Kate Elwood has another interesting cross cultural discussion about fitting into Japanese communities in her column Cultural Conundrums. I have to laugh that the example she uses is the separation of garbage which is the "true" measure of anyone's worth in this society. It just drives people nuts. I've been tuned down for apartments by landlords who were afraid that I won't follow the garbage separation rules. I think I've made a mistake twice since I've lived in Nakano and my landlord who lives in a house behind my apartment contacted the rental agency who sent me a letter informing me of my mistake. Ridiculous stuff:
Apparently this is not something that can always be taken for granted. In Fuji TV's engrossing drama Freeter, Ie o Kau (Part-time worker buys a house), a housewife dutifully sorts up her family's garbage and takes it out, only to have it repeatedly returned to her by a malicious neighbor who has added things to the garbage bag that belong to another category, making it unacceptable for collection. As a result of this and other spiteful pranks, the woman falls into serious depression.
The depressed housewife's family finds out what's going on, but they have no idea why the neighbor--and possibly other neighbors as well--is behaving in such a venomous manner. Then they realize it is because at a neighborhood party her husband bragged that his company was renting them their house for just 50,000 yen a month. As all the neighbors were struggling with onerous home loans, jealous ill will developed.
The part of the episode related to this state of affairs seemed almost like an educational video that might be titled something like "How to get along with fellow PTA members and neighbors: Keeping in line with the Joneses." The English phrase "keeping up with the Joneses" has been used for almost a century to express the striving not to fall behind neighbors in terms of material possessions and social status. In Japan, conversely, the onus is often firmly placed on those ahead of the rest not to vaunt their success. No one likes arrogance, of course, but in Japan, as the drama points out, more effort may be expected to be made in lessening any evidence of someone having greater social status than another.
First, there is a scene in which the freeter's sister, who is married to a doctor, is having lunch at an inexpensive restaurant with other mothers in the PTA. The other mothers comment on how she must enjoy 10,000 yen lunches when she is with other doctors' wives, which she deftly deflects. She eyes the various lunches on the menu, silently wavering between the 850 yen set and 1,050 yen one, but as one after another of the women chooses the cheaper option, she follows suit.
In the next scene, she, the freeter and their father are together. The sister rebukes her father for the damage he has caused their mother by his heedless boasting, in an impassioned outburst in which she says "The people of this country love lining up side by side (yokonarabi). Those who are different from everyone else are expelled (hajikidasareru). Then she uses the "M" word: "It's murahachibu for life."
Murahachibu is a type of village ostracism that dates back to the Edo period (1603-1867). Families that did not toe the line might be sanctioned in this way. According to anthropologist Robert J. Smith, the official notification of murahachibu customarily contained the phrase "having disturbed the harmony of this otherwise peaceful community." Mura means village, and it is generally believed that hachibu means "eight parts" because the break with the shunned villagers was not total--they were usually still assisted in cases of fire, death, and so on.
Some years ago, when I was working at a junior college, a guest speaker was invited to give a special lecture. His specialty was Japanese communication, and during the question-and-answer period, a student asked, "What about murahachibu?" The speaker made a kind of "Oh wow, murahachibu!" exclamation, and he and the audience snickered. That, apparently, was his full response, and the Q&A session continued. Later, the student came to my office and asked me why everyone had laughed when she mentioned murahachibu. I told her I didn't know, but that it was possible that the chortling was because murahachibu was such an extreme and outmoded example of non-communicative social behavior.
Extreme it may be, but a few years later, I discovered that it was not completely outmoded. In 2007 a district court in Niigata Prefecture dealt with a murahachibu case. Eleven families in a rural area had been shunned because they did not participate in a local fishing contest. Among other restrictions, they were not allowed to use the waste collection depot, and community bulletins were not to be passed to them. The village leaders claimed that their non-participation in an important event was selfish and detrimental to the community. The court agreed the shunned villagers had been dealt with unjustly and ordered three village leaders to pay 2.2 million yen in compensation.
In his book What is Japan? Contradictions and Transformations, Taichi Sakaiya, a former director general of the now defunct Economic Planning Agency, calls social isolation a "fate worse than death." He writes that people may think that the Japanese kamikaze were unafraid to die for their country. On the contrary, he argues, many were quite afraid and did not want to go on their missions, but that refusing to go against the wishes of those around them was more frightening and painful. He does not mention murahachibu specifically, but he notes that traditionally, "falling out of favor with the village group meant that one would not survive."
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