read and formulate 150-300 words responses to one or more of the readings

--

.. I

"./1 RUSSIA

CHINA

"" r" ../" j". ."

" -- ") /

Japan and environs

* PROLOGUE

If you really wish to write about San'ya, don't with the workers. Shedding tears in their company is all too easy, and you cry, you lose

of where they're going. That's what I was told. But I will weep with them when I wish, Only then can I truly view their world clear-eyed, That was my reply.

-Miyashita Tadako, San'ya nikki (San'ya diary)

Reml~mbejr-"yolu can't spell "bum" without a "u" in it, -Bowery man (anonymous)

My active engagement with San'ya, the Tokyo backwater that is home to some seven or eight thousand day laborers, was inaugurated with a punch in the face,

I had long known about San'ya and its sordid reputation, The name alone conjures up in the minds of most Japanese unsavory images morallassi­ tude and physical decay, I did not actually set foot in it, however, until the spring of 1989, during one of a series of walks I was making through the plebeian sections of Tokyo on the city's eastern side known as Shitamachi or "Low City" (to borrow Edward G, Seidensticker's rendering from his Low City, High where San'ya is located,

The incident I refer to took place several visits later in early fall of the same year. The weather that October was clear and crisp-a welcome change from the muggy heat of August and the incessant rains of Septem­ ber, A perfect day, in short, for exploring the city, which is what I had been doing since morning, working my way block by block, as was my habit, away from Asakusa, Shitamachi's principal amuscment center-this time toward the site of Yoshiwara, the fabled pleasure quarter that survived until 1958 and that lies just beyond San'ya's western edge, On this day alone I had shot several rolls of film, capturing whatever street scene I thought notable and then, conscious of the miles left to trek, moving on to the next block.

The sun had already set as I crossed the street dividing the former

I

SAN'YA

Yoshiwara (now Senzoku 4-ch6me) and Nihonzutsumi, one of the admin­ istrative districts making up San'ya. The gathering dusk increased the air of unsavoriness, and I reflected on the concerns of some of my Tapanese friends about the area's possible hazards (lilt's dirty!"; "It's dangerous!"; lilt's

The three or four self-guided tours I had undertaken since the however, had been without incident. Tokyo is a very safe city. Yet as

I ambled for the first time after dark down the dilapidated, tunnel-like shopping arcade that leads into the of San'ya, I wondered if I should have taken my friends' concerns more seriously.

During previous walks through the neighborhood I had not encountered any hostility among the street people except for an occasional drnnken epithet or scowl-perhaps brought on as much by surprise or embarrass­ ment as by disdain for the outsider in their midst. On the contrary, I fre­ quently met with displays of affable disbelief at my presence and even with open-armed welcomes by more than a few men, distilled spirits in hand, who seemed ready for any excuse to socialize. Looking back on my very first encounters, I recall that I rarely availed myself of opportunities to associate with people whom I looked upon more as subjects for my camera than as partners in conversation.

I proceeded east through the dilapidated arcade, known as the lroha, which bustled with evening San'ya is home to entrepreneurs, office workers, shopkeepers, and housewives as well as to day laborers, and the teeming arcade serves the entire community. The farther east you walk, however, the drearier the surroundings become. Disheveled men sit in lazy circles drinking and chatting. Others lie on the street, sleeping off their liquor. More line up in front of two or three tiny take-out stalls, waiting to buy dinner. Still others imbibe at a stand-up bar opening onto the street.

The bar is called Sen'nari, a mere hole in the wall near the arcade's east end which holds barely six or eight people and serves grilled pig guts

a cheap and nutritious dish popular in day-laborer neigh­ borhoods. The bar was filled to capacity that evening, and the men were jovial. They would have just returned from their jobs at various construc­ tion sites. Thanks to good weather and a general construction boom, work was plentiful. The gaiety and camaraderie contrasted pleasantly with the bar's dismal surroundings. The scene was an ideal subject for a picture. There was still a frame or two left on the roll, and my flash unit was already mounted. I did not want to disturb the men. I certainly did not want them to disturb me. I snapped the picture, barely slowing down to focus, and moved on.

I did not get five steps past the bar before being surrounded by half a dozen drunken men whose faces were no longer smiling. One tall, sinewy man, a characteristic worker's towel twisted around his head, grabbed me by the

2

PROLOGUE

arm betore 1 could even thml< of making a run for it. Who was I to be taking pictures without their permission? he yelled. There were to be no reporters spying on them! His words were seconded by a volley of heckles. The group closed in on me. Then it came: a punch in the face along with a thick­ tongued curse about the II damned foreigner" to augment the blow. I reeled back but did not go down, being hemmed in on all sides, and could only steel myself for whatever else might come.

The scuffle was quickly brought to a halt when the leader forced himself between me and the man coming at me and reminded him that they weren't looking to start an international incident. They were, however, wary of media exposure of any kind and did not take kindly to strangers walking up unannounced and snapping pictures. All wanted was an apology and possession of the

I was hardly in a position to negotiate. But taking courage from the leader's gesture of conciliation, I rubbed my jaw and hazarded an objection

~ in hopes of saving the film. To give it up would mean losing the rest of the pictures on the roll, which had nothing to do with San'ya. I was sorry to have offended anyone, but perhaps there was a way to give up the last picture without losing all the others?

The leader reminded me that he would be calling the shots. He then announced to the other men his plan to escort me to a nearby camera shop where we two would work everything out. He could handle me alone just fine, he said as he yanked me away from the others. We walked in the direction I had come from, to a tiny photo studio on the arcade's west end.

call him Shiga after the prefecture in western Japan from who first grabbed me and then saved me from further

injury, did not let go until we had walked halfway through the arcade, which is to say well out of the other men's sight. Even after leading captive safely out of harm's way, however, he did not mince his words.

"You're a damned fool, you know." Shiga spat out the sentence in a piercing, throaty voice. "Listen to you. You can speak Japanese. Speak it real good. So what happens? You go and bring this whole business on yourself because you were too damned arrogant to open your mouth when it counted. All you had to do was ask, you know. Why didn't you just ask to take our picture? If any of the men didn't like the idea, they'd have told you so or moved out of the way. But no, you just had to barge right in and ~hoot us."

"But I didn't want to bother you," I lIyou all looked so merry in there. I didn't want to spoil the mood."

"You don't think a camera flashing in our spoils the mood? Next time do the decent thing and ask us before you go snapping away. We every right to be upset. You butted into our lives and then tried to walk away from us. You can't get away with that-at least not around here."

a, 3 iii..

A,

Iroha Arcade, east entrance. San'ya Workers' Hall (under construction) is on the right.

PROLOGUE

Before I could reflect on or rebut Shiga's words, we had reached the stu­ dio. After a brief exchange with the clerk, it was decided that Shiga would have first viewing rights of the developed slides so that he could remove the source of embarrassment. I could come anytime afterward to pick up the remaining slides. Shiga and I then went our separate ways: he east through the arcade back to Sen'nari, I north along the avenue that bisected Ni­ honzutsumi and Senzoku to the nearest subway station home.

I spent several restless days and sleepless nights. I told no one of incident, not even my wife, who is Japanese. Doing so, I was convinced, would confirm her worst suspicions about the area. Hadn't I visited San'ya enough already to satisfy my curiosity? she had complained to me more than once before. Wasn't I risking an ugly confrontation or worse? More to the point, wasn't I wasting my precious research time in Japan? If I had that many free hours on my hands, why couldn't I spend more of them with her and our young child?

Why couldn't I, indeed? I had no obligations, scholarly or otherwise, in San'ya. Two year-long literary projects had brought me to Tokyo, I re­ minded myself, and I was bound to them if to nothing else. I had emerged from a potentially disastrous situation relatively unscathed; I should count my blessings, cut my losses, and wash my hands entirely of the area.

And yet I knew that I could not simply walk away from events now. There was too much at stake in reading correctly the message that had been

at me. I had to return to San'ya not just to retrieve my slides but also to revisit the site of that ill-fated photograph. I had to confront the guests of Sen'nari again and let them know, if only by my presence without a camera, that I had understood the message. I set out four days later.

story of that return trip is better told later in this book. Suffice it to say that reflection on the incident had made me see Shiga and the other men's side of the issue in a more sympathetie light. I had indeed been the instigator, the intruder. In fact, I had violated something these men obvi­ ously held very dear-their freedom to be not simply undisturbed but unobserved-forced them, in effect, into exposing their vulnerable and un­ reflecting presence. I was putting them on display, moreover, while con­ cealing my own identity-a voyeur safely cloaked in anonymity.

With a single swing of his fist, a drunken day laborer had shaken up the easy formula of San'ya resident as pictorial commodity and foreign observer as picture-snapping consumer. I brushed off my pride and began visiting San'ya regularly to learn as much as I could. I went at all hours of the day and sometimes stayed the night. I spoke with day laborers, bureaucrats, missionaries, and shopkeepers and took part in many activities, some of which are descrihed in these pages. I returned to Japan without my family in the summer of 1991 for a six-week stay, during which I lived in San'ya and

5

SAN'YA

worked as a day laborer. In the process I came to realize how important this dingy Tokyo neighborhood is to the Japanese economy as a whole. The narratives that follow are the result of these various investigations and experiences. The detail will, I hope, not detract from my initial impression, which struck me with such unexpected force, of the area: its inhabitants collectively give the lie to so much of what is. being said and written about Japan.

The common view of this powerful East Asian nation, held by academics and journalists alike, is that the Japanese are a breed apart; that their cus­ toms are not simply alien from our own but, in the extreme view, border on the nonhuman; that they are a colorless people who look alike, dress alike, and think alike, performing their social and economic roles mindlessly and mechanically in the manner of so many interchangeable parts. In searching for the reasons behind Japan's spectacular economic success, we in the West have fastened on the country's supposed social and ethnic homogeneity, as if this quality were as natural to the Japanese landscape as its mountainous terrain and island topography.

The diversity that is habitually concealed in mainstream society, how­ ever, is often graphically revealed in San'ya and other day-laborer com­ munities like it throughout urban Japan. It turns out that Japanese, who have been described (in the words of James Fallows) as categorically "different from you and me," are in fact very different from one another.

people in San'ya do not, and should not, represent the country at large. Neither should any other single group. It just so happens that the differences that manage to persist in many parts of Japan despite rigorous centralization and social control are particularly pronounced in San'ya. There I encountered people who came from virtually every social and eth­ nic group living in Japan. Some people I met were generous, others some were warm and garrulous, others aloof and morose. I encountered a good many decent people and I ran into a few scoundrels. Hardly any were what might be described as "colorless."

Not only did the day laborers I met in San'ya not fit any stereotype, they reminded me again and again of the many other people I know in main­ stream society who fit the stereotypes no better than they. For the closer I looked, the more I realized that the line dividing San'ya and the rest of society is a thin one indeed. The story of San'ya as I tell it is in fact the side of the well-known hymn to economic success in Japan, for it describes the heavy price paid by a great many for that success. It is the story of lost hopes and failed dreams; it is about the wrenching migration from country to citYi it is about a city's (and by extension a nation's) attempt to modern­ ize at the expense of its cultural memory; it is about the discrepancy be­ tween Japan's immense corporate wealth and the unenviable living condi­

\

6

I 1 r (] mi

o 200 300 km

8. lbaraki 15. Niigata 22. Ishikawa 29. Osaka 36. Kagawa 43. Oita 9. Tochigi 16. Nagano 2:3. Fukui 30. Hytigo 37. Tokushima 44. Kumamoto

10. Gumma 17. Yamanashi 24. Shiga 31. Tottori 38. Ehime 45. Miyazaki 11. Chiba 18. Shizuoka 25. Mie :32. Okaymna 39. Kochi 46. Kagoshima 12. Saitama 19. 26. Kyoto 33. Shimane 40. Fukuoka 47. Okinawa 13. Tokyo 20. 27. Nara 34. Hiroshima 41. Saga 14. Kallagawa 21. Aiehi 28. Wakayama 35. Yamaguchi 42. Nagasaki

7. Fukushima 22. Ishikawa 26. Kyoto 15. Niigata 24. Shiga 19. Toyama

Alita 20. Gifu 3. lwate 25. Mie 43.0ita 33. Shimane 28. Wakayarna Aomor! 10. Gumma 36. Kagawa 5. 32.0kayama 18. Shizuoka 6. Yamagata

. ChIt. 34. Hiroshima 46. Kagoshima 45. 47. Okinawa 9. Tochigi &S. Yamaguchi IhllllC! 1. Hokkaido 14. 16. Nagano 29. Osaka 37. Tokushima 17. Yamallashi t'uku' 30. Hyogo 39. 42. Nagasaki 41. Saga 13. t'ukullka 8. Ibaraki 44, KUB'mmoto 27. Nara 12. Saitama 31.

