings (Basic Books, 1981). solve the choice, when trying to analyze a

61 JAPAN CHRISTIAN REVIEW 58 1992 society, between focusing on its value sys tional commitment. While economic activ tem or its material conditions. The value ity extends far beyond Japan's national claims of a people can perhaps best be tested boundaries, the economic commitment is, by asking how the society's human and ma in my judgment, almost exclusively struc terial resources are situated and used. "Com tured and administered to serve the national mitment," then, is meant to embrace both commitment. So the circle for the economic focuses. Specifically, one needs to know commitment is drawn so as to protrude only how population and wealth are distributed, a little beyond the main circle of national and how power and controls are managed. commitment. Then one can measure material evidence Although the Japanese idealize their rural against values and ideals to see how faith past (as Americans idealize theirs in Christ fully the latter are followed. mas cards and "western" films), any realistic Before turning to these specifics, I first in appraisal of the placement of human and troduce a larger frame of national commit material resources will show the primacy of ments that encompass and guide all the urban commitment: it is the primary questions of population, wealth, and power. locus of economic activity, the primary so cial structure of the national commitment. Social commitments Japan's cities do not exist in complete isola The overarching commitment of virtually tion from the rest of the world; quite the con all public organizations in Japan is to pre trary, they are the central nerve system for serve the territorial integrity of the Japanese Japan's world-encompassing economy. Even nation and promote the interests of the Jap so, they function primarily to preserve and anese people. Every political party, includ prosper the national commitment, so this ing the Socialist and Communist parties, circle too is drawn almost wholly within the must make clear its allegiance to this basic circle of national commitment. commitment, which is represented by the It is essential to understand that these so largest circle in figure 1. cial commitments, like the cultural counter The economy is organized to pay for, that parts that follow, involve not only official is, to maintain and prosper, the overall na- structures, organizations, and policies, but

Fig. 1 Social Commitments of Japan Fig. 2 Cultural Commitments of Japan

62 SWAIN: Japanese Society Today informal group and community ties, and senting literature and art is smaller. More general public ethos as well. 4 over, despite the remarkable quantity of works translated from other languages into Cultural commitments Japanese, this circle of activity strikes me as Education is the overarching cultural com more within the bounds of education's ser mitment, as shown in figure 2. Its basic vicing of the national commitment. That is, function is to tell the Japanese people who art and literature play a large role in foster they are, that is, to maintain national iden ing the national identity, but only a minor tity. It fits them into the national commit role in helping the Japanese relate to other ment. 5 Education is also the primary means lands and peoples. So this circle too extends for preparing persons to find and fill a place only slightly beyond the main circle. in the economic and urban circles. (It is by It would be a serious mistake, however, to no means strange that the major long-term confine this literature-art circle entirely Christian investment in Japanese society is within the education circle, given the extent precisely in this circle of primary cultural of. English language-learning from middle commitment. And it is this area, as noted school on. There might be a distinct implica later, that is pregnant with implications for tion for Christian mission here. Foreign-lan Christian work in Japan.) guage teaching in Christian schools has, by Science and technology are without ques itself, little potential for introducing and tion the major emphases of education (and nurturing Christian faith, values, and action of most training beyond formal schooling). as expressions of a universal commitment. This primacy derives from the economic Language-learning at elementary levels is, commitment in all its industrial, commer after all, but a limited means of dealing with cial, informational, and other dimensions. ideas, even on practical, matter-of-fact lev Japan shares with the rest of the world the els. But whenever learning a foreign lan modern science and technology that evolved guage opens avenues for serious scientific or from Western roots, but modern science and literary work, indeed, for any in-depth en technology today involve universal and counters with other peoples and cultures, global modalities in concept and method. then the potential increases exponentially. Not all Japanese investments of time, en Another implication may be that mis ergy, and money in science and technology can be kept completely subservient to the sional attempts to deal directly with eco national commitment. So the science-tech nomic issues will encounter more nology circle protrudes even farther outside nationalistic resistance than similar efforts its overarching circle. The circle of science in matters scientific and technological. For and technology represents, then, Japan's example, coping with threats to our com foremost opening to "internationalization" mon living environment is perhaps a better in the sense of transcending the constraints point of missional entry into responsibility of the national commitment and fostering for world hunger than would be a frontal at fuller participation in the global community. tack on economic greed (though the latter Literature and art in the estimation of cannot be indefinitely ignored). some might call for the largest circle of all. In my view, art and literature have a lesser THOROUGHLY URBAN JAPAN place in Japanese life and society than do The Tokyo metropolitan region is the science and technology. So the circle repre- epitome of urban Japan. It is the direct

