social psychology of japan

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF MODERNJAPAN

ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS:JAPAN

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SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF MODERNJAPAN

MUNESUKE MITA

Translated bySTEPHEN SULOWAY

Volume 77

Routledqek Taylor &. Francis Group

LONDON AND NEW YORK

1

First published in 1992

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© 1992 Munesuke Mita

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SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY OFMODERN JAPAN

Munesuke MitaTranslated by Stephen Suloway

KEGAN PAUL INTERNATIONALLondon and New York

First published in 1992 byKegan Paul International

UK: P.O. Box 256, London WC1B 3SW, EnglandTel: (0171) 580 5511 Fax: (0171) 436 0899

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<0 Munesuke Mita 1992

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Printed in Great Britain

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproducedor 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 Ubrary Cataloguing In Publlc:ation Data

Mita, MunesukeSocial Psychology of Modem Japan.

(Japanese Studies Series)I. Title II. Suloway, Stephen

In. Series305.895

ISBN ~7103-0451-X

library ofCo~Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Mita, Munesuke, 1937-Social psychology of modem Japan / Munesuke Mita: translated

from the Japanese by Stephen Suloway.55Opp. 216 CIn. - (Japanese studies series)

"This volume is a re-edition of materials written in Japanese andoriginally published in several books - Preface.Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN o-7103-04S1-X1. Social psychology - Japan. 2. Japan - Social conditions - 1945

I. Title. ll. Series: Japanese studies series (Kegan Paul International)HM251.M523 1992 92-3483

302'.0952 - de20 eIP

Contents

hefure nTranslator's Prefare xix

Part One The History of FeeUng in Modem Japan 1

1 Popular Songs as Social Psychological Data 32 The History of Anger 123 The History of Tears 314 The History of Joy 395 The History of Love 526 The History of Chivalry 637 The History of Lingering Attachment 738 The History of Jest 849 The History of Loneliness 95

10 The History of Nostalgia and Yearning 10511 The History of Feelings of Transienre 117Appendix to Part One A Dictionary of Modem JapaneseEmotional Symbols 131

Part Two The SoclaI Psychology of Modernizing Japan 139

12 Archetypes of Social Response during the MeijiRestoration 141

13 Archetypes of Social Response during MeijiWesternization 198

14 Value and Belief Systems in Prewar Textbooks 22415 Successism as the Driving Spirit of Modernization 26816 A History of Modem Japan in Image 295

Part Three The Social Psychology of Modernized Japan 311

17 The History of Bestsellers 31318 Revolution of Nostalgia 32619 Typology of Unhappiness 33420 White-Collar Split 395

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Social Psychology of Modern Japan

21 Desires and Uneasiness of the Marginal Elite 41422 Hell of Eyes - A Case Study of an Alienated Youth 426

Part Four The Changing Mentality of Contemporary Japan 459

23 Generational Composition of Contemporary Society 46124 The Changing Mentality of the Young 48425 Reality, Dream and Fiction - Japan, 1945-90 515

Index

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529

Tables

1.1 Popular songs selected for analysis 92.1 Motifs of anger and criticism in Japanese popular

~n~ nAI.I Proportional occurrence of emotional motifs in

Japanese popular songs 13612.1 Types and frequency of demands in early-Meiji

peasant revolts 16812.2 Number of convictions by type of crime 18614.1 Number of morals lessons emphasizing various

values, 1871-4 23014.2 Number of morals lessons emphasizing various

values, 1880-1 23214.3 Number of morals lessons emphasizing various

values, 1892 23414.4 Number of morals lessons emphasizing various

values, 1904 23614.5 Number of morals lessons emphasizing various

values, 1910 23814.6 Percentage of morals lessons emphasizing

various values 24014.7 Chapter themes in the state-compiled history

textbooks (2nd series) 24914.8 Subheading topics in the state-compiled history

textbooks (2nd series) 25016.1 Characteristics of poll respondents 29616.2 Shading of popular images of modem Japanese

history (attitudes of various generations towardvarious eras) 296

16.3 The spectrum of history in popular consciousness(most numerous color responses) 300

16.4 Class breakdown of images of wartime experience 30416.5 Socioeconomic variation in the 'mood of tranquility' 30716.6 Images of historical periods in popular

consciousness 308

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18.1 Temporary migrant workers from Akita prefecture 32918.2 Members of households engaged in agriculture,

forestry or fishing, working seasonally away fromhome (nationwide) 329

18.3 Role of agricultural work in farming households 33018.4 Farm households terminating agricultural activities 33019.1 People figuring in letters in the personal-advice

column (Yomiuri Shimbun, Tokyo edition, 1962) 33819.2 Types of complaint in the personal-advice column

(Yomiuri Shimbun, Tokyo edition, 1962) 34119.3 Letters sent to the personal-advice column (Yomiuri

Shimbun, Tokyo edition, January-November 1962) 34220.1 Classification of respondents by status and

il)clination 40720.2 Classification of the three response patterns 40922.1 Reasons for job changes by recent graduates in

Tokyo, 1964 43422.2 Reasons for job changes by young workers in

Japan, 1964 43522.3 Job changes and number of weekly holidays in

Japan, 1965 43622.4 Types of dissatisfaction of juvenile newcomers in

Tokyo, 1964 44022.5 Initial jobs of people moving to Tokyo to find

work, 1960-1 44923.1 Life orientations of solitary and non-solitary men

over 60 46724.1 Change in religious mentality and activity 48724.2 Main young carriers of religious mentality and

behavior 48924.3 Religious mentality and behavior among young

people: groups exhibiting significant increase duringthe 19708 490

24.4 Change in afterworld belief, by primary valueorientation 492

24.5 Changing levels of satisfaction with life (men andwomen, age 16--29) 493

24.6 Declining levels of dissatisfaction with life 49424.7 Satisfaction with overall life conditions (age 16--29) 49624.8 Changing political preferences of young people 496

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Tables

24.9 Decline of Socialist Party support among employedmales (16-29) 497

24.10 Decline of Communist Party support among youngurbanites 497

24.11 Decline of organization and militancy amongsupporters of progressive parties (age 16-29) 498

24.12 Change in desirable forms of political activity 49924.13 Changing style of nationalism among young

people 49924.14 Change in primary value orientation of young

people 50124.15 Changing attitudes toward work and leisure 50224.16 Disappearance of the taboo against premarital sex 50324.17 Changing image of the ideal family among young

people 50524.18 Attitudes of young people toward wife, work

and home 50624.19 Change in religious mentality and activity (to 1988) 51024.20 Percentage of young men and women expressing

satisfaction with life 51024.21 Changing political party references (ages 20-4) 51024.22 Changing sense of nationalism, (ages 20-4) 51124.23 Change in basic value orientation (ages 20-4) 51124.24 Changing attitudes toward work and leisure

(ages 20-4) 51224.25 Attitudes toward premarital sex 51224.26 Change in images of the ideal family (ages 20-4) 51324.27 Attitudes toward wife, work and housekeeping

(ages 20-4) 51425.1 Structural change of Japanese society during the

period of 'High Economic Growth' 519

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Figures

2.1 Phase changes in Meiji period enka 292.2 Tracks of the motif of anger in enka 303.1 Proportion of popular songs using the word 'tears' 324.1 Proportion of popular songs with the motif of joy 395.1 Proportion of popular songs with motifs of love 525.2 The yo-na-nuki and miyako-bushi scales 566.1 Proportion of popular songs with gikyo chivalry

motifs 667.1 Proportion of popular songs with miren motifs 737.2 Rates of suicide and unemployment 788.1 Proportion of popular songs with humorous motifs 85

10.1 Folk songs and songs about hometowns, cities andwandering gamblers 107

10.2 Proportion of popular songs with motifs of nostalgiaand aspiration 110

11.1 Proportion of popular songs with transience motifs 11812.1 Number of peasant disturbances by year 14812.2 Influence of commodity economics on peasant

mentality 15512.3 Influence of political realities on peasant mentality 15812.4 Disillusioned ideological fervor and peasant

mentality 16112.5 Influence of harsh new policies on peasant mentality 16513.1 Types and patterns of response to a social system 22214.1 General typology of social values 22414.2 Percentage of morals lessons emphasizing various

values 24216.1 Generational variation of 'best era' choices 30317.1 Annual cumulative scores per area of interest 31517.2 Annual cumulative point scores per area of interest

(simplified) 31617.3 Economic indicators and political environment 31719.1 Causal linkages of case 1 34419.2 Causal linkages of case 2 34819.3 Causal linkages of case 3 351

