Poverty on the Farm

Comparison is theme of this chapter, which looks at rural poverty as a way of understanding what was universal and what unique about urban poverty. After a look at the nature-and season-dominated village setting, the work examines daily life: hard work in the rice fields, raising silkworms, the role of women in both fields and homes. A special theme is the importance community played, in setting rules, providing mutual support, and giving children a more productive place than they enjoyed in the hinminkutsu. The pursuit of pleasure also is seen as important in village life: in baths, in relatively open sexuality, and in the constant festivals. A summary shows that villages, the source of most of the urban migration, were at least as poor as city slums but that the rural poverty’s effect was softened by the natural setting and the village sense of community.

Shadows and Storms

Chapter Five looks at the special problems that accompanied poverty, problems made worse by the near total lack of buffers when special difficulties arose. It begins with those who hit rock bottom, particularly the homeless and juvenile beggars (kojiki kozō). Next, it takes up illnesses that attacked the poor with special frequency and force, including STDs, tuberculosis and cholera. There also is a discussion of the isolation hospitals (actually, dying dumps) to which poor people with contagious diseases often were sent. Then come disasters such as floods and fires, which ravaged hinmin areas more often than other parts of the cities. A section on crime examines police data to show that while petty crimes like pickpocketing were high, other types of crime were no higher in hinmin areas than elsewhere. The chapter concludes with the psychic issues that accompanied poverty, including the tendency toward self-blame and the frequency of suicide.

Conclusion

This chapter contains summary themes. First, it shows that the material side of hinmin life was excruciating, marked by inadequate income and terrible living conditions. Second, it argues that at the mental and spiritual level, hinmin felt like outsiders, a fact reinforced by the slums where many of them lived and their exclusion from institutions such as the schools. At the same time, it shows that they identified with modern society and sought to be part of it: they built it, they took part in city life, and they were political activists. The third section looks at how contemporary poverty differs from late-Meiji poverty, noting the absence today of slums and the presence of universal schooling, a welfare system, and a widespread belief in equality. A concluding section argues that hinmin were essentially “ordinary” human beings placed in extraordinary circumstances.

Earning a Living

This category included the most visible hinin, the ones who enabled the cities to operate every day. The movers did myriad jobs: working on trains, delivering mail, pulling carts, collecting night soil. They were represented especially by the shafu or rickshaw pullers—some 40,000 of them in Tokyo alone at the peak. Individualistic and colourful, yet capable of organized action, they are treated here as symbols of the entire modernity project. The server category also included a great variety of workers, among them shampooers and masseuses, shop apprentices, bath house workers (sansuke), performers, and rag pickers. Considerable attention is paid to the inbaifu or unlicensed prostitutes, many of whom were housewives operating outside the legal entertainment world symbolized in the Yoshiwara brothel quarters. All in this category received very low wages, and women earned less than men.

Earning a Living

Two occupation groups are at the center of this chapter: factory workers and those engaged in construction. In the former category, the focus is on laborers in the textile factories and on match-makers. A positive feature of this kind of work was the regularity of income, but negative features such as long hours, low wages, ill-treatment, and (for textile factory girls) confinement in dormitories dominated. One of the key characteristics of factory work was the dominance of women and children. The builders are represented by craftsmen and day laborers. The former had a rich tradition but saw both their prestige and their income decline in the Meiji years. Day laborers were among the least respected but most colorful of hinmin groups, and their work was sporadic at best.

The Slum Setting

After a description of a “ typical” hinmin day in Tokyo, the chapter examines the forces that caused Japan’s cities to mushroom and slums to explode numerically after the 1880s, in particular the mass migration of young farm males because of rural economic disasters. The slums (hinminkutsu) and other poverty pockets where they lived are then described, not only as grim and polluted places but as neighborhoods full of energy and variety. In Osaka, the poor lived primarily in the south; in Tokyo, they lived in shitamachi—the northeastern wards such as Asakusa and Fukagawa along the Sumida River. A discussion follows of hinmin living spaces. The greatest numbers lived in cheap, cramped apartments in nagaya or row houses, paying rent by the day; the worst off lived in kichin’yado or flophouses.

Introduction

The introduction begins with an overview of the sources of the study: articles by journalists like Yokoyama Gennosuke and Matsubara Iwagorō, official records, and reminiscences of literary figures. It then notes the dominant motifs of popular late-Meiji writers who saw the hinmin as pitiable, responsible for their own plights, lazy and morally lax—in other words, inferior. That section is followed by a summary of key themes of social scientists, particularly Nakagawa Kiyoshi, who have found a less pejorative, more objective reality characterized by dense housing, low wages, long work hours, and multiple reasons for being poor. The introduction concludes with a summary of the key points that the book will make in its effort to understand how the poor themselves experienced life: that life was grim, that the hinmin were resilient with a strong sense of agency, and that joy and hope were important in their lives.

Poverty Abroad

This chapter too shows how poverty among Japanese immigrants on Hawai’ian sugar plantations differed from that in Japan’s cities. It begins with the reasons for immigration and the locales from which people came, as well as the process for getting to the plantations. A section on the sugar fields focuses on how hard the work was, how cruel overseers (lunas) were, and the role played by women. The section on camp life shows the importance of baths and temples and how the coming of women and of religious and educational institutions stabilized the camps. And a section on change discusses the emergence of labor activism, the remittances sent to families in Japan, the growing diversity of jobs, the improvement health care, and the importance of education, including Japanese-language schools. The chapter concludes that change occurred more rapidly in Hawai’i than in the hinminkutsu, for reasons that were primarily structural.

The Sun Also Shone

The brighter aspects of hinmin life are examined here, with poor people seen as agents who embraced challenges and sought to enjoy life. At work, many found meaning in what they did, even as they strove to advance and engaged in individual acts of protest. In the political sphere, it is clear that hinmin were heavily involved in the public protests and riots that marked the late-Meiji years—and that they had a significant impact. At home, they read newspapers in surprising numbers, created communities that, over time, began to resemble the village communities from which they had come, and they worked to improve their finances and their lives. Beyond that, the hinmin were celebrators. Their participation in street markets, in holidays, in seasonal celebrations such as blossom-viewing, and in temple festivals is detailed, with an emphasis on the the Asakusa temples and entertainment centers.

Making a Life

Here, the focus is on the nature of daily life at home. Beginning with a “typical” August 1901 day in the “Ueki” household, the chapter shows that the effort to survive was framed by great struggle and even greater ingenuity. A section on the household shows fluidity and variety in family arrangements, with increasing stability as the era passed. Children sometimes roamed freely on the streets but most of the time they worked for pay, to enable the family to survive; few were able to go to school. Food was basic, and families bought from leftover food shops; the hinmin did, however, include alcohol in their budgets and they frequented cheap restaurants, including izakaya or grog shops. When things got especially tight, families took out loans, often at usurious rates, and resorted to the ubiquitous pawnshops (shichiya). Only a few received charity or assistance.