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descendant of Edo, former center of the sam urai (military-administrator) system of nearly 300 provincial domains under Tokugawa hegemony for 265 years (1603- 1868). Throughout this period Edo was the pinnacle of population, wealth, and power. The radial pattern of roads leading up to and away from the castle center symbolized Edo's primacy. When Japan entered its modern era in 1868, the castle grounds of the shogun be came the palace grounds of the emperor, 1 "Big Four" Metropolises: Tokyo, Osaka, and Edo became Tokyo. Under the restored Nagoya, Kitakyushu imperial system, the radial pattern remained -dominate 11 prefectures, with 2/3 oftotal dominant, as the capital city vastly in population creased its capability of attracting and inte -1/3 of all Japanese live in Tokyo metropolitan grating population, wealth, and power. One region continuing symbol of the capital's centrality 2 Medium-size cities: Sapporo, Sendai, is that all trains going to Tokyo are called Hiroshima etc. "up" trains, while all trains leaving Tokyo -dominate respective regions Station-even when headed north or as -each prefecture has its largest city, each cending to mountainous regions-are district its largest town "down" runs. 3 Rural sector What holds for Tokyo in relation to the -3/4 of Japan's total area is mountainous; only whole country is true for the other metropo 1/7 is cultivated lises in their respective regions, and on a -farmers are only So/o of work force; 86% are lesser scale, for smaller cities in relation to "part-time" farmers -2/3 of farm workers are men over 60, their surrounding districts. Long established women, and children patterns, confirmed by recent data,6 yield an inverted "Mt. Fuji" triangle (fig. 3) that sym bolizes the heavy concentration of popula Fig. 3 Sectoral layers of urban-rural Japan tion in the "Big Four" metropolises of Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, and Kitakyushu, the propor evangelism, partly to compensate for the tionately lesser population distribution in medium-size cities, and finally, the minor general prewar failure of Protestant Christi place of the rural sector in the population anity to penetrate the poor farming and scale. fishing areas.9 From the early 1960s, re During modern Japan's prewar and war cognition by church leaders of the massive time span (1868-1945), most Japanese peo demographic shifts to Japan's political, com ple lived in smaller cities, towns, and mercial, and industrial centers led to new villages, and according to one study, 80 per programs of "occupation" and "labor" and cent of them were poor (impoverished by in then "urban" evangelism in the UCCJ and dustrializing and war-making).7 In the early other churches. The inequities between postwar years the United Church of Christ urban and rural sectors led others in the late in Japan (UCCJ) 8 put high priority on rural 1 960s to a more radical interpretation of

64 SWAIN: Japanese Society Today

"metropolitan centers vs. the periphery."10 complete the picture by overlaying the left This view has been superseded by a more in and right triangles.) tegrated urban-rural concept in ecumenical For all its formal democratic structures, circles such as the Christian Conference of Japan is clearly a hierarchically ordered so Asia and the World Council of Churches. ciety that in virtually every aspect stresses Simple depiction of urban concentration, vertical ranking over horizontal linking. however, is inadequate to analysis, much Readers can conjure up their own examples, less social action. An additional differentia whether among banks, universities, or churches. In prewar Japan, the seat at the tion needs to be made. top of the "control" triangle was occupied by Concentration vs. control the emperor, and the imperial family was reputedly the nation's wealthiest. While this That power and wealth are concentrated in is not true today, imperial symbols are in the great urban centers does not mean that creasingly employed to legitimize the small control of power and wealth is equitably dis oligarchy that is in top place. tributed among the population mass also The critical importance of the revival of concentrated in those centers. Indeed, the the imperial cult, especially as evidenced in opposite is true: the higher the level ofpower the attempt to re-nationalize the Yasukuni wealth concentration, the fewer the people Shrine for the war dead, is stressed by virtu This stark contrast is rep who are in control. ally every Christian group in present-day resented in figure 4. Japan.11 It is a great pity that so many Ameri Note that the left triangle in this figure is cans, who have reasons enough to want to a replication of figure 3, where the concen know more about Japan, would largely ne tration of population still coincides with glect the corpus of Japanese Christian cri power-wealth concentration. The right tri tique of this and other crucial issues in favor angle is added to show that in the control of of their own shallow Japan-bashing. power and wealth, the "shape" of the popu lation mass is inverted because the relation Class differentiations ship is inverted: the more that wealth and "Class" is not a popular term in some circles; power are concentrated, the more people are here it is used, without any particular ideo removed from their control. (Figure 5 will logical connotation, to mean simply groups