I~ .....tures of Japan

1I1IIIl.

SAN'YA

tions of those mobilized to support it; and it is about the statist goals, oblivious to individual aspirations, that underwrite this discrepancy. The story of San'ya, in many surprising ways, is the story of Japan today.

At the same time, it is the story of one person's very particular and no doubt highly idiosyncratic experience of and of Japan. It is told out of an acute awareness of the reciprocal relationship between portrayer and portrayed"":'-thanks to my memorable encounter in a run-down arcade one autumn evening in 1989. What follows, then, is not simply a description of an economically essential yet largely disenfranchized segment of Japanese society, but a meditation on why the existence of this segment should matter at all to one non-Japanese who happened to spoil an evening for half a dozen workers just returned from a hard day on the job.

8

CHAPTER I

(@

SETTING

San'ya is the largest of several Tokyo yoseba, or gathering places for casual laborers who get work off the street. The workers are called, with varying degrees of condescension, by many names-hiyatoi rodosha "laborer employed by the day") being the most neutral, but also dokata ("ground side," i.e., unskilled or common laborer who roadwork or other construction work), ninpu or ninsoku (coolie/navvy), piltara ("child of the wind," transientl, tachinbo (from tachinbo or /I standby/' Le., one who awaits a job on the street), or, if you are in Osaka or elsewhere in the Kansai region, anko (from ank6 or "angler fish," Le., one who idly awaits a job-typically dock work-to snap

San'ya's reputation as an urban blight far exceeds its actual area, of­ ficially, 1.66 km. 2 or just over a half square mile, which is to say a mere dot on the vast Tokyo landscape. (San'ya is situated in the districts of Kiyokawa and Nihonzutsumi and parts of Hashiba and Higashi Asakusa in Taito Ward, and parts of Minami Senjti in Arakawa Ward.) Home to as many as fifteen thousand day laborers during its heyday in the late 1950S and early 1960s, it had in the early 1990S about half that number living among a permanent population some thirty-five thousand. More than two-thirds of the day laborers come from Japan's eastern half-the island of Hokkaido and the Tohoku and Kanta regions of Honshu-of which the sprawling Tokyo metropolis is the major hub. The great majority make their home in

9

AL.

CHAPTER 2

~

LIVES

The following conversations with people who either live or work in/out of San 'ya, presented here in the form of monologues and in roughly chrono­ logical order by group, took place from the fall of 1989 to the summer of 1991. The speakers are generally identified only by their place of birth or upbringing (prefecture, city, town, or village, in the case of those from the provinces; ward or district, in the case of those from Tokyo), or, when such information is unavailable, simply by the place of meeting or other metonymical device. Descriptions are kept brief in the interest of ano­ nymity, giving only the speaker's age, occupation, place of meeting, and the occasion, if notable. Additional information is presented when deemed crucial to understanding the conversation. For an explanation of the interviewing method, see Interviewing.

Day Laborers

NAGANO. MID-THIRTIES. DAY LABORER. TAMAHIME PARK. FALL FESTIVAL.

NOVEMBER 1989.

The 1989 Fall Festival is my most serious to because I am able to chat with a number time. Some of the conversations are

SAN'YA

Nagano is oddly pensive as he observes the festivities from his perch on a makeshift stage, which is not now in use.

I've lived in San'ya for thirteen years now, but I'm originally from Nagano. If you've been there, you know what good saba noodles taste like. In Tokyo they dilute the buckwheat with too much flour. Sure, you've got to mix in some flour to stretch the batter. But they really overdo it here.

I do roadwork, mostly, and I've done it all over-Tokyo, Kanagawa, Yamanashi, Saitama, Chiba. Sometimes as far away as my home prefecture. If the job is close by I get there by train or subway, or by one of the minivans that the tehaishi arrange for us right out of Namidabashi. For jobs farther out I live in a hanba.

The hanba jobs I've had usually run for about a ten-day stretch. The work can be sheer torture. The pay's decent, though. I don't mean that you make a killing, because you never know where the next job/s coming from. Right now I'm in between jobs and down to my last bill. I'm sleeping in the park for the time being-right over there behind the rocks. It's not too cold yet, so I make out all right. It's no fun sleeping out during winter or the monsoon season, though. No fun at all.

Things really aren't all that bad now. I mean, I still have December to look forward to, and December is boom time for construction workers. I'll make a bundle then. You've got to make a bundle or you'll never make it through the New Year's holiday, because business stops cold. Things are hard then. But I've always made it through before. And I don't see why I won't make it through again.

Cheers. Let's drink to good times.

., UTSUKUSHIGAHARA. MID-FIFTIES. DAY LABORER. TAMAHIME PARK. FALL FESTIVAL. NOVEMBER 198 9.

In his dress, manner, dialect, and delivery, this native of central Japan has taken on the patina of a Tokyo Shitamachi resident.

I guess you could say I'm an old-timer, but I'm not from around here. I come from Nagano. No, not the city. It's a place in the mountains called Utsukushigahara. Itls just like the name says. Beautiful meadow.

I first came to San'ya in 1952. Why? The reason's simple. There wasn't a job to be had in the provinces. So I came to the city to help the family back home make ends meet. I'm the first-born son, and they were my responsi­ bility. I took any work I could get.

I hate to admit it, but I'm slowing down a bit. I just got out of the hospital awhile ago after a three-month lay-up. I had a run-in with the police and got

54\

LIVES

my shoulder smashed for my trouble. I still like to get out and support a good cause, and I'm not afraid of a fight if things come to that. Thanks to my enthusiasm, I've done time in Abashiri [the Hokkaido prisonj. With a record like mine, San'ya's about the only place for a fellow like me to get by.

My wHe's forty-six. She's a nurse and lives here in Tokyo. I've had two girls by her. They're in their twenties now. I've asked her a hundred times for a divorce, but she always refuses. Says it's for the girls' sake. She's worried about their marriage prospects. Finding them husbands with an ex­ con for a father in the wings is a real headache, she tells me, but apparently things'd be worse if I were to vanish from the scene altogether.

I guess I should be honest and tell you I had a third child by another woman. That caused problems. Ended up giving my brother all the money I had and told him to take care of the kid. I admit I've done my share of foolish things. But I still manage to keep going.

So, you're from Amcrica. You know, I can remember the Occupation like it was yesterday. Being in the countryside saved us from getting bombed out, but after the defeat, we were in for a shock. Suddenly our village Was overrun with GIs!

If you want to know the truth, I'm glad Japan lost the war. It was rough going those first years after I945, but we were sure better off in the long run, no doubt about that. If Japan had won and the military had its way, we'd have become a police state, and there'd be hell to pay. So you see, things could be worse. That's right, a lot, lot worse.

TORIG,oE. LATE FIFTIES. DAY LABORER. TAMAHIME PARK. FALL FESTIVAL.

NOVEMBER I989 .

Hi there. How're you doing? Glad you could make it today. So, what do you think of San'ya? Yeah, it's a bit dreary, I'll admit, but it's home. It's been home to me for thirty-five years now. I know just about everybody. les like one big happy family here. Not that it's an easy life. But the union [Santoro] has been good to us. And it shows in the men's faces. Just take a look around you. We're really enjoying ourselves.

Say, do you have gatherings like this in America? I mean where the day laborers and street bums pitch in with their own money and elbow grease to make the event a success? We don't rely a bit on help from the outside. And we're proud of that.

Here, drink up. [Torigoe hands me a can of High Sour, II a shochu-based cocktail.] That's the nice thing about this union. They don't care if you drink. They even make it a point to serve alcohol at functions like this. I myself really shouldn't be touching the stuff. I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Been a member twice, in fact. Never been able to kick the

55

SAN'YA

habit, though. You've got AA in the States, too, don't you? They've got a good thing going, I'll admit, hut I could sure do without the religion. I don't know how it is in your country, but here you have to put up with a lot of preaching before you can get with the program.

The union's much more low-key. They don't make a fuss about lushes like me. I like that. They understand. Like I said, we're just one big happy family here. I don't know how much longer that'll last, though. We hear rumors all the time now about us getting moved clean out of San'ya to someplace like Harumi in Tokyo Bay-or Ariake, which is even farther out. Well, they're forgetting one thing. This is home for us. I was born and raised in Torigoe right here in Taita Ward. Others come from as far as Hokkaido and Okinawa. But this is our only home now.

The park here didn't used to have a cage, but look what they've done to it. Now I hear they want to fence in the whole business and lock us out altogether. Well, we're not going to let them get away with it. After all, where else can we take a load off our feet and relax? Where else can we spend the night when we're out of dough? San'ya wouldn't be the same without this park. No, the bureaucrats won't get it without a fight, I can tell you. They'll have to take it away from us over my dead--- Hey, Ume­ chan [the nickname of a union officer]! Here's my contribution [he hands Ume-chan two hundred yen]. Sorry I can't give you more, but it's all I can afford right now. Now let me have a swig from that sake bottle you were lugging around. What, you're out already? Damn!

YAMAGATA. EARLY FORTIES. DAY LABORER. TAMAHIME PARK AND SAN'YA

TAVERN. NOVEMBER 1989.

Among the many laborers I meet at the Fall Festival is a stocky, ruddy­ faced man in a baseball cap who has overheard several of my chats with other men. After we talk in the park, he invites me to have a drink with him elsewhere. We walk to a taveI11 nearby, which is closed, and then to another near Minami Senju Station, which is open and filled to capacity. At least two of the waitresses are Chinese; they are part of a rapidly grow­ ing population of migrant workers in Japan earning hard currency to send home. The two of us run up the tab, going through beer after beer and several entrees. Yamagata insists on footing the bill.

They call me "Tiger Spade" and let me tell you, I can wield a mean shoveL Once some drunkard was throwing his weight around and trying to pick a fight. And so I gave him a look that could kill and told him} off the top of my head, "Hey, do you know who you're messin' with? Tiger Spade, that's who." He backed off in a hurry. [Laughs.) Anyway, the name stuck.

56

LIVES

it?

You know, those union leaders made some flashy speeches and the au­ dience cheered them on} but who do they think they're kidding? They're not doing anyone a bit of good. Not in the long run, at any rate. Okay, I admit they've improved the day laborer's wages and working conditions. But their failings are inexcusable. And their biggest failing, if you ask me, is their inability to lift these men up spiritually.

I say "inability," but maybe it's just plain refusal. I mean, the union doesn't even seem interested in making the workers' think seriously about the future. It won't help anybody to play the mother hen trying to keep all the chicks under its wing. The workers will never get a better life if they don't learn how to fend for themselves. They'll just keep on living like dogs. The only way you're going to change the system is to deal with it head on. You've got to pay your taxes. You've got to vote. Do you think any of the men here do that? Do you think the union tells them to? Or to join the national health-care or retirement programs? I doubt it.

You can probably tell that I'm a new face in San'ya. I wonder if you can tell that I've had an education. I'll bet there aren't too many around here who can boast a university degree, let alone one from a national university like Tahoku in SendaL I've been working here and there ever since getting booted from my first job. Don't ask where I worked-you'd recognize the name. The job took me all over the world. places like Saudi Arabia. Your country as well. A couple of times, in fact. The first trip was eighteen years ago. The next trip was about three years after thefirst. My second son was born there. My third was born six years after that. He's nine already. My oldest boy'd be seventeen if he were still alive. The time really flies, doesn't

I came to San'ya only about a month or so ago, and I don't plan to stay here long. But in the meantime, the money's good. I make sixteen thousand yen a day, and I'm going to be working all but two days this month. Figure it out. Not a bad wage, is it? And I save it, too. I spend only ¥320 a day on the train fare to and from the genba (construction site) in Komagome. Another eight hundred goes for my bed at the Palace House. A little more goes for meals, and some more for the rent I pay for a tiny room out in Higashi Jflja where I was staying before. I hold onto it because I need space for my belongings. There's no place to put anything in the bunk they give you at the Palace. The rest I send home. Every last penny of it.