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19.4 Causal linkages of case 4 35419.5 Causal linkages of case 5 35819.6 Causal linkages of case 6 36119.7 Causal linkages of case 7 36419.8 Causal linkages of case 8 36719.9 Causal linkages of case 9 37119.10 Causal linkages of case 10 37519.11 Causal linkages of case 11 37819.12 Causal linkages of case 12 38119.13 Framework of conditions typical to smaller

enterprises and 'backward' sectors 38619.14 Framework of conditions typical to white-collar

workers in 'advanced' sectors 39219.15 Macrosystem framework of the sociology of

'unhappiness' in modem society 39420.1 The changing organizational structure 39820.2 Distribution of inclinations 40520.3 Distribution of the three response patterns 41023.1 Rates of overall dissatisfaction with life 46223.2 Rates of dissatisfaction with personal life (men) 46323.3 Rates of dissatisfaction with societal life (men) 46323.4 Generational variation of basic value orientation 46523.5 Phase shifts in value consciousness through men's

lives 46623.6 Variation by age of rationalism, work orientation

and efficiency orientation among men 46723.7 Generational variation of morality concerning

premarital sex 46923.8 Attitudes toward premarital sex among youth

(age 18-24) of various nations 47023.9 Ideal household image 47123.10 Attitudes on division of housework 47123.11 Attitudes toward employment of women after

marriage and childbearing 47323.12 Generational variation in religious attitudes - I 47423.13 Generational variation in religious activities 47523.14 Generational variation in religious attitudes -

II: belief in miracles, oracles, divination 47523.15 Generational composition of Japanese mentality in

the 1970s 477

xii

Figures

23.16 Rates of overall dissatisfaction with life (men andwomen, 1988) 480

23.17 Variation by age of work orientation among men,1988 481

24.1 Intensification of the egalitarian-emotional pattern 508

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Preface

A well-known observation on the mental posture of Japanese intraditional communities is that they are fond of 'looking out frombehind a reed screen.' The reed screen or sudare keeps out theheat and glare of summer while inviting cool breezes into thehouse, and incidentally allows you to observe the bright outsideworld without being observed in your private, inner world. Thismetaphor, penned by the pioneering folldorist Kunio Yanagita,tells something of the core problem in Japan's relations to otherparts of the world throughout the past 120 years: a lopsidedinformation gap.

Since the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Japan has absorbed information from the foreign world with a vigorous curiosity. Thehistory, arts, customs, and social systems of other nations,especially those of the West, have been stressed almost constantly in all media, starting with primary school textbooks. Butthe reverse Bow of information has been sharply limited. It isdue in part to the 'reed screen posture,' and perhaps in part tofiltering processes in other societies. At any rate, a sort of oneway window or 'magic mirror' has been formed between thisarchipelago and the world.

Until a few decades ago, only a handful of Western specialistspenetrated beyond the 'samurai, harakiri, geisha girls' sort ofpicture. By the 1980s the image had changed radically to oneof 'ultramodern' techno-economy: Sony, Toyota and the like.Traditional or ultramodern, either aspect consists only of parts ofthe reality of contemporary Japan. The society is fundamentally acombination of cultural particularity and 'modem' universality,and the key to grasping it in its totality is the way of combination.

A factual investigation of the processes and postures of combination must focus in tum on the four main phases of modernizingand modernized Japan. Those are: the stylized response to Western civilization in the late nineteenth century, at the dawn ofthe modern period; the erection and operation of the peculiarlyJapanistic modernization system (the Meiji regime), which grewout of that response and dominated the society to 1945; the

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climactic, uprooting phase of modernity, marked by socialpsychological flux and drama, during the 'rapid economic growth'era that peaked in the 1960s; and today's 'postmodern' society,colored by the emerging mentality and culture of new generations.

In this volume I have set out to sketch the mentality or socialpsychology of modem Japan in its entirety, using quantitativeand qualitative data that recount the diversity of the dramas ofencounter between cultural particularity and modem universality.The diachronic process of modernization through the abovephases has brought about a synchronic coexistence of generational variations, with all kinds of tensions and conflicts andalso synergies among them. Taken together, these provide thekey for understanding the structure and dynamism of contemporary Japan.

Part One is a historical survey of the feelings of the people,based on analyses of popular songs during the century after 1868.The patterns and moods of anger, sadness, joy, love, etc. mayoffer the general reader a vivid sense of the shifts in the heartsand minds of the common people, which underlie the culturalexpressions, political decisions or economic motivations that aremore often discussed.

Part Two is a mental history of Japan in the context of thesocial structure which evolved from 1868 and operated until 1945.Being academic theses, these four chapters might tax the patienceof the general reader, but the vignettes and summaries whichcan be found by scanning may hold some interest and conveythe sense of things. The first two chapters identify archetypes ofpopular response to the pressures and new cultural forms whichgrew out of the encounter with Western civilization, during andjust after the Restoration period. The third and fourth chaptersdeal with the authoritarian system of modernization which wasin place through the mid-twentieth century, focusing respectivelyon the ideology of primary school textbooks, and on the actualities of the psychology of 'successism' which served as the drivingforce for industrialization.

Part Three is a series of excursions toward the matrix of postwar social, psychological and cultural ferment. It begins by tracing the transitions in mass thought from 1945 to the early 19608,through the themes of bestselling books. The remaining chaptersfocus on various strains and problems as psychological conse-

xvi

Preface

quences of the 'rapid growth' experience which transformed thesocial structure between the 19508 and 19708, and formed thebasic structure of contemporary Japan. The topics include: therevolution in the sense of 'home'; patterns of dissatisfaction andanxiety in daily life; the changing nature of white-collar workand status; desires and uncertainties of the marginal elite; andthe hellish side of alienation in the city.

Part Four surveys the changing layers of mentality in contemporary Japan. Two chapters discuss the statistical results of attitude surveys in the 19708 and 19808; the first highlights generational changes in value orientation and in views on sex, gender,the family, etc., and the second focuses on the emerging mentality of the younger generations in the 'postmodern' stage ofsociety. The last chapter provides an overview of social, psychological and cultural change in postwar Japan, giving weight tothe situation of the 19708 and 19808.

This volume is a re-edition of materials written in Japaneseand originally published in several books, with titles translatableas Mental Structure of Modern Japan (2nd edition, 1984), Logicand Sentiment in Modern Japan (1971), History of Feelings inModern Japan (1967), Social Psychology in Times of Change(1967), and Social Psychology of Modern Society (1979). Onlythe last chapter was originally intended for translation, havingbeen written for the catalog of a photography exhibition held inParis and Tokyo in 1990.

Hence each chapter is relatively independent of the others,and may be read or skipped according to the reader's particularinterests.

The fact that most of this book was not written from the startwith an international audience in mind may be a demerit. Atthe same time, the reader may profit from sharing at first handwhat a Japanese observer recorded about and for the Japanese,without any external considerations.

The translation was carried out in three steps. First, StephenSuloway, an editor of the quarterly Kyoto Journal, made a translation in the ordinary sense, which was finely accurate in itselfand based on a deep understanding of the originals. Next, Ithoroughly checked his draft, marking insertions, deletions andalterations on most of the pages, restoring certain of my originalimplications and connotations, and indicating my own preferences of expression. Finally, he refined the checked text. Thus

xvii


the author can take joint responsibility for this version, althoughmost of the labor and quality belong to the translator. Themanifold cooperation with Steve was a memorable and joyfulexperience, and a stimulating intercultural exchange in itself. Iam indebted to my friend in Hawaii, Shin'ichi Yoshifuku, forintroducing him to me.

I would like to express my special gratitude to ProfessorYoshio Sugimoto of LaTrobe University, Melbourne, who persuaded me to add my work to the Kegan Paul Japanese Studiesseries, of which he is the general editor. I am also d'eeply gratefulfor the support of the Japan Foundation for this work. Further,I express my thanks to Norio Nakamura, of the editorial staffof Kobundo, for administrative assistance.

There has been much argument as to whether Japanese cultureis 'unique.' My answer is, yes and no. Certainly it is unique, butuniqueness is not unique to Japan. Every culture on earth isunique, respectively and respectably. I stand against the ethnocentrists who advocate the 'uniqueness' of Japanese, and onlyJapanese, culture. I also stand against those 'universalists' whoare blind to uniquenesses, and hence to the difficulties of understanding different cultures. I was once informed by a professorfrom Bali, Indonesia, that there are eleven different cultures inBali, and it is impossible to talk about 'Balinese culture' ingeneral. It was one of the experiences which opened new vistasfor me in thinking about the 'manner' of understanding a different society.

