A Story of Japan’s Working Poor
by Hanna
Watched this yesterday and was reminded of many experiences:
If you find the time to watch this, I’d love to hear your comments.
Watched this yesterday and was reminded of many experiences:
If you find the time to watch this, I’d love to hear your comments.
I saw this when it came out a few years ago. I was quite shocked as the only ‘poor’ people I knew were the homeless living under the Kamo river in Kyoto. I thought richness in Japan were distributed differently than other countries, so that people are generally living above the ‘poverty threshold’. Then I started noticing other details that I was ignoring before, and I started realising how poverty is hidden in Japan. Interestingly it is not the establishment that hides, but the poor people themselves, who behave according to the principles dividing the social from private, emphasising an image of decency even among those who live miserably. There is a wonderful, film by Vittorio De Sica, ‘Umberto D’ (1952), the story of a retiree who cannot bear to show the misery of his condition following the WWII defeat. I strongly recommend the film, there are many similarities to contemporary Japan.
There are certainly groups of people in Japan that aren’t visible to the general visitor. The homeless living under the bridges in Kyoto might actually be an exception, because they are so friendly, honest, and open. I remember a friend telling a story about a guy whose bike got tossed in the Kamo River and homeless people pulled it out and cleaned it up for him.
But aren’t people who try to conform to some sort of expectation the sadder case? I remember times when I was having a hard time supporting myself in Japan, but my pride kept me from leaving the country or asking for whatever assistance. (I wanted to prove to myself and to the people I know that I could live in that country.) It’s that kind of self-expectation that can be absolutely crippling. Certainly my case was not as dire, probably, as that of the people shown in the film above, since many Japanese people don’t have the luxury I had of having a place (however far away) to go to where they might have a support network and could start over.
But then, that place where Japanese might be able to start over could be Tokyo, with it’s open atmosphere for innovation and creativity. That atmosphere extends into lifestyle patterns, since most of the creative people I have met are members of that “outcaste” society of part-time and temporary workers. But Tokyo is expensive and for newcomers it can be forbidding and unfriendly like any large city. Tokyo is not really a refuge for the already down and out.
What really makes me worried is how people’s expectations of the world they live in, the expectations they see others having of themselves (in that sense expectations of expectations) binds people into their predicaments. They think (like the young woman’s father who appears later in the film) that the neighbors think they are strange to talk about certain issues openly. That round-about view of propriety (or maybe what you called the “image of decency”) in the end limits their ability to prosper, because they are stuck more or less within societal norms they themselves delegate.
Am I being too harsh? Because I’m thinking from personal experience, but at the same time, I am very aware that as a foreigner in Japan, I had a kind of freedom no Japanese person has. As a perennial outsider, I could be critical and demand adjustments in situations I considered limiting more than a Japanese person might think possible. And yet, since I wanted more than anything to be a part of the society, I think there were times I tried to conform more than was necessary. . . more than a Japanese person might. . . and so I felt the psychological consequences, of course.
So I guess the question I ask myself is what is the difference between circumstantial limitations that harm creative potential and circumstantial limitations that lead to a kind of creative blossoming? With creative blossoming, I mean a kind of realization of the possibilities in what is at hand, be it simple, everyday materials (such as experimental plastic arts or word-based art like literature and so on) or closely guarded traditional art forms (such as Noh or tea or Western classical music or whatever). . . and now I have come very far from socio-economic definitions of poverty. Is that alright? Does that make sense?