Concentration· Control

Urban

* Cf. Fig. 3 •i Rural

Fig. 4 Concentration vs. Control of Population-Power-Wealth

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of people in various sectors of the overall so levels), and so on, not to mention job and cial configuration. The vital point is to grasp wage possibilities. (For those who find met what is suggested by overlapping the in ropolitan life oppressive, the mid-size urban verted "concentration" and the upright "con middle class may have a psychological ad trol" triangles, as in figure 5. vantage.) This figure, it should be remembered, is a If the metropolitan middle class is favored highly abstract representation of social real by physical proximity to power and wealth ity. Note, for example, that the uppermost concentrations, then the marginal classes in point labeled "A" (for the national power metropolitan areas (C1) may be said to have elite) is not only above but also outside the certain advantages over marginalized groups level ofthe Big Four metropolises. This does in the medium-size cities (C 2), and even not mean that the elite actually live any more so over those in the rural sector (C 3 ). where other than in the metropolitan areas The "advantage" factor boils down essen (or major regional cities). The point of the tially to improvement opportunities, whether above-and-outside position is that the national educational, economic, cultural, medical, or power elite exercise control over the entire whatever. society. The "A" point is a sectoral indica The small arrows in figure 5 represent up tion of elevation to high positions of power ward mobility, that is, efforts made by peo and control affecting the whole country. ple to move from their given class into a Another differentiation is brought into higher one. One function of the educational focus by the "Star of David" configuration: system, of course, is to enable aspirants to middle-class people in the metropolitan acquire the skills needed to do so. Or, put layer of society (B1) are somewhat different differently, the educational system's key from their medium-size city counterparts functions are to socialize young people for (B 2). Their lives, that is, are different, for the urban living and to train them for useful concentration of greater wealth and power roles in the economy. In the process, educa in the metropolitan areas yields many ad tional institutions help identify talented vantages in areas such as transportation youth for advancement. And schools natu (rail, air, highway), information access (li rally are ranked by their success in advanc braries, museums, media), education (all ing careers.

"Big Four" Metropolises A = national power elite B = middle classes: Medium-size cities B1 = metropolitan 82 = mid-size urban C = marginal peoples: C1 =metropolitan C2 = mid-size urban C3 =rural

Fig. 5 "Star of David" configuration of elite, middle, marginal classes

66 SWAIN: Japanese Society Today

not therefore be adequately represented by the "C" sectors.

The female undercaste Women are an undercaste in all classes of the social configuration, as I have tried to show in figure 6. Women in "A" class may enjoy many luxuries, but they are nonethe less subordinate to men in that class. The same holds for all "B" and "C" classes and subgroups. Japanese society is doubly hier archical, and women are doubly disadvan taged, that is, doubly disenfranchised. More -male precisely, Japanese society is generally hier archical, and specifically patriarchal. female What difference this makes can be illustrated by reference to any number of factors, but the most telling item is perhaps Fig. 6 Female undercaste in all classes (A, B, C) employment, since social equality is diffi cult to support on a weak economic base. On a macro scale, fully half of Japanese What I wish to emphasize here, however, women were employed in 1989, and they is not relative urban-rural advantage, but the constituted 40 percent of the total working fact that all marginalized minorities share force in Japan, though their average annual the disadvantages of their place in the social pay was only half of the male average (¥2.6 configuration. The "C" classes include not million, for females; ¥5.2 million for men).12 only large resident ethnic minorities such as Employed women exceeded full-time house the Ainu, the Koreans, and other Asians liv wives by 20,000in 1984, but by 1989 the gap ing in Japan, but also many other foreign mi had swelled to 2.27 million.13 The situation, norities (migrant workers are a noticeably however, is far worse than these figures sug growing group). Not only the segregated gest. Traditional patterns of life-time em ployment and promotion by seniority are Buraku people, but all the poor, the men considered (by male managers) too costly to tally ill, the disabled, and other disenfran extend to the rising number of women work chised groups share various disadvantages ers; corporation policy today is to hire "reg of being marginalized. ular workers" with these perks for only core To reiterate, this hexagram configuration positions, and to fill all other work needs is highly abstract; the "C" sectors are not with part-time, temporary, sideline, and physical places where marginalized peoples at-home workers. The rapid increase in the live. They are sectoral indications of dis number of employed women has been ac placement from power, and from control of companied by an equally rapid rise in the power in society. That is the intended mean number. of female workers channeled into ing of "disadvantage" as used here. But there these unstable positions. is one majority group that, as a group, suffers Further differences discriminate against subordination throughout society, and can- women workers. Restrictions on working