It will be a great delight for me if my limited work can helpour neighbors to understand some of the reality of the cultureand society of our archipelago, which is surely unique and multifaceted, just as every culture and society on our planet is uniqueand multifaceted.

Munesuke MitaTokyo, 1991

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Translator's Preface

Japanologists informing the West are all too rarely Japanese,and it is a pleasure to take a small step to remedy the imbalance.

The fact that Mita Munesuke is a prestigious professor andwell-known writer in Japan does not automatically make himright. His work does show that a deeply revealing study of Japancan be framed broadly enough to provoke reflection on humansociety in general. It also demonstrates that a frank, universaland critical perspective on Japan should not automatically bedisqualified as 'bashing.'

Mita is the engaged sort of scientist. In his many academicand popular writings, he expresses an impassioned questioningof society, and still he is the dispassionate examiner of data andhypotheses. He is also a sweeping, eclectic thinker, and a writerof poetic sensibility. It is his uncompromising practice of allthose things at once that makes his work so dense and rich, sochallenging and rewarding. (Challenging especially to the translator, who had no choice but to leave some nuances by thewayside.)

It has been my privilege to enter a step further into ProfessorMita's mind by working closely with him on the translation.Fulfillment also springs from my belief that this book helps pointthe way, through its content and its method, to a grammar ofhuman culture, a geography of mind, in alignment with my ownaspirations.

My greatest debt is to the Japan Foundation, for the grantthat allowed me to spend a year on this work. The YoshifukuShin'ichi family, and Douglas Fir generously provided workspaceto a peripatetic scribe. Matsuya Toshiro, Toyoshima Mizuho,and Shimura Tameki rescued me from linguistic pitfalls, andNakamura Norio kindly coordinated.

May the reader enjoy this journey through the harmonies andconflicts of modern Japan as much as I have.

Stephen SulowayKyoto, 1991

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Note: Japanese names in the text, except in the author's prefaceare written as they appear in Japanese, with the family namefirst.

xx

PART ONE

A HISTORY OF FEELINGS INMODERN JAPAN

1 Popular Songs as SocialPsychological Data

When I was sixteen I worked for the summer in a biscuit factory.My job was to catch the grill as it came out of the oven on abelt, pick it up with a thick cloth mitten, place it on the edgeof a packing tin at the rear, slide the biscuits in, and put thegrill back on the belt, over and over. The early shift ran fromfive to one and the late shift from one to nine, so the changeoverdays were rather long. There was a song that the teenageemployees would all sing at the start of the morning shift, atlunch in the workers' dining room, and at the end of the lateshift. Forever attached to my memory of that song is the bittersweet aroma that was a fixture of the place. It went somethinglike this: 'We are in our youth, Love's our only truth, We needno money or position, Hopes for love fill up our vision, 'Tisparadise upon this earth.' No doubt I could look up the correcttitle and words, but that is not where my interest lies.

Written out, this is clearly nothing more than a common sortof ditty. Yet when the boys sang it softly to themselves as theycame one by one across the factory site on a summer evening,the darkness seemed to descend with a weighty solitude, as ifcalling into question the very existence of their youthfulness.'Paradise upon this earth.' With that final line, comprehensionpoured in like yanks of the tail, one after another, in the torridair. In the stasis between the lightness of the verse written onthe page, and the heaviness of the song of the softly singingyouths, I was able to glimpse for the first time the secret of thepopular song.

The figures and images in popular songs are often fantasticand unconnected with the actual lives of the singers and listeners:a wanderer in the Siberian icefields, a girl on a fruit-laden SouthSeas island, a fugitive gangster and so on. Yet within the totalityof the feelings of the millions of people which are tossed intoand conveyed by those dreamy, fantastic figures and images,there lies the essence of the popular song as a social phenomenon. In order to interpret the popular song, it is necessary to

3


undertake a deciphering of the truths which are mixed in andlyricized among the fabrications and illusions.

Consider the following letter, written by a village maiden toa soldier at the front. (From Letters of Farmers Killed in theWar, compiled by the Farm Village Culture Roundtable of IwatePrefecture.)

Dear beloved Kamata-sama,When the north wind blows wildly I know it is you, my

beloved, whom I must tell, and as I draw near the windowan icy storm slips in and passes before my eyes. At thosemoments, in this breast, the cruel days of an Iwate womanwith no tidings are so lonely. Every day passing by one afterthe other brings a bit of torture to my heart. Getting througheach day is the only thing, and still, after all, I am alone.And I don't even have a letter of yours to read. My feelingswill never change. Won't you take into your heart the eternallove that I am sending to you?

You must always keep the photo I sent close by. We weretwo people together in a cold and fleeting world.

When I had a letter from you I did a little dance of joy.Couldn't I have a look at another? In just a brief time Idevoted the best of my love to you, Tadao. I want you toremember me in your heart forever. Tadao, even pure lovebetween two people may bring sadness. We exchangedpromises and yet our time for parting came more quicklythan a stroke of this brush.

Maybe it was all a dream. A figment of my imagination. Iwant you always to be happy, Tadao. Though I told you Iwant always to belong to you alone, I have no news at allfrom you. But you will reply sometime, I know you will. Ishall wait.

For now, then, I hope this brings the memory of my lonelyheart to your male heart. I am overtaken by sadness, myeyes are so clouded with tears that I can no longer see thewords.

Take care of yourself. Know that here in Akita a womanwhose time is brief prays that you may have happinessalways.

Suzuki

4

Popular Songs as Social Psychological Data

Lance Corporal Kamata Tadao, from the village of Yumoto inIwate prefecture, carried this letter with him until he was killedin action at age 23 in Nobalichen, the Philippines, on February17, 1945.

The popular song is one of the many popular arts which furnishwhat may be called expressive patterns (kata) representing the.,.feelings of the masses for a particular era. But they are allsubstitutes, and the endless variety of nuance in the feelings ofthe masses is tripped up at every step by the hackneyed stereotypes of their formulations. When the intellectuals are summoned, they make short work of criticizing popular art forms,usually by pointing out that the stereotyped mannerisms areinterminably boring. Studies of popular art as such tend to leadto that single predictable conclusion. But for those who wish tochart the morphology of the popular mind, a reverse strategy isnecessary. Penetration behind the mannerized, stereotyped surface is the inevitable point of departure, in order to ascertainjust how much acute emotion, how much lofty aspiration orhow much utter desperation lies disguised beneath. Identifyingmannerism in the expressive patterns of popular art is a presumptive thing to do; the really difficult question is, to what extentis it possible to plumb the depths of the feelings of the age whichlie behind the mannerism?

The intellectuals have usually dismissed popular songs withonly cursory, and derisory, attention. This results from thedelusion that the stereotypical outward form of the presentationmakes an open-and-shut case for a poverty of spirit.

My awakening to the popular song coincided with my awakening to history. Most of the youths who were humming "Tisparadise upon this earth' will likely pass their careers at thatfactory or a similar one. Some could have earned high-schooldiplomas in night classes, one or two have spoiled their chanceswith a criminal offense, others might have become hardworkingunion members; but after pouring all their energies into theplowing of their respective paths, they will all disappear soonenough, one by one, into the depths of the flow of history.Against the giant tide of history, it is possible to view the singlehuman life as a futile exercise. Yet conversely, when history isunderstood as the rushing torrent of the myriad dreams andrealities of those individual lives, each with its inimitable colorations, we can sense the awesome depth and power with which

5


it presses forward. My high school classes left me with an imageof history that was nothing more than its shrivelled, cast-off skin.

I was possessed by an ambition to repossess history, to reconsider that countless nameless mass of people cycling just oncethrough life, the thronging conglomeration of discord and fantasyand selfishness and devotion in which I, too, participate.

It is not possible, of course, to see directly into the minds ofthose people. To observe something invisible, such as a changein temperature, our only handhold is to measure an associatedvisible sign, like the height of a column of mercury. To allow usto make inferences about the feelings of generations past, whatsigns have been left behind to serve as our handholds?

There are two types of records of the feelings of an era. Oneis documents which were actually written by the masses: letters,diaries, certificates, and literary or journalistic contributions. Theother is the various popular arts, including not only songs butalso theater, literature and cinema.