Home is in Yamagata Prefecture. The wife and kids are there. I tell you, there's no one who loves his wife more than I do. We've known each other since we were in middle school. I guess you can say it's a puppy love that went all the way. I've been living away from her about four years now. We see each other maybe ten times a year-every couple of months, plus the Obon and New Year's holidays, plus any other time something comes up.

57

SAN'YA

in San'ya who is visibly surprised by the that [am speaking Japanese. Yamagata intervenes.

Hey, why should this guy's language impress you? We're in Japan, after all. Is that such a big thing to ask the people who come here-speak Japa­ nese? I mean, the Chinese girls working here speak it, don't they? That doesn't seem to impress you one bit. Now, how come? They're both new arrivals, yet they're already holding down a job. Why should we give Ameri­ cans a free ride? My friend here says he's been studying the language for years. Well, he'd be able to make himself understood, or there's really something wrong with him. You must he new to San'ya. That's right, I can tell. Just look at your hands. They're soft as gloves. Oh, no wonder, you were wearing gloves-as a taxi driver! Well, let me tell you something. You'll never get far around here until you put some calluses on those hands. ... Okay, so you're interested in a job? Yeah, I think I can help out. Just show up tomorrow morning at five-thirty in front of the Palace. That's where I'm staying. I'll give you a few pointers then. That's right, five-thirty. I'll be there. [The former taxi driver leaves.]

He'll never show up. You can bet your last yen on it. Did you hear him complain when I said the time? But that's when things happen here in San'ya. If you want to be in the game, then you've got to play it by the rules. He doesn't have it in him, I can tell. Just a piece of trash. I hope he's not the wave of the future. That'd mean Japan's new generation of day laborers will really lose out to the migrant workers. They're coming here in droves now, aren't they, from all over.

San'ya's one hell of an interesting place, isn't it? Still, I'll be glad when I get out of here. Get set up in some business. Be back home with the family. I only wish that all my family were still around. My oldest boy-I told you about him, didn't I? He'd be seventeen now if he were still alive. He got run over by a truck soon after we returned from my second trip to the United States. He wasn't used to having cars drive on the wrong side of the road. I mean, it was the wrong side of the road to him, in Japan. You drive on the right side in the States. We drive on the left side here. Just think. Seventeen. But there's no bringing him back, is there? No bringing him back.

(I IROHA. LATE FORTIES. DAY LABORER. SAN'YA WORKERS' HALL, iN IROHA ARCADE. APRIL I990.

[ do not know where this man is from, and so he shall be named after the arcade where [first meet him. There is something of the patrician about [roha. His speech, demeanor, and unmarked face him an air distinction. Other men speak to him deferentially, using his given name

60

LIVES

rather than a nickname, as is common in the yoseba. [roha is one of a half­ dozen men who have volunteered their labor for the day at the Workers' Hall construction site. [ have ventured inside the bUilding and happen to catch the group during a break. The air is lively, and [roha is in a mood to talk.

Well, this is a surprise. You're from the United States and teach Japanese literature! I should tell you that I'm not entirely ignorant of your field. I know the name of Donald Keene. He's published a lot in Japanese, hasn't he? He has good taste in literature. Or should I say he likes the kind of literature I do.

I've read a fair amount in my day. My candidate for the best tale ever written is Arabian Nights. Journey to the West comes a close second. As for Japanese authors, I like Natsume Soseki. He was a superb writer. You proba­ bly know that he was influenced by rakugo [comic monologue]. Rakugo was one of the great traditional arts in Japan. It was the best literature of protest we had. Thanks to rakugo the common people could voice their resistance to authority.

My interest in rakugo goes way back. I was an officer of my middle-school rakugo club. All of us members were taken with rakugo and its spirit of resistance. We wanted to live that spirit. We began by swearing that we'd boycott the national universities, since they are the institutions that turn out the bureaucrats. They're generally more prestigious than the private universities, but we didn't want to be tarnished by establishment values. Maybe that's why I like this place. The spirit of resistance still lives here. You're not going to find many supporters of the regime in this neighborhood!

You know what? None of my cohorts ever did go to a national university. We all entered private schools, myself included. Yes, those really were the days! I didn't go on with my studies, though. Something just snapped .... Enough said.

That's right, I speak of rakugo in the past tense. That's because there are no good comic artists performing nowadays. You have to know what it means to be poor. You have to live the poverty you talk about in order to generate the kind of humor that made rakugo so great-the kind that cuts to the quick.

Drop by again sometime. If I'm off work, I'll give you my rendition of a traditional ghost story. I tell a pretty good one, if I do say so myself.

FUKUOKA. MID-SIXTIES. FORMER DAY LABORER. BUNKMATE AT PALACE

HOUSE. MAy J990.

Unlike my fellow occupants, [ am not in the market for a job this morn­ ing, a day between holidays during Golden Week, when the construction

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SAN'YA

business tails off. One other man lingers in the room, and we eventually strike up a conversation.

I've lived here at the Palace for four years. This is my home. What you see here is all I've got. A few clothes in these bags. The coats hanging above my bunk. My transistor radio. A couple of pots for cooking noodles on the gas burners upstairs. That's about it. I don't need anything more.

I worked for years as a day laborer. Nothing complicated or specialized. I didn't have the skills for that. I did clean-up and loading jobs. You know, the simple stuff.

Simple-but the work wears you out. And when you work hard day in and day out, drink is about the only consolation. So I drank. Drank way too much, in fact. Ruined my health. The alcohol eventually went to my head and-well, it's never been the same since. [Laughs.] Ended up in the hospi­ taL Then here at the Palace. I'm on welfare for disability. It isn't much, but it's enough to get by on. After all, the bunks here are only eight hundred yen a night.

I was able to get on welfare without having to register as a resident. I don't think you can do that now. I had no other means of support. My parents in Fukuoka got fed up with me long ago and finally disowned me. I've still kept in touch with some of the folks back home, and bless them, they even urge me to come back. But the rest-well, let's just say I'm going to stick it out right here.

I don't have to work, and I spend my time resting and reading. Can't do too much reading, though, since it hurts my eyes. It all goes back to the alcohol. I also take walks. I really enjoy the area around Sakurabashi-you know, the pedestrian bridge that spans the Sumida River above Asakusa. Yeah, it's a pretty sight. Well, not exactly pretty. That's the wrong word to use about Tokyo. But it's heaven compared to this neighborhood. And of course I spend time talking to friends. I mean, the people right around here. After all, they're the only friends I've got.

The men in this room are all old-timers. The one in the bunk you slept in was here for five years until he moved into another doya. His boss wanted everybody together in the same place so that he could keep tabs on them. The man who just left is a tobi. He's still young and he's built like a rock. He'll do fine, as long as he keeps his health. That's the big problem, of course. Anyway, he sure has it good now. [Earlier the tobi had flashed his wallet to anyone who would look, counting out fourteen ten thousand-yen bills-or well over a thousand dollars-which represented the earnings from his recent job at a hanba.] The foremen take care of guys like him. He even gets an allowance for his bunk here at the Palace when he's working at a hanba-something like a thousand yen a night, I think he said. He puts

Construction in Tokyo: tobi working on a highrise (Hongo, near Tokyo University).

SAN'YA

down an advance just to have the same bed to come back to when the job is over. I wouldn't trade places with him, though. That high-rise work is dangerous, I tell you.

It's going to be tough getting a job today, because business is slow during Golden Week. There'll be a big crowd on the street waiting for work, and a lot of the men'll come up empty-handed. I know. I've been there.

YAMANASHI. FIFTY. DAY LABORER. TAMAHIME PARK. JUNE 1990.

Yamanashi is one of four or five men I see on this particular day, hands clutched to the park's locked cage and gazing wistfully at a group dren playing softball inside. 1 have just finished eating lunch in the park. He notices me as he moves away from the cage and starts the conversation, assuming that I am a priest. (A small number of foreign missionaries do work in San'ya.) Round-faced and donning a baseball cap, Yamanashi is one of the very few day laborers I have met who looks younger than his years.

Life is really the pits, isn't it? I'm fed up with the whole business. I can't work or do anything. I went to see a doctor the other day and told him I was feeling awful. But he said there was nothing wrong with me. Just a case of depression. Hell, I could have told him that. Depression isn't the word for it.. It's absolutely unbearable. I don't like to be with anybody anymore. I want to be alone. I don't have any reason to live. I think of dying all the time.

This place is so depressing. Nothing at all like home. I'm from Yamanashi. A town called Enzan. Beautiful spot. Mount Fuji towers over everything. That's where I grew up. Haven't been back in twenty years, though. I got laid off from the job I had in town. Then I got booted out of the family. I suppose I could have found another job, but I just said to hell with it and came to Tokyo. I spent most of my time working out of Takabashi [a small yoseba in K6t6 Ward] before coming here to San'ya.

I really can't stand it here. But there'S nowhere else to go. You're kind to say that parents who disown their children will forgive and forget. But it's too late in my case. Mine are gone now-both of them. And I don't have any kids of my own. There's nothing tying me to life. I'm fifty years old and I'm at the end of my rope. This really is the end. I can feel it-the bitter end.

TSUCHIURA. EARLY FORTIES. DAY LABORER (TOBI). WELFARE CENTER. JUNE 1990.

/ encounter Tsuchiura drinking with a circle of men in front of the WeI­ Center, now closed for the day. A burly, thick -set man, he speaks with

LIVES

an Osaka accent that is not quite that of a native Japanese. Although it is hard to tell for sure, his features suggest a person of Korean descent.

Hey, who are you, a missionary? No? A professor? Like hell you are­ don't pull my leg! Where are you from, anyway? The United States? You mean you've come all the way from America to see this slum? Sure it's a slum, can't you tell? It's the pit of Tokyo.

Well, what do you think of the place? Just like New York, I'll bet. A slum's a slum, wherever it is. Once you get trapped you can never climb out of it again. Well, maybe a few people can. Like Mike Tyson. Now there'S a man to watch. He boxed his way right out of the ghetto. [Tsuchiura starts shadow boxing while still sitting down.] Pow, pow! One in a million. He got out, but the rest never do.

Look at me. I'm stuck here. But it wasn't always this way. I was even married once, to a girl in Tsuchiura. She worked in a department store. That's where I met her. I took to her right away and decided to make my move then and there. Invited her out to dance. She said yes. And before you knew it, we were love birds!

Things didn't work out, though. I got hooked on drugs. It got to the where I was taking speed every day, and she finally ran out on me. Well, I can't say I blame her. Anyway, I'm off drugs now. Surc, I like my liquor, but you've gotta have something to keep you going, don't you? Okay, so what do you expect? I'm just a bum. Sure, I work. I do good work. I'm a You know, one of those guys who climbs way up to the tops of buildings and prances about the girders. But I'm a bUIll, too. I admit it.

Okay, go ahead and take my picture if you want. But you're not going to out much about this place by wandering around with a camera on your

shoulder. Why don't you let me walk with you? I'll show you the real San'ya. Of course, you're gonna have to pay tuition, if you know what I mean!

MUKOJIMA. LATE FORTIES. DAY LABORER STREET NEAR WELFARE

CENTER. JUNE 1990.

This heavy-set, robust-looking man is dressed in impeccable tobi-shoku garb: navy-blue turtleneck sweater, tan shichibu, and pTUsslan-blue jika­ tabi. He has been tailing me ever since 11eft a circle of drinkers (including Tsuchiura) from the Welfare Center to a spot close to Maria Restaurant. There he accosts me.

Hey, don't run away. I just want to talk. I don't know why you're here, maybe you're some journalist, but I want to set you straight about a few

CbS! '.,,~/

SAN'YA

things before you start broadcasting to the rest of the world what you've seen today.

Now take that group you were with a minute ago. I hope you realize they're nothing but a bunch of tramps who're drinking their money and lives away. Don't believe a word they say about hard times. If you work regularly here you can make plenty, and when you can't get work you can collect from the Shokuan. I've been doing this kind of work for more than twenty years, so I ought to know. I've worked out of San'ya and Senjti Kawara-cho. Got my own apartment in Mukojima now. I couldn't stand to live like them-right there on the street. Don't let them fool you. They're here because they want to be.

