THE AFTER HOURS: Modern Japan and the Search for Enjoyment

by David Flath ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

This ethnographic study of the effects of modernization on Japanese life sets Japan as an ""opposing self"" to contemporary America. The cultural background is different, but the symptomatic changes in the way of life arising from the bloom of industrial civilization are surprisingly similar. Two years of anthropological field work in a small area (Anchiku of Japan's central island) resulted in an appraisal of the social framework developing according to the familiar Western division of work and leisure. All three types of workers in the region--salaried men, farmers, and merchants--have different social attitudes than their forebears and are faced with a new dimension--the ""after-hours"" pursuit of enjoyment. Brief concrete descriptions of the schedules and diversions of several individual families are followed by more general sketches of the changed emerging patterns of Japanese life--daily activities, values and mores. Like the other ""modern"" societies today, the Japanese are discovering the pleasures and problems involved in being both ""worker and aristocrat at the same time."" Commendable for its objective, realistic approach (Arcadian exoticism is notably absent), this competent analysis may serve as groundwork for a Japanese Lonely Crowd.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Univ. of California

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1964

Categories: NONFICTION