Surviving documents written by the masses themselves do present the feelings of the age rather directly, and yet the reality isnot quite so simple. To begin with, such records must have beenpenned by people who had both the basic skill of writing andsome intellectual training, and thus for most eras written recordsrepresent only the thoughtfulness of that fraction of the generalpopulace who were relatively elevated and knowledgeable. Thedistinction becomes much smaller in the postwar era, but as wemove back through the ages, the range of people capable ofproducing such documents and records becomes progressivelymore limited.

Tsurumi Shunsuke did groundbreaking research for his bookThe Marginal Arts (Genkai geijutsu) , which covers hayashi(meaningless syllables sung to music), nicknames, store names,doodles, and playful gestures. But for our purposes thosematerials would have to be unearthed and arranged in a comprehensive and systematic manner.

Works of popular art, moreover, are clearly made not by thepeople but rather for the people. This raises the issue of therefraction factor introduced by the artist's mediating role. Ofcourse if a work of popular art is to have some hope of success,it must hold a sounding board to one facet or another of thementality of the masses of its time. We can look back, then, atsuccessful works of popular art - hit songs, popular broadcast

6


programs, bestselling books and the like - and expect them toreflect some aspects of the particular feeling of the people ofthat time, or at least those of a particular social class.

The refractory role played by the writers of Japanese popularsongs, and by the external pressures operating upon them, wasmost striking, naturally, during the Pacific War. As will be seenin the text, during this period an untold number of senitmentalsongs were banned from sale, while many war ballads (gunkokukayo) and other military songs were disseminated as a matter ofpolicy. The suppressed songs were nevertheless passed alongorally, and were favorites on both the battle lines and the homefront, while the many songs promoted with wholesale propaganda by the military authorities and the Information Boardwere sung only on official occasions, their parodies being muchmore popular. The authorities distributed many phonograph records of 'Marching Songs,' but it was always the 'Bivouac Song'on the flip side, typically a plaintive tune in a minor key, thatproved more popular.

After phonograph records appeared on the scene in the late19208, it was not infrequent that a song which was already popular at the grassroots level would be picked up by a record company, and the recording would amplify its success. The writersof many of these remain anonymous. Meanwhile, even withenthusiastic promotion in the mass media, unpopular songssimply stayed unpopular. Each year, dozens of songs on whichrecord companies had pinned their hopes would end instead incomplete obscurity. Sometimes songs that had been promoted inthe mass media without response would, at a later time or withslight alteration, garner unexpected success. Those who followthe music industry can cite various cases to prove that if thelyrics of a 'popular song' don't match the feelings of the peopleat the moment, then the promotional muscle of the record company will not be enough to generate sales.

What decisively distinguishes popular songs from the variousother popular arts - theatrical performances, popular novels,films, or broadcast programs - is that the people of the time donot enjoy them in a merely passive manner. For part of what isrequired to make a popular song popular is that the massesactively participate in it, by singing it to themselves (or singingit out loud, or in unison). Thus the popular song, more thanother forms of popular art, corresponds to the dominant

7


emotions of the masses as well as to their moods, and thisrelationship can be quite fecund.

In contrast to the documentary sources of social history literary contributions, diaries, letters, certificates - the popularsong, first, requires neither writing ability nor intellectual training. The act of singing is far more basic than that of writing,and is thus open to a much broader spectrum of people, .whilealso being more commonly connected with daily routine. Second,the very term 'popular song' indicates that it is inherently a massphenomenon, and thus it avoids the danger, so common withmanuscripts, of being idiosyncratic to the individual involved.

We may conclude, then, that as a repository of the massfeelings of its time, the popular song, properly qualified anddelineated, is one of the finest types of material.

Yet while they function as mirrors, popular songs do not provide faithful, planar reflections of popular feelings. They containmany peculiar refractions and chromatic dispositions, for theyare as stylized, as glorified, as materialized, and as hyperbolizedas actual everyday experience. Stylized, in that the content isreduced to a set of kata, or formal types, of basic expressionand their variations: 'I'm a bird on a sorrowful journey,' 'Emptyseeming love in my distant hometown,' 'The flow of the water,the soul of the man.' Glorified, in that sundry everyday experiences and impressions are trnsposed into 'beautiful' images:snowy steppes, tropical islands, foggy harbors, or exotic cities;the sloughed skin of a cicada, late autumn rain, morning dew,or erupting volcanoes.

Materialized, into figurations that are not unlike dream symbolism. The psychological solitude of the 'lonely crowd' is transposed to the physical solitude of the 'solitary traveler' or 'straybird,' memories are a 'spinning wheel,' blocked feeling a 'cage.'

Hyperbolized, into ultimated forms which heighten everydaycircumstances or feelings: the spatial maximization of 'Shall I go,shall I return, under the Northern Lights?' or 'Ten thousandmiles, far, far from home'; the dramatic circumstances of a wandering orphan, tramp or fugitive; or the direct magnification offeelings, such as 'Staking my life on love.'

To pursue the actual images of the feelings of an era throughpopular songs, we must proceed by decoding the signs withinthem, by tracing back through the displacements and colorationsof the mirror's refractions.

8


The material used for this study consists of 451 ryakoka orpopular songs, one or more of which were current during eachyear from 1868, the beginning of the Meiji period, through 1963.They are taken from the 497 songs listed in the 'Annual Tableof Japanese Songs' at the end of Shigure Otowa's Collected Songsand Ballads of Japan (Nihon kayosha, Shakai Shisosha, 1963).Two of the songs on Shigure's list were immediately eliminated:the title Dodo-itsu is the name of a song style rather than aparticular song, and two of the 1911 entries - Murasaki choitonebushi and Choitone bushi - are in fact the same song. (Sincesome songs of recurring popularlity appear two or three times,there are only 482 different songs, although the recurring titlesare included in the tabulations for their respective years, in Table1.1.)

Table 1.1 Populllr songs selected for analysis

Seven-year interval A B C CiA x 100

1868-74 39 6 33 84.61875-81 23 3 20 87.01882-8 37 3 34 91.91889-95 42 6 36 85.71896-1902 39 1 38 97.41903-9 33 1 32 97.01910-16 31 2 29 93.51917-23 23 2 21 91.31924-30 41 5 36 87.81931-7 53 9 44 83.01938-44 32 2 30 93.81945-51 36 0 36 100.01952-8 32 4 28 87.5195~3 34 0 34 100.0

Total 495 44 451 91.1

A Songs listed in ShiJUl'e's Annual Table of Japanese Songs.B Songs disqualified because of unverifiable lyrics.C Songs analyzed for this study.

Among the remaining 495 songs, there were 44 (43 different)for which the lyrics cannot be verified. Thus a total of 451 songs(91.1 per cent of the full list; 439 different works) were qualifiedas the material to be analyzed. Table 1.1 shows the distributionover time of the numbers of songs analyzed and excluded.

As the table makes clear, there is no extreme polarization inthe chronological distribution of the songs which were selected.

9


Although there is some fluctation over time in the proportion ofunverifiable songs, still for each interval at least 83 per cent ofthe songs listed by Shigure are included in the analysis.

For analysis of motif, the following affect categories wereestablished: anger (ikari) , resentment (urami) , despair (yake) ,self-scorn (jicho) , jest (odoke) , joy (yorokobi) , hope (kibo) ,ambition (haki) , chivalry (gikyo) , sarcasm (fashi) , criticism(hihan) , longing (bojo) , coaxing affection (amae) , wooing(kudoki) , flattery (kobi) , jealousy (shitto) , banter (hiyakashi) ,resignation (akirame) , lingering attachment (miren) , loneliness(kodoku), nostalgia (kyoshu), aspiration (akogare), blocked feeling (heisoku-kan), wandering (hyohaku-kan), and impermanence(mujo-kan). The assignment of the songs to the various categories was carried ouJ by three judges, with the concurrence of twoor more required for each categorization. (A table of the songsand the assigned affect categories is included in the originaledition of this study, kindai nihon no shinjo no rekishi, Kodansha, 1967.).

In addition to motif analysis, various other analyses were carried out with respect to themes, vocabulary, rhythms, musicalscales, major and minor keys, and the communication structuresof the songs. Only the motif-related aspects of the overall studyare included in the present volume.

The quantitative trend analyses at the beginning of each chapter, and the summary table in the Appendix are presented interms of 7-year periods. The reasoning behind this arrangementis as follows.