67 JAPAN CHRISTIAN REVIEW 58 1992 hours have been relaxed so that women can for most people in Japan? The answer, of work the long hours common among male course, depends on the criteria of judgment. workers. Introduction of a two-track system In an incisive article on "The Disorders of opened an "executive track" to career-ori Peace,"17 Richard J. Barnet takes a hard look ented women willing to work the killing at contemporary America and then asks hour-loads, with a "clerical track" open to what the people want of life, if its quality is women less bent on careers14 but also will measured by "job security, educational op ing to work long and hard. Women unable to portunities, prospects for adequate and work the long hours expected in these two affordable health care, confidence in the tracks are shunted into part-time or tempo banking and insurance systems, habitable rary posts that offer no job security. How im and convenient places to live, and breath portant are the part-timers? It is said that the able air and drinkable water." On this scale, Japanese economy would come to an abrupt how does Japan measure up? Applying Barnet's yardstick to Japan halt if they went on strike for a week.15 There is much more to the overall situa would need a separate essay. As I wish to tion of female workers in Japan, but the focus on the educational issue, I shall skip above is enough to indicate their subordi lightly over the rest. Job security is seriously unequal, and especially discriminatory to nate situation. A woman may be able to ward women and other marginalized enjoy a comfortable middle-class life be groups, though the overall unemployment cause she has a job, but in that job will usu rate at 2.1 percent for 1990 is one of the ally find herself in a marginalized class "C" world's lowest. The employees' medical care position. The larger lesson is that there sim insurance and the national medical care in ply is not room in the pyramidal structure of surance programs together cover the total power-control to admit more and more aspi population. The health care system has one rants, least of all more women-or, more physician for every 609 persons, one hospi precisely, it is not likely that room will be tal bed for every 7 4 persons.18 The financial made for them. world, however, "needs to restore investor The differentiation among employed confidence, which has been lost through a women suggests (although I have yet to series of market scandals."19 Air and water think through this possibility) a smaller are safe, if not always "good.'' Housing is hexagram of differentiation among women usually cramped and overpriced. within each marginal "C" sector. In this case, Japan's educational system is well-known the "C-within-C" class would consist of mi for i.ts general ability to lift all classes to grant women workers seeking employment basic levels of competence, yet is constantly in Japan, and the "C3" women workers atthe criticized for stifling individual creativity. bottom would be those in Japan's exploitive Indeed, Gakushuin University professor of sex industry.16 sociology and futurology Koyama Ken'ichi recently wrote that Japan's educational sys AN INTERIM TALLY tem is under the same kind of central plan If the picture of Japan thus far seems rather ning and control (Gosplan) that has finally negative, it is important to remember that it collapsed in the former Soviet Union and could be far worse. On the other hand, some East European states. He adds that the Jap images of Japan are too good. One might well anese Ministry of Education's own Gosplan ask, does the social system work pretty well "does more harm than good to the future of

