Viewed Sideways. Donald Richie

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СКАЧАТЬ that many of its inhabitants have of themselves. Thus, the Japanese, taking over this image and making it theirs, now insist that they are a hardworking people and are more flattered than not when referred to as workaholics. Such a role would indeed involve rising at dawn, rushing to the office, putting in long hours, racing home, and going to bed early to rest for the next fulfilling day.

      Since this is the official version, it is officially supported. And since everyone has nominally gone home, buses stop running at ten thirty, the subways stop at midnight, and the trains shut down half an hour later. Unlike that of New York and Paris, shameless night-owl abodes, Japanese public transportation does not run all night long.

      Yet, the populace is no more off the streets at midnight now than it was in old Tokugawa Japan. The entertainment districts are filled with people long after midnight. These people are not at home resting for the next fulfilling day. They are getting around the night spots by taking taxis.

      Nor do the Japanese get up at dawn. Indeed, nowadays, a majority does not get to work until ten o’clock, also the hour when the bazaar at Rangoon opens. To be sure, some attempt an earlier arrival. Being first into the office in the morning supports, and in part creates, the modern idea of the Japanese being very hard workers.

      And being the last one out as well. One is supposed to hang around even though one’s work may be finished. Being one of the group is considered important and rushing out to conform to an egotistical timetable is bad form. Rather, one subscribes to the group timetable. This has nothing to do with working hard, however; it has to do with mere attendance.

      Indeed, as one looks more closely at the manner in which modern Japan structures its business day, one becomes aware of the differences between modern and traditional timekeeping and the manner in which these intermingle.

      Once the modern rush to the office is over and the business day is actually begun, the time scheme turns traditional. There are lots of discussions, lots of stopping to drink tea—and nowadays lots of visits to the ubiquitous coffee shop to talk some more. Nor is the talk confined to work in the narrow Western sense of the term. Rather, work is socialized since social talk can serve as work because its larger purpose is the important cementing of personal relations within the working force.

      Thus, the amount of time spent at what we in the West would call work is much less than what one might expect. The notorious efficiency of Japan does not depend upon time spent. Rather, it depends upon the absence of intramural conflict (though with lots of intramural competition) and an ideological solidarity that is almost beyond the comprehension of the United States and most of Europe.

      This is of use mainly (or merely) in the hours, days, years spent together—in the creation and continuation of the group. This is equally true when the office is finally left. It is often left as a group since no one wishes to break cohesion by leaving first. Then the group divides into sub-groups that then go out on the town, to favorite pubs and bars, to continue the social amelioration that has traditionally been so important to Japan.

      Far from early to bed, the upwardly mobile Japanese male is fortunate if he catches the last train home. And often he will stay overnight with an office friend, an event that his wife back home will accept as a part of the normal temporal rhythm of her spouse.

      In places where day and night are divided according to the needs of actual work—such as in, I don’t know, let’s say Chicago—the pattern may be closer to the ideal of which Japan so brags. As it is, Japanese temporal reality is something different—far closer to that of Bangkok or Jakarta, the rest of Asia, places where time is almost by definition something that is spent together.

      Yet, for a culture as time-conscious as Japan’s (one sees mottoes framed on office walls such as “Time is money”), the amount of real temporal waste is surprising. Here, too, the country shows its ancient Asian roots.

      Take the matter of appointments, for example. In the big business world of the West, being punctual is sacrosanct. Again, actuality may be another matter, but all subscribe to the idea that to be on time is to be good.

      In Asia, however, this is not so. One is frequently left cooling one’s heels in the great capitals of the Orient. And Japan, despite its Western temporal veneer, is no different. If you are meeting a member of your group, then he will wait and you can be late. If you are meeting a nonmember you can also be late because it is not so important that you meet or not.

      Spatially, the Japanese are very efficient regarding rendezvous. There are known places to meet. In Tokyo one meets in front of Ginza’s Wako Department Store, in front of the Almond Coffee Shop in Roppongi, in front of the statue of the dog Hachiko in Shibuya, a famous beast who loyally waited years for its dead master.

      Most waiting Japanese are in the position of Hachiko. It is rare to observe anyone being on time. Those who are on time and are doing the waiting are those in an inferior position (in Japan it is the girls who wait for the boys, and not the other way around), or those who want something from the late arrival. Time is money, indeed, but for all this show of making appointments, Japanese standards of punctuality are closer to those of Samarkand than of Paris or London. Still, one wonders. With time so precious that it must be doled out in little pieces, how then can it be so wantonly wasted?

      Well, it is not one’s own time that is being wasted. It is the other person’s, the he or she kept waiting. In fact, one’s own time supply is a bit short. That is why one is late, you see.

      We in the West, who make nothing like the fuss about time that the Japanese do, would be insulted to be kept waiting for, let us say, an hour. Yet many Japanese would wait an hour, standing by the store, coffee shop, or bronze dog.

      And is this not perhaps then the largest difference between the time concepts of East and West? Time is not moral in Asia, it cannot be used as a weapon. And it cannot really be used to indicate virtue (hardworking, efficient) or vice (lax, late for appointments).

      It is rather a seamless entity, an element like the air in which we live. To live naturally with time, says Asia, is to pay no attention to it. And Japan, despite modernization, still subscribes to this ancient tradition. Dig down, through company minutes and office hours, and there, firm, eternal, is time itself.

      —1984

      Japan: Half a Century of Change

      When I came to Japan in a cold January in 1947 the first thing that I noticed was change. It was dramatic. Tokyo, like most Japanese cities, had been nearly destroyed during WWII. People were living in the subway tunnels, there was not enough food, and yet already on this burned plane of black ash was rising the lemon yellow of all the new buildings as the odor of burned wood gave way to the smell of fresh-cut lumber.

      Every day I saw roads being made and canals being filled as the new city burgeoned. Watching the carpenters at work—sawing through the new wood—I saw that their tools cut as they were pulled, not pushed as they were back in the United States.

      I noticed this with understanding—this was something I recognized. For years I had heard that Japan was a kind of topsy-turvy land where everything was done backwards. This had been among the earliest accountings of the country—a model created by early visitors, which had finally reached the snow-covered plains of Ohio, where I had heard of it. So here was something else I could relate to besides all the change: a paradigm for Japan, a model through which I could grasp the metamorphosing place.

      Seemingly different, Japan has always seemed to demand a working model for comprehension, as though the place needed an articulated map, or a working metaphor. Here I was, brand new, and already searching around for one.

      My СКАЧАТЬ