Modern Japanese history, in my view, can be broken into thefollowing periods: the formative period from the Meiji Restoration of 1868 through 1889, spanning the developments whichare generally known as 'civilization and enlightenment' and thepeople's rights movement; the solidification period from 1889, theyear the imperial constitution was promulgated (local governingbodies and the national Diet took form around the same time),through 1910, including the wars with China and Russia and theindustrial revolution; the period of ripe maturity from 1910 - theyear of the annexation of Korea and the 'era-ending' assassination plot known as the Great Treason Incident - through 1931,coinciding roughly with the Taisho era; the period of collapse(or of coercive revamping) from the Mukden Incident of 1931 the plunge from the climax of so-called eroguro (erotic-gro-

10

Popular Songs as Social Psychulogical Data

tesque) culture into 15 years of war - through the defeat of 1945;and the immediate postwar period to 1952, when the US militaryoccupation ended and the Japan-US Mutual Security Pact cameinto effect.

When those watershed periods are lined up, their respectivetimespans are 21 years, 21 years, 21 years, 14 years and 7 years,all of which happen to be multiples of seven. Taking 7-yearintervals as the standard is thus quite convenient, for it guarantees at once the equal spacing required for quantative analysis,while the reliance on historical turning-points promotes a basichomogeneity of characteristics within each interval.

11

2 The History of Anger

Refractions of anger

Very few of the popular songs of Japan since the Meiji Restoration are direct expressions of anger. Among the 451 representative songs surveyed for this volume, anger is a motif of only 15.

Perhaps the popular song, in all times and places, is by naturesomething which does not lend itself to themes of anger. Thepeculiar thing is that songs of anger, however few, were in factthe typical popular songs of a certain time in Japan. For it isnot the scarcity or frequency of expressions of anger that weshall observe here, but rather their historical ebb and flow asshown by their chronological distribution.

The popular songs that deal with anger are concentratedbetween 1883 and 1906, in the middle to late Meiji period. Theydisappear entirely with the waning of Meiji, and after their exitfrom the stage of popularity, between 1906 to 1924, the mainmotif shifts first to ressentiment or bitterness, and then to despair.Those two motifs remain visible in popular songs without interruption well into the postwar era, although from 1925 onwardthey are never dominant in quantitative terms. Instead, duringthe Showa period the major song motif is resignation, whichhere also includes the distinct emotion of miren, or lingeringattachment.

Column A of Table 2.1 shows the percentages and relativerankings of representative popular songs with these motifs,through the 95 years following the Meiji Restoration. It traces adouble and triple refraction of the feelings of anger at the bottomof the hearts of the Japanese people, charting an inward burrowing of their expression from direct anger to ressentiment, then todespair, and then to resignation and a regretful sense of lingeringattachment.

The intensity of the critical spirit expressed in popular songsexhibits a virtually parallel transition, as shown in column B. It

12

The History of Anger

Table 2.1 Motifs of anger and criticism in Japanese popular songs

A BAnger Ressenti- Despair Resignation Criticism Sarcasm Self-

ment and scornmiren

1868-74 6.1 6.1 6.1I~:bl

3.01875-81 5.0 10.01882-8 M 2.9 5.8

I~:il11.8 2.9

1889-95 13.9 2.8 8.3 2.8 11.11896-1902 2.6 7.9 5.3 2.61903-9 12.5 128.11 9.4 21.9 18.8 BS] 21.91910-16 3.4 6.9 (mJ 6.9 3.4 13.81917-23 ~ 9.5 19.0 g[[]1924--30 5.6 2.8 2.8 8.31931-7 4.5 6.8 111.411938-1944 6.7 3.3 3.31945-1951 2.8 8.3 2.8 2.81952-8 10.7 10.7

~1959-1963 2.9 5.9 5.9

Figures are percentages of representative popular songs with a given motif in each timeperiod, derived as follows:

Number of songs in time period with given motifx 100

Total number of songs in time period

Boxes indicate the most common motifs in category A or 8 for each time period. Figuresbelow 10% are excluded.

is deflected and driven inward from criticism to sarcasm, andthen from sarcasm to self-scorn.

(Among European languages, the word which is closest to theretroceded form of anger known in Japanese as urami is theFrench ressentiment. The model of the feeling is longstandingressentiment toward the strong on the part of the unjustlyoppressed, resulting from their powerlessness to secure or restoretheir rights.)

Logic and emotion in minien en1ca

It is no surprise that most of the songs of anger which areconcentrated in the middle and late Meiji years were minkenenka (people's-power songs) that were sung in the streets byyoung men who were active in the people's rights movement.

13

10.418.2

(Ж о2Σ 2sn η23.5


What sort of rage was it that was expressed in those prototypesof the modern Japanese song of anger? A good place to start iswith a model example of the early minken enka, the very widelypopular 'Dynamite Song' (1883-7):

People's power activists Rain down their tearsTo polish the brave spirit of Yamato

(Chorus)Strengthen the nation and public welfarePower to the peopleIf it doesn't happenDynamite boom

Oh, happy dreamOf lifting extraterritoriality

(Chorus)

Forty million compatriots For your sakeIn red prison uniforms We would suffer

(Chorus)

As the refrain clearly indicates, the value which drives thesingers' aspirations is an undifferentiated combination of nationalinterest and people's power. They sought to convey an inseparable connection between the anger of the 'people's power advocates' toward the autocratic government dominated by the Satsuma and Choshii clans, and the anger of 'the brave spirit ofYamato' toward the imperial powers which were pressuringJapan. Other popular songs of the 1880s offer similar examples,such as the line, 'For your sake and the sake of the nation, thesake of the people' from 'Reform Song' (Kairyo bushi, c. 1888).The minken enka, then, reveals a tight mutual embrace of theconcepts of state power and people's power.

So much for the logical structure of the minken enka. If wetrack their emotional structure, a duality of a different dimensioncan be seen: an entwining of the spirit of the bushi or samuraiclass and that of the chonin or merchant class. With the lyrics,' ... polish the brave spirit of Yamato ... If it doesn't happen,

14


dynamite boom,' the people's-power confederates are 'donningfine woven caps with hairy legs sticking out of their raggedclothes, strutting in high geta while carrying stout walking sticks,shaking their fists as they sing' (from Soeda Tomomichi's history,Enka no meiji-taisho shi). They had a special taste for send-uplyrics, juxtaposing lofty or silly concepts with the warrior's lot,such as 'martial melancholy,' 'samurai of the universe' or 'samurai dancing a jig.'

Their songs also contained subtle overtones of the humor ofchonin culture. It shows in the lyrics of 'Dynamite Song.'Another example: 'The cat will find a way to reach the ladle,Neatly trimmed whiskers underneath the nose, How very fine itis to let a beard grow out, But is it a rat's tailor a cat's whiskers?'(Ukiyo bushi, 'Floating World,' 1884) This passage, satirizing thebeards which were the symbol of those in power at the time, isbased not upon bushi anger with its frankness of expression, butupon chonin defiance with its expression refracted through Jokes.The emotional foundation of minken enka consists of a uniquecombination of the pluck of the pre-Meiji samurai and thedefiance of the merchant class. This suggests something about thecharacter of the social classes who supported enka at that time.

Thus the logical structure of the people's-power song of the1880s - the prototype of the modem enka - presents a dualconnotation of the concept of people's power and the concept ofstate power, leaning somewhat to the former; while its emotionalstructure presents a dual connotation of the bushi ethos and thechonin ethos, again leaning somewhat to the former.

During the ensuing two decades, as the Meiji regime movedtoward solidification by promulgating the constitution, conveningthe Imperial Diet and waging campaigns against China andRussia, and as the Russo-Japanese War revealed the contradictions within the system; how did the enka evolve?

Anger changes direction

The exceptional popularity during 1889 of Yukai bushi, 'HappySong,' marked a turning point in the history of enka. The songhad several variations with a common refrain,

15


Yu - kai - ja Yu - kai - ja

(How hap - py How hap - py)

The prototype lyrics were:

Mt Fuji straddles the two lands of Kai and SurugaMaking an eight-faceted glittering jewelThere are the white clouds, cold even during summerManifesting a spirit so noble and pureSoaring on high between the spaces in the cloudsShowing independent unyielding spiritThe temperament of the men of YamatoRiding, fencing, practicing archeryFor the sake of the nation they are upliftingTake care that the northern gate is always kept lockedGive your all, your all for the sake of the nationGiving all in its name for all nationsWith the reverberation, such great happiness

How happy How happy

Here the people's-power concept has disappeared and the enkahas been squeezed down to the single theme, 'for country.' Thatwas the year that the Meiji constitution was promulgated.

