Japanese Working Class Lives Small companies have a much larger role in the Japanese economy and society than is often realized. Seventy percent of Japanese employees work in firms of 100 workers or less rather than in large companies. James E.Roberson has made an ethnographic study of the lives of Japanese workers in small firms and examines their experiences of working life, leisure and education. This unique case study of the Shintani Metals Company illustrates the ways in which employees lives extend beyond their work. Japanese Working Class Lives provides a valuable alternative view of working life, outside the large corporations. Roberson demonstrates that the Japanese working class is more diverse than Western stereotypes of be-suited salary men would suggest. James E.Roberson received his Ph.D. from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and currently teaches anthropology in Japan. Japanese Working Class Lives An Ethnographic Study of Factory Workers James E.Roberson London and New York First published 1998 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003. Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1998 James E.Roberson All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Roberson, James E. Japanese working class lives: an ethnographic study of factory workers/James E.Roberson. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Metal-workers—Japan—Case studies. 2. Small business—Japan—Employees—Case studies. 3. Shintani Metals Company—Employees. I. Title. HD8039. M52J36 1988 97–27162 305. 9' 671' 095222–dc21 CIP ISBN 0-203-17369-4 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-26504-1 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-17212-8 (Print Edition) Contents List of illustrations vii Acknowledgements ix Note on Japanese names xi 1 Japanese working class lives: problems and perspectives 1 Work and workers in Japan 3 Interpretive perspective 12 Methodology and organization 18 2 Getting there and getting in 20 Getting there 21 Getting in 22 A look back 28 3 Shintani Metals: company history 31 Shintani to 1983: experience and enterprise 32 The late 1980s: the problems of prosperity 39 The 1990s recession: bursting bubbles and beyond 47 Conclusion 54 4 Shintani Metals: organization, experience and relationships 56 Formal factory organization 56 The work experience 74 Informal social relationships 77 Conclusion 82 5 Paths to Shintani: school boys, working men 83 Introduction 83 Junior high graduates 85 High school graduates 91 Vocational school and university—graduates and drop outs 100 Conclusion 103 6 Paths to Shintani: factory girls, working women 105 Introduction 105 Factory girls and office ladies 109 v vi Contents Working mothers and wives 113 Conclusion 118 7 Paths from Shintani 121 Comings and goings 121 Going, going, gone 124 What next? 131 Room to move 133 8 After-Hours: sponsored leisure events 137 Introduction 137 Kinds of sponsored events 139 Interpretations 143 Conclusion: company size and corporate focus 152 9 After-Hours: nakama leisure events 155 The nature of nakama 155 Partners, places and patterns of play 158 Conclusion: of play and people in Japan 169 10 Private Time 171 Introduction 171 Family women and men 172 Private self 175 Conclusion 188 11 Conclusion: of contexts and connections 190 Notes 194 Bibliography 203 Name Index 219 Subject index 222 Illustrations FIGURES 4.1 Shintani Metals Company: factory layout 59 4.2 Shintani Metals wages by age (male) 66 4.3 Shintani Metals wages by length of employment (male) 66 TABLES 4.1 Shintani Metals Company and Kinsei Fine Metals Organization (October 1989 to December 1990) 58 4.2 Wages of Shintani Metals regular female employees 67 4.3 Firm size and wages 68 4.4 Shintani Metals Shinwakai schedule of donations 72 4.5 Monthly work hours: comparison of the Shintani Metals Company (1990) with other Japanese manufacturing firms (1987) 75 4.6 Yearly work hours: comparison of the Shintani Metals Company (1990) with Japanese and American national averages (1987) 75 5.1 Educational backgrounds of people employed at the Shintani Metals Company (1990) 85 6.1 Regular and part-time female employees at the Shintani Metals Company (1989–90) 108 7.1 Men and women leaving the Shintani Metals Company (October 1989 to August 1991) 133 8.1 Recreational facilities by firm size 145 5n3 The Japanese Ministry of Education’s Basic Survey of Schools, 1993 197 5n4 Breakdown of employment by industry among 1993 high school graduates 197 10n2 Comparison of leisure pastimes 201 vii Acknowledgements It is now spring of 1997. Much time has passed since I began the course of study, travel and life that has led to the publishing of this book. In the passage of these years, I have met many people in Japan, Hawaii, Florida and elsewhere who have been important in helping to bring me and this work to where we are now. I do not easily separate the professional and the personal. Anthropology and the study of Japanese culture and society are for me both, and as in all things, the human dimensions, interrelations and feelings are what I value most. My research in Japan was supported by a Fulbright Graduate Research Fellowship (6/89–6/90) and by a Japan Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (6/90–12/90). Support for writing my Ph.D. dissertation in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Hawaii included a Sanwa Bank Foundation Research Fellowship (1/91–12/91), a Center for Japanese Studies Graduate Research Fellowship, University of Hawaii (received from the University of Hawaii Japan Studies Endowment—Funded by a Grant from the Japanese Government; 1/91–12/91), and a Social Science Research Council Dissertation Fellowship in Japanese Studies (1/92–12/92). I would like to thank each of these institutions and the people involved for their support and efforts. I would also like to acknowledge permissions received from the editors of Ethnology and of the American Asian Review to use materials previously included in articles published in their respective journals (Ethnology, Vol. 34, No. 4; American Asian Review, Vol. 13, No. 2). There are many individuals I would like to thank, whose kindness, concern, interest, intelligence, and sometimes whose criticism, I have received and benefited from. I will here mention only a few, to whom I am especially indebted and grateful. Takie Sugiyama Lebra of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Hawaii was teacher and mentor, and I am also thankful for the personal kindness that she has shown. Though much time and distance has been traveled, Robert Lawless remains influential in my notions of what anthropology should be and what anthropologists should do. I have enjoyed the scholarly insights, suggestions, criticisms, help and kindness of many others, but especially of Patricia Steinhoff, L.Keith Brown, Jack Bilmes, Yoneyama ix