68 SWAIN: Japanese Society Today

Japanese education and international ex era; the literature, drama, martial dis change."20 (We shall return to this problem ciplines, and Confucian studies of the later.) Still, the nation's near-100 percent lit Tokugawa isolation. The examples are end eracy is augmented by a like level of radio less. and television diffusion, and Japan leads the The open periods were all times of "mod world in per capita newspaper circulation. ernization," though the term is used here in The key point here is a very high degree of the broad sense of social transformation ac information diffusion-an essential condi cording to some updated model. This sense tion for promoting alternative views and so of the term is partly evident in something cial change. one of my undergraduate teachers often said So the system works fairly well, but, as in connection with the literature of bygone we have seen, it works best for the upper ages: "The ancients never knew they were classes and only good enough for the lower ancient." Each generation is the latest one, and marginalized classes, perhaps, to keep the "modern" one. But it is the overt decision them healthy and hard at work. If this be to undertake a broad transformation accord true, is it a prescription for long-term stabil ing to some foreign model(s) that I wish to ity and healthy international relations? stress here. I do not believe this question can be an Thus the epoch of the Nara and early swered by confining our consideration to the Heian eras (Chinese Cultural Wave I in table structural discussion developed around 1) was a time of overall reshaping of Japan figures 1-6. For Japanese society cannot be ese society to reflect the standards of T' ang properly assessed in isolation from the China, the most advanced society then larger international context and Japan's known to the Japanese. Boatloads of secular stance toward the outside world. For an and religious scholars joined the voyages of overview of Japan's external relations, we official envoys sent to China to learn the shift from a structural to a historical frame. ways of government, law, science, religion, music, and art that would turn a society of RHYTHMS OF MODERNIZATION loosely ordered village states into a central ized imperial system, all under central gov Japan has, by it own choices, experienced a ernment tutelage. Saturation with things rhythm of closed and open relations with Chinese eventually led to the five centuries the outside world for two millennia, as table of government-enforced semi-seclusion. 1 shows. That there was, several centuries The second "modernizing" phase (Chinese before the fabled Tokugawa era of national Cultural Wave II in table 1) involved little isolation, a much longer half-millennium of government guidance. A wide variety of Jap "semi-seclusion" from continental Asia may anese religious leaders, scholars, physicians, surprise some readers.21 These two closed periods, however, are probably familiar ones and merchants sought from China the to students of Japan. For in explaining Japan knowledge and skills needed to resolve prob to themselves and other peoples, the Japan lems defined by themselves. They sought ese tend to stress the "great things" of the (through trade relations reopened in 1401) closed periods as the achievements of "na to catch up with developments in China tive" talent- the Genji monogatari and other during the half-millennium of semi-seclu early literature, developments in Zen and sion. This alternate mode of transformative Pure Land Buddhism, the tea ceremony, and effort was nonetheless effective in reshaping swordcraft, for example, of the earlier closed Japanese life: innovations of lasting impact

69 '--.1 0 TABLE 1. Japan's Alternating Closed/Open Periods

ca. -8000 ... ca. -250 ca. 600 894 1401 1639 1854 -- 1992 Late Stone Age Early Agricultural CHINESE Semi-Seclusion CHINESE Isolation Period MODERN ERA Society CULTURAL WAVE I Period CULTURAL WAVE II 1937-45

ISOLATED SEMI-OPEN OPEN CLOSED OPEN CLOSED OPEN 7-8 centuries 294 years 507 years 238 years 215 years 130+ years Migrant Settled communities Centralized Rise of large Feudal system Centralized Restoration of communities government under estates; central under samurai shogunate centralized imperial Initial influx of emperor, with government system Isolated from Chinese material bureaucratic system weakens Renewed influx of Japanese science & continental culture culture Confucianism, learning flourish: Introduction of Sophisticated Chinese science & science & medicine, modern science & Hunting, fishing, Irrigated rice Chinese culture learning declines; technology: mathematics, technology plant -gathering farming, metal tools imported: growth of native medicine, astronomy, & weapons Chinese language, literature, art, tea mathematics, paper Confucian studies, Development of art, law, science, ceremony, & printing, mining literature, art, modern industry, Confucianism, swordcraft & smelting drama, etc. army & navy, Buddhism education, art, Zen influence on Initial influx of Growth of cities, literature, drama learning, crafts, Western culture: economy, sea & politics Christianity, land transportation New ventures in astronomy, commerce & navigation, banking, gunnery, surgery international trade, foreign wars & colonization Key cities: Nara, Kyoto Kamakura Kyoto, Nagasaki Edo, Osaka Tokyo, Osaka, etc.