I guess the same goes for me, too, doesn't it? But I'm proud of my work. And I can tell you this. It's a carefree life. Nobody gets on your back here, and that's worth a lot. In fact, there's no better way to live, if you're a lone wolf like me. I'm a bachelor and I swear by it. What's so good about getting married? People are making a lot of fuss these days about the royal wedding [of Akishinonomiya, the emperor's second son, and Princess Kiko]. What a bunch of hogwash! And what a rip-off, too! Hundreds of millions in tax­ payers' money for that farce. The whole imperial fan:ily's a laugh.

I don't need anyone to take care of me when I get old. If you get sick, then you just have to put an end to things yourself. Slit your gut. We Japanese have got to maintain our spirit. We're samurai, after all. We know what to do with a sword. Remember Mishima [Yukio, the writer]? Swish, swish! [He waves his arms through the air.] The same way you Americans know what to do with a six-shooter, right? Bam, bam! Like Billy the Kid. Now there's a cowboy for you. Lightning draw. Like our samurai swordsmen. Swish, swish! Bam, bam!

RINGO. EARLY THIRTIES. DAY LABORER. ON THE STREET IN THE KIYOKAWA

DOYAGAI. JUNE 1990.

I have crossed paths several times with this baby-faced man, who is never out of his day-laborer garb of jikatabi and shichibu, and we some­ times exchange a few words. This is the closest thing to a conversation we have. He invariably assumes that I am a missionary, and I invariably deny it.

"Hey, Beatles! Boom chika boom, chika boom. Michelle, ma belle . .. Oh, hell, I don't know the words. Ringo's my favorite. He's got rhythm. Boom chika boom. I first heard the Beatles when I was in grade school. They were my life. How about you? Well, here I am, up against the wall. Boom. It's the end of the line here. I know what you're thinking, but it's not true.

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There aren't any bad people in San'ya. We're here because ... we're all lonely. I'm going to make it, though, I swear! Well, what do you think? Boom! [He literally bangs his forehead against a cinder-block wall next to a lodging house, and then staggers off.]

WADA. LATE FORTIES. DAY LABORER. SAN'YUKAI. JULY 1990.

Wada, a gaunt, wide-eyed man with a shaved head, is seated with sev­ eral other men in the clinic waiting room that opens onto the street. He is talking excitedly to a San'yukai volunteer, a foreigner, who is having difficulty grasping the thick northern accent. At this point I speak up: "I've been to Akita. I can follow you. Tell me what's on your mind." He imme­ diately rushes to my side, eyes even wider, and starts chatting, the alcohol heavy on his breath. The woman he refers to is someone in her early forties whom I have seen three or four different times in the company of the men drinking in circles just outside the lroha Arcade's eastern entrance. I have also seen her with a man (the "stud" mentioned below) who just a few weeks earlier introduced her to me as his "wife" and who also befriended the "boss" with the burned leg I encountered in a tent in Tamahime Park.

That's amazing-you've been to my home town in Akita. Well, have you ever tried the special stew we eat in wintertime with rice molded into tubes and cooked right in the broth? That's right, kiritampo. Well, how about the fish calledhatahata? It's a real delicacy and you can get it only in Akita. Oh, you've tried that, too? Okay, have you ever seen the ice huts called ka­ makura they put up every February for the kids in Omagari? What? In Yokote, you say, not Omagari? Hell, I'd forgotten, it's been so long since I've been back.

Well, I bet I can still tell you something about the Philippines. I worked for a merchant-marine company and spent some time there. Marcos was still running the show then. I was up to no good-just screwing around for the longest time. I mean that literally. Getting laid there is the easiest thing in the world. I was screwing some new chick every day. Ended up with five kids. I don't know where they all are. Just hope they don't come to Japan and pester me when they grow up! I know I don't look like much with my head shaved this way, but you should have seen me with my hair'long and all slicked back. I was a rake. You couldn't find a hornier man anywhere.

I'm here for a check-up today. You know, drinking problem. I work like a dog when I'm sober. Nobody works harder than me. But when I drink, it takes two or three days to sleep it off. So I never get ahead.

I get calls from my mother in Wada. She worries her head off about me. Thinks I'm still hanging out with a bunch of yakuza. Yeah, I've been that

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route, too. But that's another story .... [Whispering.] Hey, see the chick sitting over there on the sofa who came in with that stud? What do you think? You like her? She's an easy lay. Look, I'll fix you up if you want. No? Well pardon me for asking. I mean, I get horny just looking at her. Will you get a load of that ass!

• KOCHL EARLY FORTIES. DAY LABORER. IROHA ARCADE. SAN'YA WORKERS'

HALL RIDGE-RAISING CEREMONY. I990.

The air is festive at the ridge-raising ceremony of the San/ya Workers' now nearing completion at the eastern end of the [roha Arcade. [

happen to be standing next to Kochi the speech-making in the multipurpose room, and we begin to chat afterward, enjoying the spread laid out in front of us.

Cheers! Shochii's my drink. What's yours? We put away a lot of this stuff where I come from. KochL That's in Shikoku. The home of Sakamoto Ryoma, the Bakumatsu [end of Edo period] hero. Ever heard of him? There were some fine samurai around in those days, but those days are gone. Now you can make a living there only two ways-from the sea or from the land. I can't say anything about the farming life, but I can tell you something about

at sea. That was my father's life, and he pounded it into me at an early age. If you're not a fisherman, you're not a man. That's what he told me. He drove it home day in and day out because I was the first-born son.

But I couldn't face a life like my father's! I just wasn't cut out for it. I had to get out. A friend from my schooldays living in Tokyo invited me to try my luck in the big city and got me a job in a sushi shop. I got fired after about a year, though. Too much drinking. I bounced around after that-Taka­ danobaba, Kotobuki, Kamagasaki, and then here. I worked when I could,

mooched off family and friends when I couldn't. Things really fell apart eight or nine years ago. I visited my kid brother in

Nerima Ward and asked him for some money, but he turned me down flat. "Come on, now, can't you take carc of yourself?" he said. How about that­ my own kid brother telling me off! I couldn't argue with him, though. I really wasn't doing a good job of taking care of myself. I still don't. I like my shochii too much.

I can't afford to stay in a doya, so I'm spending my nights at Tamahime , Shrine. I've been there for a while now. Just the other night I had a real scare.

The guy sleeping next to me kicked the bucket. Just like that. Here I am minding my own business when suddenly there are all these sirens. Here come the police. Here comes the ambulance. But all the help in the world can't bring a dead man back to life. There he is lying face up, with his arms

6&.

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curled up tight like this. Dead as a doornaiL The shrine priest said he'd asked the man a few days earlier if he should call an ambulance. The guy was obviously sick. But he refused! He probably wasn't up to the hassle they give us Yama men at the hospital.

Anyway, I didn't get a wink of sleep after that. I couldn't get him out of, my mind. I'd been lying next to the guy. Was it my turn next? That's what I was thinking. What would happen then? I mean, we all want to go to heaven, don't we? That's what we all think when we're alive. But what do people think when they're dead? Maybe they're not worried about hell. Maybe there isn't any hell worse than the one here on earth.

I guess I'm sounding pretty morose. Well, enough! Today we celebrate. A couple more months and the Workers' Hall will be open for business. You won't be able to make it? I'm sorry to hear that. Let's sce, now. How about giving me your address in the States? No, I'm not going to call on you. It's just that I buy a lottery ticket every now and then, and if I ever strike it rich, I'll send you a ticket and you can come visit me, how's that? No, I'm serious. If I win you can come and take in the Grand Opening yourself.

Wish me luck. Now, let's drink to my success!

NUMAZU. MID-FIFTIES. DAY LABORER (Tom). SAN'YA TAVERN. JULY 1990.

Numazu is among the crowd that gathers outside the San/ya Walkers' Hall following the ridge-raising ceremony. Dressed fOI work in his shichibu and jikatabi and wearing a baseball cap, he strikes up a conversa­ tion with me on the street and invites me to continue it at a tavern.

I come from Shizuoka Prefecture, just down from Numazu on the Izu Peninsula. I was raised on a farm, so I know a thing or two about growing rice. The irrigation water has to be cold and the soil not too fertile. That's why the northern prefectures actually produce a better crop, even though they have a cooler climate.

I was the last of twelve children. My father was in his fifties and my mother in her middle forties when they had me. I used to kid Dad about it. Where would I have been, I'd tell him, if you hadn't gotten drunk that night and fallen on Mom before you passed out?

With that many kids in the family, you'd think I'd get lost in the shuffle. But that wasn't the case at alL People paid attention. Not because I was the baby of the family. And not because I was such a good boy, either. It was simply because I was a boy. There were only three of us. The other nine were girls. There'd been a long string of girls before I came along, and so everyone made a big fuss over me when I arrived. All because I was a boy. Nobody noticed when a girl was born. She would be just another mouth to

69 .

SAN'YA

pay fifteen hundred yen a night for a room at the Wakaba Inn. That's a private room. I wouldn't dream of being cooped up in the bunk rooms they have there. That sort of accommodation really gets on my nerves. It's bad enough as it is with this Chinese fellow living next door. I guess he came over on a tourist visa, but I'm sure he's overstayed it by now. Anyway, he has this irksome habit of stomping on the floor suddenly to quiet down. The problem he makes a lot more noise than the men he's trying to hush up!

Still, things are better than they were at the last place I lived in-the Akagi Inn across the street. Someone was up at three o'clock every morning cleaning the toilets. Newcomers like me of course were put up in the rooms right next to them. It was unbearable.

Things are going pretty good right now. I've managed to stash away about eight hundred thousand yen in the Welfare Center credit union. That'd buy me a plane ticket to the States and then some, wouldn't it? I'd really love to go some time. I've never been out of the country, and I've always wanted to learn more English. When I drove a taxi I always made it a point to pick up foreigners and try what little English I had on them. I had this fantasy about laying some beautiful blonde. So I prepared for the big day by practicing for all I was worth. The big day never came. But a guy's got to dream, right?

KOSHIGAYA. MID-FIFTIES. DAY LABORER. SHINDEN, IN SAITAMA

PREFECTURE. EXPRESSWAY CONSTRUCTION SITE. JULY 199I.

Koshigaya and I are part of a four-man crew scraping splattered cement off a row of girders that support a section of elevated highway. He chats with me during the break while others listen on, as if for their own enjoyment.

So, you're here in Japan by yourself? I suppose you've got one of these by now [flashes his pinkie, indicating girl friend]? Qkay, suit yourself. You don't have to tell me. It's just that you give the impression you're in the market for a nice chick. Well, maybe I can fix you up.

I know what a horny lot you foreigners can be. I remember this one stud who came around to the public bath near where I was living a couple of years back. I swear he had the biggest cock I'd ever seen. I couldn't take my eyes off it. He'd be sitting on his little stool soaping himself down like the rest of us and it would be dragging on the floor tiles. I'm not kidding. His prick was touching the floor!

Not that I'm ashamed of what I've got. I'm pretty well endowed in that department, thank you. And I still have occasion to use it, too. No, I'm not

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as young as you think. I'm fifty-five. See, it's right here on my white card. But I haven't slowed down too much yet. I just got hack from a tour of Thailand last month. Just for sex. I went with this guy from Koshigaya. We happened to meet at a pachinko parlor there. I was sitting right next to him playing the machines. We got to talking and hit it off, and the next thing you know he's inviting me to come along with him to Bangkok! He's the son one of those nouveau-riche farmers who made a bundle by selling off some land, and he has money to burn. We made ourselves home at some swanky hotel and blew the wad. The poor guy's so ugly he couldn't snag a Japanese girl if his life depended on it. So he makes it with foreign meat. All you need is money. That's why the Thai girls swarmed all over him. The girls there love the Japanese. After all, we're loaded.

Your money still goes a long way in Bangkok. You can get laid there for real cheap. Just three thousand to five thousand yen for the whole Don't you worry about the girls. That's good money for them. Most workers get paid next to nothing. A man there earns maybe twenty thousand yen a month, and a woman only about twelve thousand. That's what I heard, anyway. Heck, we make that much in a single day on the job here in Japan!

This farmer friend of mine is a real character. He's all puffed up because one of the girls he met there writes him a letter! In English, of course. Needless to say, he can't read a word, and so where do you think he goes to get it translated? A church! You know, one of those places that offers English-conversation classes to parishioners. Of course the letter doesn't say anything profound. Just the usual "I love YOU." "please come and see me." That kind of crap. But he sure likes to show it off. You know damn' well why she wants him back. To spend more money on her, of course!