Although enka with strong state-power coloration had beensung in the earlier years, and refrains such as 'overthrow clannism' were still heard occasionally thereafter, the years 1889 and1890 are the dividing line where enka lyrics suddenly lose thepeople's-power hue, and the state-power theme becomes dominant. The logic behind this ~hift in content is eloquently presented in the following verse from a 'happy song' entitled 'TheImperial Diet Song' (Teikokugikai no ka, 1889)

Ripening to a civilized nation, the right of freedomIs budding firmly, and in our countryThe period of barbaric stubbornnessIs yielding to calm and flexibilityThrough the trying events of 1873Ex-Ministers Itagaki and Goto

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Were the first to sow the popular-electionSeed of the flower of Diet politicsAnd then with the passing of succeeding yearsBasking and growing in the favor ofThe winds of enlightened civilizationThe freedom of man and the wisdom of the peopleReceive blessings from heaven in equal measureThe people who are born into this worldWon't be pushed and pressed upon by othersAnd pressed and pushed indeed they should beRestrained, the fountain risesThe voice proclaiming the inaugurationOf the Diet resounds in all directionsUntil it is heard by the Wise EmperorPromulgation of the constitution is grantedGovernment by representation is allowedAt the outset of constitutionalismAll of the citizenry of MeijiStand proudly before their unborn descendants

How happy How happy

According to the general view of the time, the people's rightsmovement had triumphed with the granting of the constitutionand the inauguration of the Imperial Diet, despite the limit onelectoral participation to high-bracket taxpayers making up amere 1.24 per cent of the citizenry, and further despite theconferring of control upon the nobility in the House of Peers.

As a result, the anger of the enka was henceforth not directedat discrimination or oppression within the country, but rathertook up urgently and wholeheartedly the cause of discriminationand oppression against minorities abroad. Here is a verse fromanother of the 'happy songs' entitled 'Treaty Revision' (Joyakukaisei, c. 1893).

Show enthusiasm, sincere men who love the country . . .Remember the NormantonAnd the Chishima accidentWhen so many countrymenDied with their resentmentThere is no means for dispellingThe deep delusion of our countrymen

17


When it comes to extraterritorialityThe thought is mortifying and embittering

Profligate, passionate countrymenInvigorated, flourishing for countrySharpening the sword of righteousnessFlying the banner of public opinionIf the current treaty is not abrogatedDecisively cut in two at a strokeUnder the sword of JapanIt shall be our great urgent taskTo obtain a resplendent treaty which shall placeThe Imperial virtue of the divine free landOf the Orient high in the eastern sky

How happy How happy

When the British freighter Normanton sank off the coast nearWakayama, only the British crew were saved while twenty-threeJapanese drowned. Due to inequitable treaty provisions, thisinhuname conduct went without adequate investigation, leavingthe nation smoldering with resentment. A similar incidentoccurred when the battleship Chishima collided with the Britishship Ravenna.

The anger of a nation subjected to such discrimination andinequity, and the belligerent demands for release from the pressure of the Great Powers, became directly connected withJapan's own dream of becoming one of the Great powers bypressuring other Asian nations.

Doku Shin Ro Futsu Ei Bei Shikkei kiwamaru genkotsubai

Germany China Russia France Britain America Extremerudeness, blow after blow

That refrain, from the anonymous 'Clenched-fist Song' (Genkotsubushi), puts quite bluntly the dual orientation of the nationalism

18


of the time, as well as the identification between the emotionalmotifs involved.

Rupturing Japan-China negotiations ...The Chinese are readily overthrownThe Great Wall breachedOnly a mile to the walls of Peking

Praise praise praise . .. Happiness happiness . . .- 'Dance of Joy' (Kimbu bushi, 1893)

This famous song was popular during the year before the SinoJapanese War. In fact, songs such as this were prophetic andhistory-making in their character and their content. They articulated an ideology and social psychology which, by using as anintermediary a sense of destiny lopsided with emotion, served asconduits for shifting toward the outside the popular hostility andanger that had been pent up inside the country since the beginnings of the Meiji state.

It would be a mistake to say that this sort of social psychologywas shaped and fomented in a purely artificial way. Granted,too, that such an orientation of dissatisfaction could not havearisen completely spontaneously. Yet a general sense of, andeven a proclivity to, mistrust and fright of foreign countries waspresent within the traditional community consciousness. Anxietyover external pressures, along with a backlash against the 'hairybarbarians' of the West, had permeated the populace since thetime of the Black Ships and the opening of the ports in the1850s and early 1860s. More directly, thanks to the oratoricalcampaigns orchestrating the takeover of Korea through militaryincidents in 1882 and 1884 and the Treaty of Tientsin of 1885,there had been a worsening of sentiment toward China, at leastamong those Japanese who read the newspapers.

Thus these enka became popular by catering to this aspect ofthe general social psychology of the Japanese at the time, andby becoming popular they amplified it.

This type of catering-and-amplification relationship between thesocial psychology of the masses and popular songs can also beseen in the circumstances which created 'Come On, Russia'(Roshia koi), a song which was popular immediately before theRusso-Japanese War of 1904-5.

19


The eastern peace has been disturbedSpecious pretexts have been used

Roshia koi Roshia koiThe sharp-edged sword of JapanHas reached the limit of endurance

Roshia koi Roshia koi

The martial songs of the Russo-Japanese War contain less ofthe type of bare-knuckled anger that was vented in song at thetime of the Chinese war, and are more strongly colored by fun.

Leasing Port Arthur in '95Reneging after only nine yearsChirippu charappuAppuku chikiriki appappaaRyusei ryusei appuku chikiriki cha

- 'Prosperity Song' (Ryusei bushi, c. 1904)

As the contradictions of the Meiji order came to light afterthe Russo-Japanese War, enka once again sang temporarily ofpolitical criticism and popular anger.

Oh, this world of gold, this world of goldOrders from hell come in goldGold if you laugh and gold if you cryOnce gold, twice gold, three times goldGold divides parent and childGold cuts the love of husband and wifeWe slander infernal greedWe denounce those blind with self-interestSometimes it hurts or itchesBut if it's for gold it's all rightStay away from trials and troublesOf others so they don't hex us

- 'Oh This World of Gold' (Aa kane no yo ya, c. 1907)

It's no goodOh the sharecropper's suffering is no goodToil unceasinglyWait for the harvest, and look

20


All the rice goes to the landlordWhile my poor family cries of hunger

- 'Song of Tribulation' (Tsumaranai bushi, c. 1908)

However, these songs scarcely attained general popularity(according to the cultural historian Fujisawa Morihiko). In qualitative terms, they certainly contain some disguised popular anger,but it is a deflected expression, not direct and outspoken as inthe minken enka of earlier years.

After striking a final chord in 1910 in 'Tex-tex Song,' the motifof anger drops from sight in the world of the Japanese popularsong.

We might expect that the rightful heirs of the anger motif inlater years would be war songs or workers' songs. Yet in contrastto songs connected with the Chinese and Russian wars, in warsongs of the Taisho and Showa periods the anger motif is mysteriously absent. In the government-made war songs and otherswhich conform to them, that is, in songs which came from thetop down, the main motifs are the pride and ambition of givingone's all for the nation, and the heroic spirit. Favorite war songsthrown up from below, meanwhile, have motifs of sorrow, homesickness, wandering and impermanence. In virtually none ofthem is there any expression of anger or hate for enemy peoples.Songs of worker or peasant defiance, meanwhile, never joinedthe ranks of the really popular or well-loved songs until afterthe Pacific War.

The history of ressentiment

Of course the populace under the Meiji regime did not becomeso happy that they simply forgot their feelings of anger. Underthe pressure and guidance of control mechanisms which had beenperfected and strengthened, part of the anger was converted intomotive power for foreign aggression and personal advancement,as noted below. The rest of it was deflected inward in the form ofressentiment or bitterness or despair, taking temporary residencewithin the gut of the system.

Songs of bitterness came briefly to popularity after the Russo-

21


Japanese War. During the last few Meiji years, ressentiment andsarcasm were the biggest motifs in the world of popular song.Songs such as 'Oh This World of Gold' and 'Song of Tribulation,'cited above, are more appropriately viewed as expressions ofressentiment or despair than of anger. The ressentiment motif isalso concealed within two songs to be covered below: 'Song ofResignation' and 'Tex-tex Song.' Popular songs outside the enkastyle ranged quite widely in theme, including such titles as 'Involuntary Return,' 'Song of the Golden She-Devil' and 'Clear WhiteSummit of Fuji' from 1909 and 1910, but a great many of themin some way or another have the motif of ressentiment.