Adapted from Masayoshi Sugimoto and David L. Swain, Science and Culture in Traditional Japan, A.D. 60~ 1854 (M. I. T. Press, 1978; reprint by Charles E. Tuttle, 1989), 400-03. N. B. Time line not drawn to scale SWAIN: Japanese Society Today

included paper and printing, mmmg and damentally unfair treatment not only of smelting techniques, and advanced levels of marginalized minorities but also of the fe medicine and mathematics, as well as the male majority (about 51 percent of the introduction of the Neo-Confucianism later total). Of course the educational system and used by the Tokugawa household to give co the media generally work hard at convincing hesion and direction to its long rule. 22 the public that the present arrangement is The Meiji Restoration of 1868, inaugurat satisfactory. But the nation's enormous in ing the Modern Era (table 1), was, of course, formation flow includes the increasingly a restoration of the centralized imperial strong current of an alternate view that urges a shift to horizontal linking based on model of state first forged in Nara-Heian greater mutuality and inclusiveness. times. But the Meiji Reformation was far The international community stands in more; it launched a sweeping transforma awe of Japan's postwar economic success. tion of Japan into a Western-style industrial But the very condition of openness that gave state buttressed by a powerful military es Japan global access to the world's pool of in tablishment, with new ventures in interna dustrial know-how and trading opportuni tional banking and trade, and sadly, wars ties has simultaneously put Japan, like its and colonies. advanced colleagues, under increased inter Japan and the Japanese today are not the national scrutiny. Overseas enterprises of direct descendants of the ancient past; there Japanese corporations, for example, leave have been many "intercultural marriages" in the same kind of environmental mess that the successive open periods. I would argue those of other major economies do. More that the open periods have done far more to over, with its inbred ranking mentality, advance the best interests of the Japanese Japan is constantly ranking itself in relation people and nation than have the closed peri to other countries-an unpleasant experi ods, despite the apparent preference for the ence for the many not put on Japan's own latter as somehow more "typical" of Japan. level, and an acute aggravation when expe This view is ventured despite the obvious rienced as discrimination. cost in pain inflicted on others in the current The historical tension between open and open period. closed stances is seen today most pointedly in the basic clash between global unity and NURTURING THE FUTURE ethnic diversity. It is only natural to cherish Now we return to the question of viability: the ethnicity, the native language, the ances whether the present order and management tral roots, and the spiritual orientation that of Japanese society hold promise of long give substance to one's own national commit term stability and healthy international rela ment. Yet discrimination against the ethnic tions. identities and pride of others, of outsiders and minorities, is no longer acceptable in japan refigured today's world. Filipinos, Koreans, and Ir Figures 1-3 definitely indicate long-term do anians, for example, may be minority groups mestic stability; the smaller circles function in Japan, but they are majorities back home. well within the larger ones. The system ap And the majority of the United Nations' 163 pears extraordinarily stable and productive. member nations can be expected to push, The next three figures (4-6), however, indi with mounting zeal, for a more equitable cate systemic instability because ofthe fun- and more just world order than the one