Anyway, we had quite a time with the best that money could buy and we went through two million yen in a month. Had a new girl in every other day. He's still in his early thirties and 1 had a hard time keeping up with him. I mean, I'm old enough to qualify for pension benefits in some countries. Like Sweden, for instance. They really take good care of the old folks there. Sure I know about it. I keep tabs on what's happening in the world. I watch TV. I read magazines. If you lose your curiosity about things, your life's as good as finished. That's right, over and done with.

SHIGA KOGEN. EARLY SIXTIES. DAY LABORER. ~INDEN. EXPRESSWAY

CONSTRUCTION SITE. JULY 1991.

I overlap with Shiga K6gen for four days at the Shinden work site. A diminutive man with stooped shoulders and receding gums, he works

SAN'YA

silently for the first two days I am him. On the third day, under the girders, he strikes up a conversation.

My name is Kawagishi Shoji. You won't find too many of us. There're only about five hundred with the same characters as mine in the whole country. I know. I looked it up. You'd be surprised how many of us are famous.

I'm looking forward to my moment of glory. I've led a pretty ordinary life so far. No, I'm not talking about my work as a day laborer. I've been doing this for less than a year. Before that I was a truck driver. I spent better than twenty years behind the wheel. I had my own four-ton rig. At one time I had two. When times were good back in the I 970S I took home up to ten million yen a year. That's when ten million was really worth something. Not that it was all profit. I spent two million of it on gasoline alone. I've driven through every corner of this country. Up and down every highway and byway.l slept on the road more than I did at home. But I tell you, I never would have guessed that someday I'd be crawling about the girders on a job underneath a highway! Never in a million years!

I lived with my wife and son. Just the three of us. Sometimes my boy would help with the driving when he was younger. But in another business now. My wife died eight years ago, and I live alone now just outside of Tokyo. I come to Namidabashi every morning and pick up my work off the street.

I didn't bother to renew my license the last time it came due, because my eyes are getting bad. I could go ahead and drive anyway without a license, I suppose. In fact, I did that at the beginning. And when I got caught, I'd bluff my way out of a jam. I'd tell the cop, "So go ahead and arrest me. Nothing could suit me more. I've got no place to sleep and if I'm not bringing in an income I'm a burden to my family. Lock me up and feed me \well! II

I work maybe twenty days out of the month. The other ten days I spend on my hobby. Song writing. I think I've got a good thing going. Listen to this. It's a song I'm working on right now. Here's how it starts: Kimama ni ikiru . .. [He croons a stanza with a weak but practiced voice.] The words reflect my way of life. "Live the way you like." Kimama ni-freely. Doing things your own way. That means a lot to a man like me. I don't have a title for the song yet, and I still have to come up with a flip-side melody. But once I do-gangbusters! I'm sure it'll be a hit. I already have a pen name. Hoshino Masaharu. The "Hoshi" is after a famous songwriter's name. The "no" is after the "no" in Nagano, the prefecture where I come from. My home is Shiga Kogen. You know, the ski resort. The "Masaharu" is an alternate reading of the characters of my given name. I can't wait to see it on a record label.

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• ARAKAWA. LATE FORTIES. DAY LABORER. IROHA ARCADE. JULY 1991.

Arakawa is a short but powerfully built man with better-than-average looks and knots of gristle on both shoulders that bespeak years of load bearing. A contemplative soul who sports a mustache and wears glasses when not working, he is a drinker. Our paths cross frequently. We work for a few days at the same construction site in Shinden. We see each other often on the street in San'ya, and we sometimes squat down on our haunches (as is the custom in Japan when chairs are not available) a chat. The following is an early conversation.

I was born in Tokyo. I'm no country boy. I'm an Edokko. And a good­ looking one at that. The best of the lot here, don't you think? What do you say to that, Kagawa [his companionj see below]?

So, you're an American. I was too young to remember much about war, but there's one thing that sticks in my mind-the bunch of unexploded napalm bombs I once saw strewn about the ground near my home. This must have been a few years after the war. It was an eerie sight, I tell you.

Tokyo was a mess in those days. But I don't have a chip on my shoulder about what happened. You were the enemy then, but things changed fast

that. After all, when we were hurting, the Americans really helped buying Japanese goods. That much I know.

I also know that Japan was up to no good during the war, regardless of the propaganda you hear then or now. We did some terrible things on the Asian continent, and I hope that we can do something now to help the Chinese.

be frank with you. I'm no fan of the Soviet Union, but I do like China, and I think we owe the Chinese something. And we're in a position to out.

I'm not much of a traveler, but when I do take a trip, I always go to China. Or Taiwan, I should say. I've been there three times. You know, the usual sex tour. One of the women I ran into spoke with the most beautiful accent. I found out that she was from Beijing and I decided then and there that I'd learn the language myself. I began watching the Mandarin-language study program on the NHK educational channel as soon as I got back to Tokyo. I kept it up a good long while, too. [He reels off a few phrases in very passable Chinese.]

I want to visit the mainland some day. I'm saving up for it at the Welfare Center Credit Union. They make you hold on to your money there. You can't withdraw more than ten thousand yen a day without a legitimate excuse. But I show them my passport and visa and away I go. [Looking about at a party of drunks lying on the street a few yards away] I'll tell you, though, it gets harder and harder to come back to this shit hole. That's the only word for it. A shit hole. It's no place to live out your life. The only thing

J5'j ,J

SAN'YA

to think about here is getting out. I mean, getting out for good. But it's not

that easy, is it. Not easy at

KAGAWA. MID-FORTIES. DAY LABORER. IROHA ARCADE. JULY 199I.

A strapping six-footer with a high, gentle voice, Kagawa is the constant . companion of Arakawa and is forever cajoling the latter to go easy on the alcohol, which he claims (with some justification) to hold better than his friend. My path crosses with Kagawa nearly as frequently as it does with Arakawa. I first met him at the Shinden construction site. His uniform is his trademark: navy-blue pants with the legs rolled up, a bright-red shirt with white horizontal stripes, and a pink towel twisted around his bushy head. An attractive man, he is missing several front teeth. This, too, is one

the early conversations, during my first period of "unemployment," over

beer and shochii.

I come from Shikoku originally-Kagawa Prefecture. I've been in San'ya only about six months, but I've lived in Tokyo for a good while now and know it like the back of my hand. I've got a driver's license and I swear I've been up and down every street in this city.

I used to work in Hachi6ji la suburb in west Tokyo] until someone lifted my tools. That's right, the whole set. One and a half million yen worth. No, they sure don't come cheap. A good plane alone'll cost you forty or fifty thousand yen. You see, I was a carpenter. That was my trade. I've been at it for a long time now. I went through an apprenticeship after middle school. The whole bit. Anyway, I was working in Hachi6ji, like I said. Had my own place and everything. In fact, I'm still keeping my apartment. The rent's fifty-five thousand yen a month, plus utilities. You may think it's a waste of money. But if you let it go, think of what it costs to take out a new contract, what with several months' worth of rent in key money, a deposit, the

realtor's fee, and all the rest. I'm in a holding pattern now. I've still got some savings left. About five or

six hundred thousand yen. Enough to make it through for the time being, but not nearly enough to buy another set of tools. When you're in my kind of business, you've got to have the whole set. So I've got a long way to go. Today I was lucky. I got work as a tobi. The pay is good. But other days I make less. Then there are the days when I don't get work at all. So you see, it's going to be a while before I can save another million yen.

Listen, don't feel obligated to drink with me can for can. Even my friend Arakawa here can't keep up. J've had lots of training and I know how to hold it. I was raised on shochii since my apprentice days. Shochii's the best. Your body absorbs it easily, and you don't get hung over the next day.

LIVES

No, I insist, this is my treat. You're not going to push any money on me. You know I'm stronger than you are. I'll stuff those coins down your throat!

AKITA. LATE FORTIES. DAY LABORER AND UNION MEMBER. NEAR

TAMAHIME PARK. JULY 199I.

I know Akita from several previous meetings. He was one of the organ­ izers of the Santoro Year-Forgetting Party I attended in 1989. I run into him this evening on the street while guiding an acquaintance through San'ya. To make conversation, but also out of concem for my current unemploy­ ment, I ask him if he knows of any job possibilities. The following is his response.

Sure you can get work. You can start right now if you want. I'm serious. They're looking for someone at a job right close by for the night shift. It's easy work. And you'll get twenty-one thousand yen. What, not interested? Spare me your excuses. What do I care if you're taking somebody around and showing him the sights? You say you wanted work and I tell you there's a job going begging, and now you turn it down. I'm not talking about tomor­ row. I'm talking about right now. You've got to deal with the present. Don't be so choosy.

That's the problem with you educated types. You're all the same. Just like Tottori and Kobe and Osaka ISant6r() officers]. Look, I only got as far as ninth grade, and then I left school. I'm not like those university types that run our union. I don't have their smarts. But I know how to run machinery. I'ye got a license to operate a forklift. If you're really serious about looking for work, don't waste your time with any of them.

Listen, I just remembered another job at a hanba in Chiba. It goes for about a month, I think. How about it? You can start right away. It pays fifteen thousand yen. That's damn good for hanba work. Of course, they don't pay you all at once. They give you five thousand yen a day and fork over the rest when you leave. What? You say you'll think about it? Fine, suit yourself. But don't ask me for another favor again. I don't want to hear about it.

• EBIsu. LATE THIRTIES. DAY LABORER. OFFICE-BUILDING CONSTRUCTION SITE. SHIRA, IN MINATO WARD. AUGUST 1991.

A boyish-faced man volunteers to look after me the morning I am picked out of a crowd to work at a gcnba in Shiba, near Tokyo Tower. He seems curious about this foreigner in their midst, but he ends up doing most the talking. Small but well-built, he is rather less energetic than the other

SAN'YA

laborers I have worked with. The conversation begins early morning on the commute to the work site, continues throughout the job itself, and ends late that afternoon after a visit to the office of IllS friend.

This must be my lucky day. I was hoping to team up with you the mo­ ment I saw you in the group this morning. I mean, how many chances do you get to talk to an American in this line of work? I've seen you before on the platform at Minami Senjti Station. You were probably on your way to work on some other job. You're easy to spot in a crowd, you know.

So you grew up in Southern California! I've been there myself. That was nearly twenty years ago and I was just nineteen. I was fresh out of high school and working in a big company. I won't tell you the name, because I'm sure you'd recognize it, and it's just as well you didn't know. It wasn't all that big when I was first starting out, but it's grown into a worldwide operation. They hire a hundred people every year from the best universities now-places like Keio and Waseda.

Anyway, this company sent me on an overseas assih'11ment. That's how I ended up in California. I spent a year there. The company's sales office was in Compton, but I lived in downtown L.A., in a one-bedroom apartment near Olympic Boulevard. The rent was just $120 a month. I wonder what it goes for now.

Life was great in the United States. I got to hobnob with all the company bigwigs who came over on business. It was always the bigwigs who came­ the division managers and company vice presidents. Of course, I didn't know at the time that they were VIPs. At least it didn't register. Here I'd be cracking jokes with men who are my father's age, and then when I get back to Japan I find out that Mr. A. is the company's managing director and that Mr. B. is the executive director, and so on. And I start acting like a dummy in front of them. That shows you what an ignorant fool I was.

I traveled a lot when I was in the States. phoenix. Las Vegas. The Grand Canyon. And along the East Coast as far south as Key West. Chicago, too. That's where company headquarters were located. They're in New York now. The Chicago office is still going strong, though. My friends who had the inside track in that company usually got assigned there.

I could've had the inside track, myself, if only I'd gotten the right educa­ tion. It would have been easy enough to get into a university, because the high school I went to was affiliated to one, and it always allows a certain number of its own students in automatically without taking the entrance exam. It works that way at a lot of private schools, you know, including Keio and Waseda. That way students coming up through the system don't even have to worry about studying for exams. It was the only possible way for someone like me, since I always got such poor grades!

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Well, none of that panned out. You see, myoId man got sick and died just as I finished high school. I'm the first-born son and J was responsible for taking care of the family. So I got a job in the technical division of this company that's now very famous, and worked there for twelve years. That's right, twelve long years. You probably don't believe it seeing me working here like this, but let me tell you, I've got staying power when I put my mind to it!