The outstanding songs of ressentiment at this time were theexceedingly popular 'Midnight Reminiscence' (Yowa no tsuioku,also called 'Ballad of Osaburo') and 'Rain on My Sleeve' (Sodeshigure, also called 'Ballad of Soeko'). These songs concern thecase of Noguchi Osaburo, who was suspected of killing his loverSoeko's elder brother, and was sentenced to death for an unrelated crime.

Oh the world is a dream or an illusionAlone in prison upon awakening fromA solitary dream and everywhere aroundThe evening is quietly growing olderThe shadow faintly pierces the windowOh his shadow, pierced by the moonIn the abandoned dew-laced cemetery,Quietly sleeping elder brother,Shining upon that graveRecalling again the world recalling the selfSpending the entire night cryingAnd upon the parting from my beloved wifeThe shadow likewise rests . . .

- 'Midnight Reminiscence' (Yowa no tsuioku, 1906-8)

A paulownia leaf shows that autumn is comeCould two months have already passed?You, enduring prison, your bodyMust be so sadDay after day thinking only of thatUnable even to sleep at night . . .Thinking of you and me in this world,

22


It is not a mysteriousTum of fate,Separated by the laws of traditionAnd the cold rules of man's world,Against my will, I must sing of myselfAs a childless woman, one who knows not loveWhile cursing the world and its people,I could endure it, I could wear itIf just once I could touchYour warmhearted blood. . . .All alone in this cruel fleeting worldA mischievous one, a sinnerIs how they slander me and soIf I am a sinner I will join hands and weepWith another sinner, and will crossThe River Styx to the next world

- 'Rain on My Sleeve' (Sode shigure, 1908)

These linked songs, both written to the same slow waltz tune(the music of 'Beautiful Nature,' reproduced in Chapter 4), arehuge pieces with some hundred lines each. They hold an important place in the history of Japanese popular songs, because theircontents represent in various ways the bridge between the worldof the enka and that of the kayokyoku which came into existenceduring the Taisho period.

Their overarching motif - subsuming the other motifs of impermanence, pent-up feeling, loneliness, and longing - is the grievance of the powerlessness of an average individual in the faceof society in general and the legal system.

The police, who considered Osaburo guilty from the start,could not tum up enough evidence. Yet the public had their waywith him, first by presuming him to be the criminal guilty ofmurdering the brother, and on top of that, by celebrating astheir hero the very Osaburo whom they took to be the offender.

My beloved darling is floatingMotionlessly, arrestedFor a heinous crime, how sad it is,Ah, yet for that moment whenSurely you killed my flesh, my brother,I feel hate and resentment too,

23


Yet because I know that everythingSprings from your deep love for meAll my resentment has died awayNo sword can be lifted against loveThe compassion of a parentThe sympathy of flesh and blood cannotCompare to the bond ofPure sympathy between two lovers . . .

- 'Rain on My Sleeve'

What cries out for attention here is the public sentiment whichrequired such an immoral hero, to the point of embellishing thefacts to create him.

At this time the primary themes of literature, in highbrownaturalist novels as well as popular domestic novels and shinpaplays, were Meiji social restriction and individual love, and thehome was usually the crucible for their complications. The conflict between the Meiji system and individual love was in a sensethe theme of the age, part of the magnetic field created by thepoles of the 1908 Boshin Imperial Rescript (an exhortation tomoral rearmament, emphasizing family ethics) and Seito (a radical women's-emancipation magazine of the time). Amid a fieldso charged with meaning, sympathy is heartily summoned throughthe dramatization of Osaburo as the hero who sinned against theMeiji order for the sake of love, and of Soeko as the puresacrificial heroine.

Resentment toward Osaburo over the murder of the brotheris not the motif of the song, being cancelled by his love for her.Active resentment colors Soeko's mental attitude only in thefollowing two lines: 'Oh how I resent the gossip of people whodon't know my heart' and 'How I resent the cruel law whichsevers the bonds of feeling.'

These verses transcend the particular circumstances of theheroine who sings them. They are applicable to the universalcircumstances of the masses living under the Meiji regime. Thoseare on one hand a grudge against the 'premodern' whichremained in Japanese society, and on the other hand a grudgeagainst the 'modem' which was imposed from above. Within theactual lives of the people within the Meiji social order~ thepremodern and the modern were not simply in opposition toeach other, but rather existed as a double yoke. Ressentiment,

24


according to Max Scheler, is made up of three elements: one isthe emotional extension of hatred, jealousy and animosity;another is the feeling of powerlessness due to the inability tovent those emotions against opposing persons or social groups;the third is the constant re-experiencing of such powerless hostilefeelings.

The secret by which the protagonists of this macabre episodeevoked such broad-gauged sympathies must be that they were thespokespersons for an unmentionable ressentiment which lurked atthe depths of the hearts of the people. Their actions were afigure for the twisted resentment of the surrounding masses whostrung them up as heroes for their time.

'Song of Resignation' (Akirame bushi, 1908), a song whichwas popular at the same time as the ballads of Osaburo andSoeko, portrays this ressentiment or bitterness against the modemand the premodern in Meiji society in a more realistic way.

What have you come to this world to do?To pay your taxes and your interestBorn into this fleeting worldTo our unfortunate role we are resigned

Be my mother-in-law· a devil· or a snakeA young wife· must meekly submitNaturally she serves her timeWithout a word, to my fate I am resigned

- 'Song of Resignation' (Akirame bushi, 1908)

The words with asterisks were censored out by the authorities.That this was the only popular enka of the time to "be censoredindicates which topic the rulers of the time reacted to mostsensitively (with the extraordinary exception, of course, of theemperor system). By appealing to the actual feelings of themasses, it strikes at the ideology of the family-nation, the pivotof the mechanisms of internal control of the Meiji regime.

Nevertheless, even with its words intact, this song is quite aretreat from the spirit shown in a verse from 'Yoshiya' in the18708: 'Be my mother-in-law a devil or a snake, I plant myselfdown with the right to love.'

'Song of Resignation' continues:

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Arduous overwork and yet more bitter overworkFulfilling duty is something that must be doneThe desire for some sort of rightsIs not possible, we are resigned

This is of course ironic; no doubt some resisted with all theirmight. Yet therein lies one endpoint of the history of the enka,which runs through so many refracted layers from loud insistenceon people's rights through national sovereignty to sarcasm.

Won't you please give up, oh won't you please give upWon't you please give up, it's the safe wayI am an animal born to be freeSo I give up on giving up

These words might seem to conceal an irrespressible spirit ofresistance. Yet in fact it is no more than a self-abusing/selfamusing resistance which is hinted at in the posture of thewords.

Two years later, in 1910, came the swansong of the popularmotif of anger.

A child on the back, a swelling belly, No-ya And thenthe car

'Tis-really-quite-'ard Shameful-tyr'nny Needs a pushUp-it's-gone-tex-tex

Cold wind leaking,through the cracks No-ya Let's have atry

'Tis-really-quite-'ard Shameful-tyr'nny Wheel of povertyUp-it's-gone-tex-tex

Had to give up the house and the fields No-ya Now it'severy day

Yo-heave-ho-no-ya Shameful-try'nny Day laborerUp-it's-gone-tex-tex

Wages go down, prices go up No-ya But all complaints'Tis-really-quite-'ard Shameful-try'nny Are prohibitedUp-it's-gone-tex-tex

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Birds and insects, they all have nests No-ya I'm a humanbeing

'Tis-really-quite-'ard Shameful-try'nny I have no houseUp-it's-gone-tex-tex

Don't trifle with the peasant No-ya Staying alive'Tis-really-quite-'ard Shameful-try'nny Thanks to whom?Up-it's-gone-tex-tex

- 'Tex-tex Song' (Ze-ze bushi, 1910)

The hyphenated refrains appear in the original in katakanascript and with slightly distorted pronunication, such that at firstglance or first hearing, one does not grasp any meaning. Forexample, the word for tax or taxes, zei, is distorted to ze. Theseartifices were reportedly a means of pulling the wool over theeyes of the censors. Yet it may well follow that the refrains werealso incomprehensible to the very populace who read, heard andsang them. And for some of those who did understand, it musthave made the idea of resistance somewhat self-consoling or selfabusing.

That was the same year that the poet Ishikawa Takubokupublished 'Today's Pent-Up Age' (Jidai heisoku no genjo). Itwas the time when the Meiji system had reached its point of fullcompletion, and was about to move from overripe maturity intoa period of stagnation.