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which now allows Japan, the United States, made of Korean and Chinese scholars living Germany, and half a dozen other countries in Japan; a new academic system based on to live royally while millions go hungry. T'ang institutes was introduced; and many Long-term stability and healthy interna books were imported from China. Intercul tional relations appear to require, then, a tural exchange utilizing the same combina new national commitment to a global order tion of overseas study, foreign teachers, new with horizontal linkings that promote academies, and imported books character greater equality, justice, and peace. If so, a ized the modernization efforts of Chinese number of implications emerge for Christian Cultural Wave II and the Modern Era. In all participation in that new commitment. I these epochs the intended beneficiary was shall mention only three. Japan.z3 Today's affluent Japan, noted for its ex Some implications for Christians porting ability, is in an unprecedented posi tion for promoting a reverse intercultural The first implication concerns the educa exchange that would make the time-tested tional commitment. The role of education in combination of overseas study, foreign advancing careers was noted in connection teachers, new schools, and more books with figure 5 (indicated by small arrows). As available to other lands and peoples. Appro in most developed countries, Japan's educa priate forms of "modernization" in develop tional system seems almost wholly devoted ing countries could be encouraged in a new to upward mobility-Christian schools in cluded. But a new national commitment to Japanese stance of "Do unto others as you greater equality, justice, and peace will re once did for yourself." This suggestion goes quire much more attention to outward mo beyond mere funding to include the active bility-education for crossing all kinds of involvement of persons committed to a new national, cultural, racial, and other bound future of peace and justice. Again, Christian aries, that is, for nurturing new horizontal schools, with their many world-encompass linkings. A truly Christian education would ing contacts, might be well-suited for large give no less attention to downward mobil scale participation in this effort. ity-training and motivation in rescue and The third concerns the role women have development skills as long as hierarchical to play in the above. Many are already striv structures produce the great distresses of ing to undo the hierarchical, patriarchal pat poverty, hunger, disease, and all else that terns that bind the nation to the past. 24 They snuffs out God-given life. Perhaps the time have shown more openness and compassion has come for a concerted effort by Christian toward others in great distress, especially schools in Japan and around the world to migrant women workers and most of all excel in education for outward and down those caught in the sex trades. Many ward mobility as they have already for the women, and particularly Christian women, upward scale. who have lived and studied overseas have The second concerns the rhythms of mod evolved new leadership models based on the ernization. In connection with moderniza values essential to making the crucial shift tion in the Nara-Heian epoch (Chinese from vertical ranking to horizontal linking. Cultural Wave I) we saw that "boatloads of They are, in other words, preparing for the secular and religious scholars" journeyed to future. Thus women engaged in education China to learn the things needed in a new can now pioneer in education for outward Japanese order. At the time use was also and downward mobility, and in developing

72 SWAIN: Japanese Society Today new forms of intercultural exchange de 5 The thoroughness of education's "overarch signed to enhance the lives of others. ing" role was recently demonstrated by an inci It will not be easy to effect change in edu dent in Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture, in which the parents of two elementary schoolchildren had cation or in international relations, for such them boycott classes for six days (beginning April change challenges Japan's traditional social 6) to protest the required singing of Kirnigayo, the and cultural commitments. Nor will it be traditional imperial anthem, at school ceremo easy for women to initiate programs of nies. The school's principal said he thinks it change from their present subordinate social "quite improper to involve children in the level. But the bent of history, I would say, fa parents' ideological thinking." The imperial ide ology being revived by school administrators in vors those who would try. line with the national government's stance, takes precedence over parental prerogatives in shaping a child's thought and values. (Reported in The NOTES Japan Times, April9, 1992.) On the general prev 1 Cf. Masayoshi Sugimoto and David L. Swain, alence of public over private, see Nishikawa Science and Culture in Traditional Japan (Cam Shigeru, "The Daijosai, the Constitution, and bridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1978; Tokyo: Tuttle, Christian faith," The Japan Christian Quarterly 1989); Shigeru Nakayama, David L. Swain, and 56/3, Summer 1990, pp. 140-42. Eri Yagi, Science and Society in Modern Japan: 6 Cf. Statistical Handbook of Japan, 1991, is Selected historical sources (Tokyo: University of sued by the Statistics Bureau of the Management Tokyo Press, and Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, and Coordination Agency. On "long-established 1974); and Shigeru Nakayama and David L. patterns," see Yazaki, Social Change and the City Swain, "Scientific thought, premodern," in Ency in Japan (n. 2). A recent report, approved by the clopedia of Japan (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1983), vol. Cabinet on June 9, 1992, puts the 1991 popula 7. Table 1 derives from this area of study. tion of Tokyo metropolitan region at 39.68 mil 2 Yazaki Takeo, a noted urban sociologist, was lion; with the influx of people into Tokyo the last prewar student president of the Wesley Metropolitan Prefecture and contiguous Kana Foundation in Tokyo, a student center that I was gawa, Chiba, and Saitama prefectures slowly de privileged to serve in the early postwar years creasing since 1988, the region's population (after it was renamed the Student Christian Fel growth has been largely in the next ring of prefec lowship). I first translated his short monograph tures-Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Yamanashi Nihon toshi no shakairon (1963) under the title made more accessible by new motor expressways The Japanese City: A sociological analysis (Tokyo: and superexpress trains (The Japan Times, June Japan Publications, 1963), and then his full 10, 1992). length work Nihon toshi no hatten katei (1962) 7 Mikiso Hane, Peasants, Rebels, and Out under the title Social Change and the City in castes: The underside of modern Japan (New Japan: From earliest times through the Industrial York: Pantheon, 1982), p. 11. See also Toyohiko Revolution (Tokyo: Japan Publications, 1968). Kagawa: Apostle oflove and social justice (Berke Figures 3-6 all stem primarily from this area of ley: Centenary Books, 1988), pp. 40-41, 85. study. 8 Nihon Kirisuto Kyodan. 3 Cf. fig. 3 below. 9 In contrast, the Roman Catholic Church in 4 A good example of the impact of traditional prewar Japan was predominantly rural. Cheryl ethos on Supreme Court rulings, for example, is Marie Allam, "The Path to Surrender: Nichiren discussed in David Reid, New Wine: The cultural Buddhism and Roman Catholicism confront Jap shaping ofJapanese Christianity (Berkeley; Asian anese nationalism, 1912-1945" (unpublished Humanities Press, 1991), chap. 2, "Religion and M.A. thesis, University of Hawaii, 1988) shows state, 1965-1990," p. 54ff. See also his "Separation the relevance of Catholicism's rural character to of religions and state: how Japanese religions line questions of state power in prewar times. up," The Japan Christian Quarterly 56/4, Fall 10 This was, I think, one of the factors that 1990, pp. 216-17. helped set the stage for the church-society debate