The problem was that I wasn't getting anywhere in that job. My friends and colleagues who'd gotten a university education were advancing steadily in the trading division, but I was just treading water as a technician. Then the company asked me to accept a transfer to one of their provincial branches. That was adding insult to injury! I was born and bred in Tokyo and I wasn't about to live in· the country. So I told them thanks, but no thanks, and got out.

Of course, once you leave a place like that, it's almost impossible to get a job at another company of the same caliber. So you've got to set your sights lower. Sometimes a lot lower. What I mean is a place that'll take just about any warm body that walks in.

Well, to make a long story short, I decided that the corporate life wasn't me. And so I tried my hand working in a hanba. It wasn't all that bad.

The pay wasn't too good, but you could still make out all right because there were no big expenses. You got free food and lodging, and there was no place to spend your money off hours, since you had to stay cooped up right there on the premises.

I'd work long stretches at each hanba. Some of the big jobs last a couple of years. I've helped put up some really good-sized buildings. My specialty is the finishing work on the exterior. I've managed to pick up my share of skills in this business.

Between jobs I'd just cut loose and hit the road. I like to travel. I'd spend all my money and then start over again at another hanba. I must have carried on like that for five or six years.

I'm pretty new to the day-labor scene. I started getting work out of San'ya just a couple of months ago. I don't live there-no way! I've got a room over in Ebisu [one stop below Shibuya on the Yamanote Loop Line]. It's a plain old doya in everything but name, though. The place sleeps eight men to a room, and it sets me back thirteen hundred yen a night. I know that's expensive, but Ebisu's in the high-rent district, so it can't be helped. I found out about the place from the Welfare Center. I was new and I didn't know where to turn and I wasn't very keen on having San'ya as my home address.

My mom lives here in Tokyo and she's still going strong. We don't have much to do with each other right now, though. You can guess why. She's not too pleased with my present career, and so I rarely keep in touch. I've called

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horne exactly once since starting work as a day laborer. When I told her what I was doing, she just said, "Oh, nol" and that was the end of it. People think a dokata is the lowest of the low, and my mother is no exception. I'm sure that the idea of her son Hving like a tramp is eating her away inside, but what's a guy to do? I've got to earn a living, don't I, and the job offers aren't exactly dropping in my lap.

Don't get me wrong. It's not that I haven't got connections. There's this friend I have from high-school days working in a trading company. You probably haven't heard of it, but it's on the up and up, and who knows, someday it might be in the same class as the firm I worked at before. I interviewed there for a job myself four years ago between stints at a hanba. It's a grueling experience. You go in the morning and take two written exams-the standard exam you get wherever you go and another one pre­ pared by the company, followed by some sort of memory test. The inter­ view itself takes place in the afternoon. That's where I fell down. I flunked it, pure and simple. And flunked it again when I tried a couple of years later. So it looks like I'm never going to get that inside track.

I still like to pay an occasional visit to my friend, though. I saw him just a couple of weeks ago, in fact. The company's not too far away from where we are now. Maybe you should pay a visit yourself sometime. I'll supply the introduction. I'm sure they could use somebody who can speak both Japa­ nese and English.

You know, the more I think of it, the better I like the idea. I mean, you were surely meant for better than this. You say you've tried teaching En­ glish and that you got fed up with the routine. I can understand that. But you've got to admit that you're in a dead-end job now and that your linguis­ tic talents are just going to waste. And don't go telling me that the money's good. You sound as if you're happy to be making fifteen thousand yen a day, but that's near the bottom of the scale. I took this job because it was close to horne. A fifteen-minute train ride from Tamachi Station takes me back to Ebisu.

We change into our street clothes and leave the genba to visit the friend's office. The walk advertised as fifteen minutes turns out to be closer to thirty. Ebisu plants me in a waiting-loom sofa, marches up to the recep­ tionist (with whom he is obviously on familiar terms), and exchanges greetings. He directs an occasional comment to me in passable English­ the first he has spoken in my presence. The receptionist rings the friend in question, but he is out of the office for the day. We do not tarry, and head immediately for Tamachi Station. Ebisu is visibly upset by this turn of events, but I tell him I am not the least bit disappointed. The pace of our walk has slackened noticeably.

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Listen, I'm really sorry things turned out the way they did. I never dreamed he'd be away. I guess I should've checked first, but I never call before I go. It's just too awkward. Oh well, there'll be other times. At least you saw the place. Now you know where it is and you know I wasn't lying. I'll tell you what. I'll call him up and arrange things so that you can drop by yourself sometime.

I guess I've used up my reasons for paying courtesy calls there for the time being. Somebody who flunked his job interview twice can't be playing the hanger-on forever! Ha! Here I am laughing about how I blew my chance at a second start. But it doesn't do any good to cry now. If only myoId man didn't croak when he did and if only I'd made it to college, I'd probably have a cushy job by now in a nice, fat company and be settled down like everyone else and making my mother bappy. But you never know what life will bring, do you? You just never know.

NARITA. EARLY FORTIES. DAY LABORER (TOBl). SUMMER FESTIVAL, TAMAHIME PARK. AUGUST 1991.

Narita is a large, powerfully built man whose only apparent blemish is a few missing teeth. He is standing fust outside the park with several others, eyeing the festivities. My query about where he comes from gets the con­ versation going.

My home isn't far from here. I come from a landowner's family in Narita, near the airport. My family's well educated. Even my mother went to school. That wasn't too common before the war. We live in the same neigh­ borhood as the mayor. I know him myself. I haven't been back for a while, though. I'm living in San'ya because I did something once that I shouldn't have. No more to say about it. At least I've got marketable skills and I make good money at what I do. Like scaffolding. I can get twenty-five thousand yen a day for that.

History sure has a way of repeating itself. I don't know how else to put it. Just take a look at the book everybody's talking about these days-The Coming War with Japan. It's going to be Pearl Harbor all over again. And Japan is going to losc. I mean, how can we possibly win a war against the United States? Your country is awfully big. Flabby, but still big.

We may have become an economic giant, but we sure have a long way to go on the political front. We don't have any leaders worthy of the name. My candidate for the world's greatest leader is Joseph Stalin. You had to hand it to him. He knew what he wanted and he knew how to get it. Dulles was a hard bargainer, too. But my hero is MacArthur. That sonofagun said "I shall

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overflow makes its way back to the rooftop, liberal portions of beer, sake, and hors d'oeuvres in hand. It is much pleasanter up here. The stench of raw concrete is far less!noticeable, and the urine-stained streets are mercifully distant.

I have brought my camera along with me today and begin taking pictures when I notice a man bent over in a corner vomiting. At first I suspect that the food has not agreed with him, but then I realize it is because of drink. The man is retching painfully; yet no one seems to notice. I put my camera down and kneel at his side. "Let me get you a glass of water. fI "No, thanks, fI he says. "I've still got some of this left." He points to his One Cup jar of sake, which is still half full. I do not argue. The man tells me that he is a plasterer by trade and that he has not been working recently because of a rib injury. He shows me his hands. They are very rough, and his finger tips are broad and flat.

The festivities wind down toward evening. The building is closed up, but many of us continue chatting on the street corner at the arcade entrance. A frail, wizened man perhaps in his late forties but who walks with movements of an eighty-year-old, cuts in on a conversation I am with someone else and asks me to do him a favor, to drop by the watch shop run by his sister in Kameari and give her his regards. He is serious: he insists that I take down the address. I do. It seems he not seen her in several years. Kameari is a half hour by train from

Our chat takes place over an extended period, but actual number of words exchanged is small. His request and subsequent comments are inter­ spersed with a running commentary on my character and breadth of under­ standing: "You're really beyond help, you know?" and "You just don't get it, do you? II He claims to know all the working the area and insists that they cannot look him in the eye. He further insists that he has connec­ tions with all the yakuza syndicates in the area. He does have that look about him, despite his present physical state. His left leg has been severely burned. He pulls up his pant leg and shows me the skin grafts taken from other parts of his body. "I thought the leg'd have to be amputated," he tells me, "but the doctor said 'Leave it to me, leave it to me!fI'

He then asks me if I want to go drinking and if I know of a good place. I assure him that he must have a superior knowledge of San'ya's watering holes. We head north, in the direction of the Welfare Center, but only a short distance before he pulls up in the middle of the street and begins talking about nothing in particular. When I realize he has no goal, I decide that it is time to part company. He asks me if I want to go gambling. I tell him I am not interested. "You're really beyond help, you know. You just don't get it, do you?"

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He is right, of course. There is a lot I do not understand, and I hesitate to rebut him. Yet there is no need to take his remarks personally, I finally decide. Something about the way he says them suggests a great deal of practice on many compatriots who are similarly beyond help and who just don't get it.

I head back to the Iroha and chat with some of the stragglers. Durmg a conversation I am having with a man from Numazu, a man takes ill a few feet away. He is vomiting and having convulsions, and someone calls an ambulance. It arrives shortly and takes him to a nearby hospital. The ex­ citement over, Numazu and I continue our conversation. In seemingly no time, the man who took ill is among us again, returned by the same am­ bulance that had him away. "Well what do you expect from Shirahige [the name hospital], anyway?" he explains with a sheepish grin that quickly into a dour look. "They didn't even check me over. They could've examined my stomach at least. But no, they said I was having a fit of alcohol poisoning and told me to stop drinking and to be on my way. And then I had to shell out two thousand yen! Shit, what a waste!"

Some of those listening to him laugh aloud; others shake their heads. The man makes his way unsteadily to the edge of the street and starts vomiting again. Numazu and I resume our conversation and then opt for more con­ genial surroundings: a tavern on the Street of Bones. Despite the scene I have just witnessed, the sake tastes very good this evening.

Farewells

July 27, 1990. I am in San'ya for the last time this trip. After today I must begin in earnest packing up two years of life in Tokyo with my family for the journey back to the States on August I.

My friends in Santoro have invited me to a late lunch near Minowabashi. We gather at a restaurant overlooking the trolley station and feast on okoIlomi-yaki, a pancake-shaped concoction with vegetables and meat or fish that we cook to taste on grill at our table. It is a dish native to western Japan and thus popular with my friends. It is popular in Tokyo, too, especially in winter, because of the warmth generated by the grilL In today's searing heat, however, business is slow and most tables ate empty. We temper the heat with rounds of ice-cold beer served in giant mugs.

I enjoy myself thoroughly and am touched by my friends' gesture. The conversation is wide-ranging. outlines his campaign strategy for a place in the TaitCi Ward I tell them of my plans to return to San'ya next summer to work if as a day laborer. We part company a

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little after four o'clock. From Minowabashi I head south, cross Meiji Boule­ vard, and make my way east through the Nihonzutsumi doyagai. Unlike previous visits, this time I regard the area not with a mind to discover something new but rather to implant firmly in memory the many scenes I will not be witnessing again for at least a year.

I have several errands in the neighborhood. I have promised to deliver a snapshot to a man I met two weeks earlier at the San'ya Workers' Hall ridge­ raising ceremony, doubting all the while that he would ever receive it, because he gave me no address and merely instructed me to attach it to a lamppost at the Iroha Arcade's east entrance, where I met him. I have also promised to deliver another snapshot I took at the ceremony to a second man, who wisely instructed me to leave it in care of San'yukaL I have promised as well to pay a final visit to Shimizu, a man of letters living in Kiyokawa. As I make my way through the doyagai, I marvel at how my forays into San'ya, tentative and almost whimsical at the beginning, have engendered bonds-some lasting, some not, but bonds just the same.

I keep my visits with Shimizu in his doya and at San'yukai short. I have to be home by evening. I am needed, of course, to help with the packing. There is no daylight savings time in Tokyo, and the sun is already low on the horizon. I cross Old Streetcar Boulevard from Kiyokawa back into Ni­ honzutsumi for my last errand in the arcade. A breeze has cleared the air and the ordinarily hazy summer sky has been transformed into a cobalt blue. The late-afternoon sun gives the streets, the few trees, the buildings, the residents, a warm luster I have rarely seen here before. The haunting strains of the five-o'clock chime, which can be heard anywhere in Taito Ward, reverberate from the middle-school loudspeaker.

With the evening, the arcade's east end has come alive. Nodaya, the stand-up bar just outside the entranceway, is already packed. I eye the lamppost, then the snapshot in my hand.

"Long time, no see!" Startled, I look up at a bearded face. The man in front of me wears the

flared knickers of a tobi, a long-sleeved, dark-green sweater, and a small, yellow terry-cloth towel around his neck. It is not the man whose picture I was to put on the lamppost.