The emotion of 'anger' is not simply hate plus repulsion. Italso 'springs from a sense of violated justice' (Hashikawa Bunzo,'Lost Anger'). Consequently, for it to materialize as a commonemotion, there must be a common value system to support theanger. Anger of a citizenry toward authority requires a widelyshared counter-value, supported by a broad anti-authoritarianmovement. Anger directed toward another country requires thatthe nation feel oppressed by some other nation. However, thesolidification of the Meiji regime (via the crushing and absorptionof the people's rights movement), and the transformation of theJapanese from an oppressed to an oppressing nation (via victoriesover China and Russia and the annexation of Korea), had theeffect of eliminating those two premises by which anger maymaterialize as a common emotion.

There was one song that seized the spirit of the masses and

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stayed widely and continually popular during the transition fromthe Meiji to the Taisho period.

Is that Miss Okaru going by palanquin?I am being sold and taken awayGoodbye Father, goodbye MotherAnd goodbye to my loveWon't you write me sometimes?

Don-Don

I don't like to drink by natureBut I'm drowning the sorrow of partingStop drowning your cares in sakeYour body is wasting awayWho will take care of things later?

Don-don- 'Don-don' (1911-13)

Here, once again, there is no loud demand for rights or freedom or happiness. What is conveyed is the desperation andresignation of the masses at the bottom of the regime who silentlyendure their reluctant lives.

'Don-don' carries various motifs, including that of despair, akey motif during the Taisho period; and the motifs of resignationand lingering attachment, which are important during Showa.

Let us return to the topic of enka, specifically to their originalform, the people's-power songs. Figure 2.1 charts the phasechanges undergone by their dual logic and emotional structures,along with the progression of the Meiji order from solidificationthrough full maturity.

Figure 2.2 illustrates the basic trends of the anger motif of thepeople's-power enka. On the one hand it turned into state-powerenka aiming its fury outside the country, and on the other hand,as songs of sarcasm and self-scorn, it was deflected into thesphere of humor and joking.

The motif of anger first spouted up as opposition to the solidifaction of the Meiji regime, materializing mainly as the people'srights songs. Its logic and feeling then changed forms and followed two paths. On the one hand it reversed itself and becamean advance guard and driving force for the program of the regime

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LOGIC

People's rights

'Dynamite Song' 1883-7'Reform Song' 1887

'Oppekepe' 1890

National sovereignty

'Dance of Joy 1889-95('Talks with China' 'New Japan')

'Oh How Happy' 1889-95('Mount Fuji' 'War-opening Song')

F Anger(Ambition)

E

E People's War with

L Rights China(1880-90) (1890-1900)

N Post-Russian War withG War Russia

(1905-10) (1903-5)S

Jest IV III

(Humor)

'Oh This World of Gold' 1907'Can't Understand' 1908

~Come On Russia' 1903-4'Russian Army' 1905

Figure 2.1 Phase changes in Meiji period enka

itself, alongside such systemic building blocks as the constitution,the Diet and the wars. On the other hand, it was deflected andapoliticized, and remained adrift at the bottom of the system, inthe lower reaches of actual personal feelings, where it took theforms of ressentiment, bitterness, despair and lingering attachment (miren).

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I II

L


1 1= Logic }(dotted frames indicate secondary latency)

( ) = Emotion

_+ Militarysongs

_+ Love enka(apolitical)

Jest

Defiance

Patriotism

Ambition

State-power enka

Idea ofpeople's power

People's-power enka

[---~~~-:r----1~ ~M

state power :----------_.. ------_..

,,--._------ ...," Jest \" (of Chonin Ethos) J:-"--'",--------~~ ~----------~

Sarcastic enka

(Specific examples)

People's-power enka State-power enka Military songs

'Dance of Joy''Dynamite Song' (1888-95)

(1883-7),.

'Happy Song' -(1889-95)

'Reform Song'(1887)

'Oh This World''Oppekepe Song' ... of Gold' (1907)

(1890) -'Can't Understand'

(1909)

'A Brave Seaman'

-+ 'Japanese Army'

'MidnightReminiscence'

-+'Rain on my Sleeve'

Sarcastic enka Love enka

Figure 2.2 Tracks of the motif of anger in enka

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Anger(of Samurai Ethos)

3 The History of Tears

The vicissitudes of tears

'Tears' is the most frequently used noun in Japanese popularsongs after 1868 (the next most frequent is 'dream'). It occursin 83 of the 451 songs taken up here, or nearly twenty percent.Its distribution increases steadily over time, as follows:

%Early Meiji (1868-89) 1 song(s) of 95 1.0Later Meiji (1890-1912) 12 112 10.7Taisho (1913-25) 6 46 13.0Early Showa (1826-45) 28 99 28.3Postwar (1946-{j3) 36 98 36.7

A closer inspection of the occurrence of the symbol of tears, by7-year intervals, is presented in Figure 3.1. There is a dramaticproportional increase from 1903, about the time of the RussoJapanese War. Thus the period when tears was the key symbolof Japanese popular songs is exactly that period which was examined in Chapter 1, when anger twisted inward to resentment orbitterness, and criticism shaded into sarcasm.

In musical terms, it was at precisely this time that songs in theminor-sounding tan-onkai scale began to be well liked.

Before the Sino-Japanese war, the word 'tears' appeared inonly two songs. One was 'Dynamite Song' (1883): 'People'spower activists rain down their tears. To polish the brave spiritof Yamato ...' (see Chapter 3). The other was 'Song of Nanko'(1900): 'Falling from the luxuriant green leaves of Sakurai ...Is it tears or fluttering dewdrops?' In both cases the tears arecried by active political personages; they were not the tears ofthe masses themselves, but those of the elite. Yet of course inthe background were the tears of the majority of the 'people'who backed or participated in the people's power movement,and the majority of the 'subjects' who shed their own tears overthe legend of loyal Nanko's untimely death, which goes far

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1868 1875 1882 1889 1896 1903 1910 1917 1924 1931 1938 1945 1952 1959I I I I I I I I I I I I I .I

1874 1881 1888 1895 1902 1909 1916 1923 1930 1937 1944 1951 1958 1963

Figure 3.1 Proportion of popular songs using the word Itears'

toward explaining why the people loved to sing these songs.These political personages were a far cry from the mass of thepeople, and yet they were spokespersons for one or anotheraspect of the people's feelings during the various phases ofJapanese modernity. The people were connected to those in thepolitical sphere, in reality or in fantasy, through the medium ofsympathy for their sorrows.

But by the late Meiji period, when tears became a key symbolin the Japanese popular song, the tears of active participants inthe political sphere were no longer mentioned. Instead we hearfor the first time of the tears of the people, as the direct victimsof war or of punishment or some other function of the nation.The song which pioneered this type of expression, and whichstill reverberates at the deepest level of the feelings of Japanesea half-century later, is 'Comrade in Arms,' a song from theRusso-Japanese War, set in Manchuria. (See Chapter 11.) Thiswas the first Japanese popular song to contain the adjective 'sad'(kanashii) .

The next songs about tears, just after the Russian War, were'Midnight Reminiscence' and 'Rain on My Sleeve.'

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40

35

30

25

20

15

10

5

О

%45

The History of Tears

Oh it's completely, completely a dreamElder brother, give me leaveWife and child, give me leaveTears of repentance are streaming downSprinkling on my sleeve like village rains . . .

- 'Midnight Reminiscence' ('Ballad of Osaburo' 1906)

The pillow here upon my lonely bedHas been moistened so many timesBy hot tears as I recall the memoriesOf one who has passed away, and of destiny . . .

I am not supposed to be someoneWho sheds tears of resentment in vainNo, I should not give in to weeping and mourningI know, but then once again, the unceasing tears How could I possibly not have these feelings . . .

- 'Rain on My Sleeve' ('Ballad of Soeko', 1906)

These songs were the first to exhibit several of the patterns oflater Japanese popular songs, including those which constitutethe structure of 'tears.' First, the tears that no one sees in aplace such as a 'lonely bed; second, the tears of 'resentment' athaving lost what little love one could latch onto amid cold societyand cruel fate; and third, the tears which overflow uncontrollablydespite the norm consciousness of 'not giving in to weeping andmourning.' Popular songs of the 19208 and later are sprinkledwith examples of each of these patterns.

'Tears' surrounding the love of men and women

From 1910 onward, there are no more songs containing tearswhich relate directly to politics, either actively or passivelyevoked. Instead, beginning with several of the most popularsongs of 1909 and 1910, and continuing throughout the Taishoand Showa periods up to the 19608, the tears which are sung ofalmost always flow in connection with love between a man anda woman in the private sphere.

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