73 JAPAN CHRISTIAN REVIEW 58 1992 in the UCCJ-the ecclesiastical struggle being chairman on April 2, as reported in The Japan only a small eddy in the confrontational swirl Times, April 3, 1992, p. 1. then affecting society at large. On the church de 20 Sankei Shinbun's "Seiron" column, March bate, see Nakajima John Masaaki, "The church in 23; his article appeared in English translation in dispute over Expo 70," in Christianity in Japan, The Japan Times, March 31, 1992. 1971-90 (Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan, 1991), pp. 100-13. 21 For details on the "Semi-Seclusion Era" and 11 For a current review, see Tsukada Osamu, other premodern periods discussed here, see Sug "Yasukuni Shrine and the emperor system," in imoto and Swain, Science and Culture in Tradi Christianity in Japan, 1971-90, pp. 64-74. tional Japan; on the modern era, Nakayama, 12 Statistical Handbook of Japan, 1991, pp. Swain, and Yagi, eds., Science and Society in 103, 108. Modern Japan. 13 Asian Women Workers' Center, Resource 22 The initial influx of Western culture into Materials on Women's Labor in Japan, No.9 (Feb Japan, notably limited aspects of art, astronomy, ruary 1992), p. 1. navigation, gunnery, and surgery, as well as the 14 Female applicants for jobs are, for example, first Catholic missions, occurred late in this open usually asked about marriage plans that might period, but these had little impact on the Chi interrupt or scuttle career options. nese-oriented modernization of this era. See Sug imoto and Swain, Science and Culture in 15 Resource Materials on Women's Labor in Traditional Japan, chap. 3. Japan, p. 2. 23 See my "Scholarly sojourners and Japanese 16 Cf. Ohshima Shizuko and Carolyn Francis, modernization," The Japan Christian Quarterly, HELP Asian Women's Shelter: Japan through the Winter 1972; and in Japanese, "Rekishiteki katei eyes of women migrant workers (Tokyo: Japan to shite no kindaika: bunka koryii ni shoten o Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 1989); atete" (Modernization as historical process: focus Matsuda Mizuho, "Asian migrant workers," in on intercultural exchange), Daigaku Kirisutosha Christianity in Japan, 19 71-90, pp. 155-70; and for (The Christian scholar), Fall 1975. the larger Asian setting, Yayori Matsui, Women's 24 Asia (London and New Jersey: Zed Books, 1989). For example, many Christian women are taking new initiatives in reading and interpreting 17 The New Yorker, Jan. 20, 1992, p. 63. the Bible for themselves, independently of male 18 Statistical Handbook of Japan, 1991, pp. pastoraVpriestly guidance. Cf. Watanabe Mine, 106, 121, 127. "Women's issues," in Christianity in Japan, 1971- 19 Prime Minister Miyazawa Kiichi's com 90, pp. 135-41; and the Christian Conference of ments to the Tokyo Stock Exchange president Asia publication, ln God's Image 10/4, Winter and the Japan Securities Dealers Association 1991.