"Remember me?" For a moment I fail to recognize him. Then I notice the crew cut and the .

glassy eyes. Then the voice-that piercing, throaty voice. And it all comes back. Nine months after my first encounter, Shiga has appeared before me again, not fifty steps from the spot outside Sen'nari, where I had first met him. '

"Of course I do. And I remember how much I'm in your debt./I

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"Don't mention it. You still taking pictures?" "Yes, I am/' I answer with a grin. "But I'm also talking to people. In fact,

I'm doing a lot more talking than picture taking these days. Looking back on it, I think of that little incident last year as the start of something important. I'm truly grateful./I

The "little incident" flashes into memory, as does the aftermath. Four days after the events described in the Prologue, I had returned to the photo shop in the lroha Arcade to pick up my slides. Shiga had not removed the incriminating picture-the deal he'd insisted on. With developed slides in hand (I left the last shot at the photo shopL I had made my way down the arcade toward Sen'narL Once again, the scene I found there was of warm camaraderie. No one greeted me with the fierce stares I had anticipated for four sleepless nights. Shiga was not there, but I learned from the proprietor where he was lodging: a tiny business hotel not far from the arcade. I imme­ diately paid the hotel a visit but, as Shiga was not in, ended up leaving a note in care of the manager expressing the hope that we get together sometime under more favorable circumstances.

We had maintained indirect contact in the interim. I received a reply to my note in the form of a message from the Sen'nari chef, who hailed me one day about a month later as I was passing through the arcade. "This is from Shiga," he told me, and handed me the slide I had taken that October evening. "He picked it up from the photo shop." I was dumbfounded. "He says that the picture looked harmless enough," the chef continued, 1/ and he wanted you to have it back./I

I reversed my steps and paid the business hotel another visit, only to leave a: note once again in Shiga's absence. Sometime later I spoke with him on the telephone. But our paths had never actually crossed until today.

"By the way, are you still staying at that hotel? /I "Not right now. Can't afford it. I'm working only a couple of days a week.

It's too damned hot in the summer to do more. I'm staying in a bunkhouse on the other side of Namidabashi. It's only eight hundred yen a night. The hotel cost three times that. When it cools down again I'll start working more often and move back into a single room. But it's just too hot now. Say, how about a beer?/I

"Thanks, but first I've got to take care of this snapshot. You see, someone asked me to take his picture a couple of weeks ago and nowl'm trying to deliver it. He told me to stick it right over there on that lamppost./I

"You shouldn't take that kind of request seriously. The guy was probably drunk at the time and won't give it a second thought./I

"He may have been drunk, but he was very persistent, and I'm sure he won't forget. Anyway, that's why I'm here. I'm set on leaving it./I

17 1

SAN'YA

Just then the man whose snapshot I had just delivered to San'yukai hap­ pens by in his usual summer garb of sleeveless white undershirt and knap­ sack. I tell him that I have made the delivery and he seems very pleased.

Shiga, who has been observing this exchange, understands that I am serious about my deliveries and hastens to put a plan into effect. Just as he did last October, he wants to take charge.

"Listen," he tells me. "It's no use hanging the other picture on the lamp­ post. Somebody's just going to tear it down. And it won't do any good to leave it with someone here on the street. They're all just a bunch of drunks." I think I detect the sheepish grin of a man not unaware of the irony of his statement. But then I recall my own sheepish grin just moments ago. "Come with me," he continues. "I have a better idea."

The "better idea" apparently is to have a beer at Nodaya. We make our way to the counter and he orders the large bottle, which I gladly pay for. Then he gets down to business, asking the proprietor to hold onto the snapshot and hand it to the man in question the next time he shows up.

The proprietor, who is working the counter, protests. He does not want to be bothered with random requests. But as the conversation progresses, he begins to take interest. Finally he agrees. He actually knows the man, he now claims, and he'd be happy to get the picture to him. By the time we leave, he radiates confidence: "You can depend on me!" More than at the proprietor's display of authority, I marvel once again at Shiga's way of han­ dling people.

We chat for a while outside Nodaya. Shiga grew up in a village near Lake Biwa and moved to Kyoto after finishing middle school. He became so enamored with the famous city that he took to introducing himself as "N, from Kyoto." He worked for a while in a small company, got into some "trouble," and eventually wound up in San'ya, where he has spent the last sixteen years. He has not returned to his home in Shiga Prefecture for twenty-five years. He is the youngest among his male siblings, all of whom hold down respectable jobs. One of his brothers is a ranking bureaucrat in the prefectural office. He never knew his father, who was drafted late in the war and went down with his ship immediately after departing for the Pa­ cific Theater, when Shiga was still in his mother's womb.

We shake hands at length when we part. I notice for the first time that he is missing a finger joint. I suspect that this part of his anatomy is connected with the "trouble" he mentioned earlier.

He offers to show me Kyoto the next time I am in Japan. I believe that the offer is a serious one. He tells me that he reads a lot on his own about the city's history during his free time. "

As I walk away from the arcade toward Namidabashi and Minami Senju Station, I resolve one day to take him up on his offer. We have, of course,

17 2

RITES

set up no definite time. That would be impossible now anyway. I will be leaving the country in a few days. But I will be back. And there will be other chances. I have no doubt that I will see Shiga again. He has not left me an address, and even if he did, it would change. I believe nonetheless that I could reestablish contact, because I know some of his haunts and I know people-including the proprietors of Nodaya and Sen'nari-who know him.

In a way, it is not important that I see Shiga again. What is important is that I did get to know him. I believe that as long as his spirit inhabits me I shall always be close to San'ya, and that whenever I come to Tokyo, before going to Shinjuku, or Shibuya, or Roppongi, or the Ginza, I will head this way first-as I would do the following summer to work as a day laborer at several genba in the Tokyo and, later, Osaka metropolitan areas.

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INTERVIEWING

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MEMORY AS ORAL HISTORY

In retrospect, it seems as if the degree to which one becomes a participant the course of field workl is as much a matter of pereeiving oneself as a participant as it is of being accepted as a participant by others.

-Elliot Liebow, Tallv's Corner

All ethnography is part philosophy, and a good deal of the rest is confession. -Clifford Geertz, "The Cerebral Savage"

A note about the method of transcription used in Chapter 2 ("Lives") and in parts of other chapters is certainly in order. The interviews presented as written texts are not oral histories in the ordinary sense. No tape recorder was used, and the words as they appear on these pages, therefore, are in the strict sense not transcriptions, or edited transcriptions, of the speaker's actual words. Rather, they are reconstructions of conversations held with San'ya residents-as faithful to the letter and spirit of each individual's utterances as I could make them, but reconstructions nonetheless.

What I have offered the reader, then, is not so much a documentary history as a fictional retelling: utterly nonfictional in intent but certainly novelistic in method. Without the use of a tape recorder, I was at the mercy of memory. If the conversation was a short one, I would usually make notes to myself soon after the exchange. If I was engaged in a more extended conversation, I would sometimes take advantage of natural breaks-the speaker's visit to the toilet, for example, or brief exchange with an acquain­ tance passing by-to note on a scrap of paper topics and key words that would aid the process of recollection. On the train home from San'ya (or before bedding down in my doya when staying overnight), I would make more detailed notes. I would then spend my free hours afterward writing out a draft of the one or more conversations I had had, which in turn became

"transcript" for what appears here in print.

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INTERVIEWING: MEMORY AS ORAL HISTORY

If the method outlined above sounds somewhat tedious, it is hardly with­ out precedent. It was probably the norm, in fact, before the age of the tape recorder. Indeed, my method resembles less that of the modern anthropolo­ gist in the field than that of James Boswell in the salon. We know that the biographer reproduced his conversations with Dr. Johnson from elaborate notes, which, however, he did not take down during the conversations themselves, realizing full well that doing so would have brought them to an end. l

Short or long, conversations with San'ya residents tried my powers of memory to the limit. To the question any oral narrator, lacking written notes, must face-that of how to enable recollection-Walter J. Ong offers the only logical answer: "Think memorable thoughts."2 To which I, in my sometime role of field worker forced to rely on his powers of recall, shall boldly add: Ask memorable questions. Although my initial encounters could be characterized by their complete ethnographical haphazardness (as I shall explain below), due to the initial lack of any clear anthropological purpose on my part, my conversations with people began to take on a certain pattern over time. The questions I posed (or, to put it more accu­ rately, the topics I encouraged each person to volunteer information about) were more or less set: descriptions of the person's home town or village, family, and childhood; reflections on work, living conditions, and reasons for working in the yoseba; thoughts on the person's acquaintances and relations, interests, avocations, and other activities.

To confine myself to these categories may have been as limiting as it was liberating. Yet within the confines of the descriptions prompted by such questionings and encouragements, memory, I feel, served me at least as well as, say, questionnaires or more structured interviews. 3

I have observed the convention of most oral histories and present the conversations as first-person monologues; however, I have let the narra­ tives retain traces of their conversational origins. Each monologue repre­ sents the utterances of a discrete individual. Only in two or three cases did I collate two conversations with the same' individual, for the sake of conve­ nience, into a single monologue. Under no circumstances did I collate con­ versations with different individuals into a composite monologue by some San'ya "everyman" in the interest of narrative fullness or for any other

I A brief description of Boswell's recording method can be found in M. H. Abrams, gen. ed., The Norton Anthology of English Literature, rev. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1968), r:r873. 2 Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (London: Methuen, 1985), p. 34. See also pp. 57-68 for an important discussion of oral memorization. 3 Hindsight makes me appreciate how similar my approach was to that of Elliot Liebow in Tally's Corner: A Study of Negro Streetcorner Men (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967). See pp. 10-12.

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INTERVIEWING: MEMORY AS ORAL HISTORY

reason, however tempting that possibility might have been. Each individual represented here speaks only, and entirely, for himself or herself.4

The resulting collection will perhaps be forgiven its nonreliance on me­ chanical memory because of the circumstances that availed themselves to me-not in the strong sense of the end justifying the means, but in the weaker (yet no less urgent) sense of there being no viable alternatives. Given the specific circumstances and milieu, a tape recorder would, I am convinced, have presented an overwhelming obstacle to communication. Indeed, it would have been as great an imposition on residents as the camera I had slung over my shoulder during earlier visits in a vain attempt to capture once and for all the "reality" of the area on film.

The use of a tape recorder assumes the fulfillment of certain conditions during an interview which were rarely operative in my case: the possibility of leisurely reflection by the speaker, the maintenance of some privacy, and the privileging of the interview format itself over the relationship between speaker and listener, to name the most obvious. To begin with, the conver­ sational mood was often anything but reflective. Residents typically spoke to me while engaged in other activities: celebrating (drink in hand) during festival time, rallying constituents, arguing with peers, waiting on cus­ tomers, serving clients or patients. The speaker was often quite excited or upset and in such cases would certainly have been most unwilling to have a leisurely chat on the park bench, let alone sit down across a table with a microphone on it.

The presence of a microphone, moreover, would have resulted in the reg­ ularizing of a speaker-listener relationship that was in fact utterly protean and subject to sudden and unpredictable change. To confine the conversa­ tion mechanically to the format of recorded interview would have defeated one of the main purposes of my conversations, which was to track the very nature of my rapport with the resident-over and above documenting the resident's specific personal circumstances.

The degree of privacy in my talks with day laborers varied considerably. Some conversations were held in a doya room, but they were the rare excep­ tions. In most cases, speaker and listener were situated in a public space-a park, an arcade, a work site, a tavern, a shop, a clinic-and typically sur­ rounded by many others, who were active listeners of, and occasional par­ ticipants in, the conversation. Such settings actually helped the men pre­

4 Thus my method differs from that of both Oscar Lewis, The Children of Sanchez: Auto· biography of a Mexican Family (New York: Random House, 1961); and Marion Benedict and Burton Benedict, Men, Women, and Money in Seychelles (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), two well-known anthropological studies that employ collation. See the introduc· tions to both studies.

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INTERVIEWING: MEMORY AS ORAL HISTORY

serve what they cherished most: their anonymity. As I trust this book makes clear, a great many men have come to San'ya and other yoseba after severing all previous social ties, whether to family, acquaintances, em­ ployers, loan officers, or underworld connections. A tape recorder would be perceived as a threat to that anonymity, not because the speaker has been called on to answer incriminating questions, but because he has been sin­ gled out publicly and made vulnerable by that fact alone.

Yet another way in which my conversations diverged from the paradigm of oral-history "interview" has to do with the relationship between speaker and listener, which differed fundamentally, in form if not in content, from that between a typical interviewer and his subject. I walked the streets San'ya, generally on my own, in hopes of making acquaintances. I suc­ ceeded beyond my wildest dreams. While the oral historian generally seeks out individuals to interview, it was the San'ya day laborers who, noting my presence, often sought me out (whether I was prepared or not) and proffered their views on work and life. Relying almost never on introductions (know­ ing that they succeed in opening doors in mainstream society precisely because they are meant to do away with anonymity), I simply made myself available on the street-at the local clinic, on night patrol, in the park, on the job, at a festival-in hopes of spontaneous interaction. Those hopes were nearly always fulfilled.

I describe my initial forays into San'ya as ethnographically haphazard. There is no question, however, that as time went by I began thinking about people and place more and more like an anthropologist. Yet in no case did I present myself as an anthropological researcher doing field work. When I was commuting to San'ya in I989-90, I replied, when questioned, that I was a student of literature and popular culture whose casual interest in the day-laborer situation in Tokyo had deepened with each successive visit to the yoseba. This answer had the dual advantage of being more ambiguous and much closer to the truth. When I was actually living in and working out of San'ya in the summer of I99I, I replied, upon questioning, that I was interested in earning money in a hassle-free environment and did not enjoy teaching English-also close to the truth, albeit hardly the whole truth. Vestiges of this sort of give-and-take are purposefully left in some of the interviews in "Lives" and in certain sections of "Work. II

Early on, many men asked me, often in a derisive tone, if I was a journal­ ist and appeared visibly relieved when I answered in the negative. Some explained to me on separate occasions, in terms so similar as seemingly to express a collective memory, that journalists were to be despised because they were at bottom more concerned with their readerships than with the subjects of their articles and that they merely fed like jackals off the lives of others in the name of news gathering.

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INTERVIEWING: MEMORY AS ORAL HISTORY

This view of journalists is understandable. The yoseba is given sparse coverage except when there are disturbances;s the daily lives of the laborers otherwise go virtually unnoticed and without comment. Foreign journal­ ists, mindful of their limited sojourns and on the lookout for the unusual during their stints abroad, might feature stories on the yoseba at any time, despite a lack of turmoil. But once having made the obligatory visit to a place like San'ya and having noted that even Japan has its /I slums," they feel little compunction to return and even less to link what they have seen there with what goes on in the rest of society.

I can appreciate how a tape recorder, in certain circumstances, can act as a kind of guarantor that a message will get across and actually encourage the speaker to be more forthright and articulate.6 But its presence could also tempt the speaker into exaggeration or rationalization or other means of self-justification which would not have been contemplated in its absence. The use of a tape recorder, moreover, both presupposes and encourages a certain fullness of production and properness of delivery. Many of my /I con­ versations," on the other hand, were little more than spontaneous ex­ changes. I believe that they were no less sincere or valuable for that. Indeed, as suggested above, once I became conscious of the ethnographic potential of this project, I worked hard at being in the right place at the right time; spontaneity, therefore, should not be confused with accident. In any event, the mechanics of setting up a conventional interview would only have gotten in the way of the kind of spur-of-the-moment communication which is so typical of daily life in the yoseba.

The surreptitious use of a tape recorder, which might seem to have af­ forded greater accuracy of transcription with a minimum of mechanical bother, would in fact have been unworkable as well as unethical. A tape recorder, if not hidden well enough, would cause embarrassment, to say the least; yet if too well hidden, would no doubt defeat the purpose. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to change tapes during a conversation, and it would certainly be well-nigh impossible to catch the many ephemeral and spur-of-the-moment but nonetheless essential exchanges that I continually engaged in and that, even though they may not appear in print as ilinter­ views/' have added much to my overall understanding of the area. In retro­

s The media coverage of the October 1990 riots in Kamagasaki typifies the swing in the level of attention from lackadaisical unconcern Iwhich is the usual situation' to frenzied obsession lin times of "crisisfll. 6 Daphnc Patai makes this point in her Brazilian Women Speak: Contemporary Life Stories INew Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University 19881. p. 4. Fatai also makes an eloquent case for oral history, even when duly recorded by as literary artifact. See her "Introduction: Constructing a Self," pp. I thank Daphne who was a fellow at the National Human­ ities Center in I990-91, members of Asian African Languages and Literature at Duke University, to whom I gave a faculty seminar in I990, for encouraging me to consider further the ramifications of my "interviewing" method.

235

INTERVIEWING: MEMORY AS ORAL HISTORY

spect, exercising my memory was highly preferable to taxing my mechani­ ingenuity.

Another crucial (albeit typically overlooked) issue related to interviews when not conducted in English is that of translation. Interviewers who voice concern over the accuracy of transcription often fail to demonstrate equal concern over the appropriateness of their English-language rerlder­ ings. I do not subscribe to the belief that the transcribed interview remains as "unmediated" in its translated as in its untranslated state. The act of translation-which is, after all, one of cultural transference-is neither neutral nor transparent; and the process of editing begins with, rather than

the rendering of one language into another. The use of a tape re­ corder does not in itself make the Japanese speaker's words more accessible, or comprehensible, to an English -speaking audience.

An even more serious issue is the use of a person's words without that person's permission. To tape a conversation in secret and then offer it to the public domain is unconscionable. The words I present here-representa­ tions of the speech of those who quite possibly would never have wanted to see themselves in print-are, finally, my own words, for which 1must take full responsibility. Although each speaker is clearly etched in my memory, I have taken steps in nearly every case to ensure that he or she remains unrecognizable to anyone else. In those cases where the anonymity of the speaker could not be completely protected, or where the relationship be­ tween speaker and listener became a long-standing one, I sought permission to use the specific conversation in question and present it only when per­ mission was granted.

That San'ya day laborers especially do not take lightly an invasion of privacy has been documented in the Prologue. To those who feel that my crime of stealing faces with a camera was simply transformed into one of stealing words, I offer the following defense. The faces of these men I did indeed "steal," without permission or advance notice. Their words, how­ ever, were offered freely and willingly-sometimes in confidence, to be sure, but also as open pronouncements to an outsider. Would those who were so free with their words have been less so had would appear in print-albeit in a different langua~\;;; shall never know the answer, in the cases of those, whose ano­ nymity could not be fully guaranteed, I asked directly and who gave me perm.lSS'lOll. But the feeling-call it a kind of faith if you will-that their words as I have recorded them, uttered at times with much pride and at times in much pain, have both done them some justice and preserved what they desire most-their anonymity-is what has driven this project.

In addition to the question of the accuracy of any individual account is the accuracy of the accounts taken as a whole. Together, the "interviews"

23 6

INTERVIEWING: MEMORY AS ORAL HISTORY

presented in these pages offer one possible cross-section of San'ya residents. They are far from random, however, and do not reflect in numerical terms San'ya's actual demographic make-up. 7 Randomness is actually far more difficult to achieve than might be thought in an area where one can so easily strike up casual acquaintances on the street (not to mention in the taverns and shops). I have tried to correct for overrepresentation of this type by presenting a variety of other groups-day laborers on the job as well as shopowners, union leaders, bureaucrats, and missionaries, whose perspec­ tive on life in San'ya is invaluable to an overall understanding of the arca­ without, I trust, overemphasizing any of the latter. Yet in the final analysis, my claim to any sort of representativeness must be a limited one. The sheer diversity of those I came into contact with dictates otherwise; my method itself militates against it.

In sum, the risks of the very unscientific of ethnography I have attempted here are admittedly great. I would like to think, however, that the rewards are potentially even greater. I agree with Michael B. Katz's criticism of quantitative methods for studying poverty in the United States, which can actually blind researchers to the urgency of their subject. His observations seem as germane to the study of a day-laborer neighborhood in Tokyo as to that of the African American ghettos he describes: "The method of ethnography contrasts vividly with quantitative studies of pov­ erty. Its minimal contribution is the destruction of stereotypes; its signal achievement, in the work of its most able practitioners, is a portrait of the world from the vantage point of its subjects. best ethnographies always break down conventional categories and reassemble the lived world of their subjects in the terms of the subjective experience."s

It should be clear from the above discussion that I am skeptical about the possibility of a "portrait of the world the vantage point of

7 The difficulty of up with the proper "sample" is commented on by Liebow in Tally's Comer, a classic text isee p. 8 and p . .:wli however, I find inspiration in the writing of Amos Oz, who in and psychological probing of his own nation renounces the "representative" limited yet powerfully individuated revelations: "None of the conversations presented here were taped .... I do not consider these articles to be a 'representa­ tive picture' or 'typical cross-section' of Israel at this time; I do not believe in representative pictures or typical cross-sections. Every place is an entire world and cvery man is a world in himself, and I reached only a few places and a few people, and even then Twas able to see and to hear only a little of so much" lIn the Land of Israel. trans. Maurie Goldberg-Bartura [New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983L p. viiil. 8 Michael B. Katz, The Undeserving Poor: From the War OIl Poverty to the War OIl Welfare INew York: Pantheon Books, 19891, pp. IlO-7I. It is not my here to disparage more scientific studies or to privilege the grossly imprecise method I happened to have stumbled onto in getting to know the yoseba, but simply to a space for the latter in the discourse of sociological/anthropological/literary studies. That more traditional social-science studies have their use, not simply in the abstract but in the specific case of San'ya, I do not doubt. See Suggested Readings.

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INTERVIEWING: MEMORY AS ORAL HISTORY

its subjects/' given my belief in the highly constructed nature of the "por­ trait" and the concurrent necessity of filtering it through the presenter's own subjectivity. Nevertheless, I believe just as strongly in the ideal of portraiture and consider it an eminently worthy goal even as a fictional construct. The failures encountered in attempting to represent individuals are of infinitely greater value to me than any success in quantifying faceless groups in exactitude.

238

~

GLOSSARY

This list contains most terms used in the text. A few terms not appearing in the text are also included for those wishing to learn more about yoseba argot.

Abure. Argot for unemployment; specifically, not getting a job off the streets in a yoseba {or from a government agency operating in the yosebaJ. Thus: abure teate. or unemployment dole.

Ankolanko. Argot for day laborer, derived from the angler fish. which waits for a meal to drift its way.

Aokan (short for aotenjo kantan). Sleeping out in the open. Thus: aokansha (person who sleeps in the streets).

Beddo hausu. Bed-house; here translated as bunkhouse: a lodging house (doya), typically accommodating eight men per room on four double-decker bunks.

Buraku. Lit., "hamlet," but often referring to a section of a village or city where outcastes (eta. hinin) and (after 1871) descendants of outcastes reside. Thus: burakulliin (hamlet residents, i.e., outcastesl. Also known as hisabetsu buraku ("hamlets that are discriminated against").

Chikko. The yoseba in Fukuoka. Has no doyagai. Chl1hai. A highball of shochl1 and seltzer water, said to have been invented in

San'ya and now popular throughout Dezura. Argot for wages earned by a day laborer. Dokata. Common term for day laborer. Less formal than hiyatoi rodosha.

Derogatory in some contexts.

239

GLOSSARY

Doya. Argot for lodging house (kan'i shukuhakusho; the syllables of the usual word (yado) being reversed. Sometimes uamualCU "flophouse. "

Doyagai. Lodging-house district, often with a yoseba. In San'ya, the prinCipal doyagai is in Kiyokawa/Nihonzutsumi.

Edo Period. r603-I868. Named after the shogunal capital (present-day Tokyo). Ended with the Meiji Restoration.

Enka. A variety of popular song, often in the style of a melancholy ballad. Eta. Outcastesi Japan's "untouchables." Worked with leather and performed

other tasks, from slaughtering to grave digging, which were considered un­ clean or polluted by social and religious custom. They were ostensibly incor­ porated into the mainstream after 1871 by legal fiat, but discrimination re­ mains. Known today as burakumin.

Genba. Construction site; work site. Geta. Traditional wooden footwear with thonglike straps that secure feet.

Still pormlar in hot weather. prominent yakuza group in San'ya.

Gume. Work gloves, usually white, made of coarse cotton cloth. Hachimaki. Headband; esp., a small towel, usually made of plain cotton or

terry cloth, which is customarily twisted and wrapped around the head to absorb sweat during strenuous physica

q.~. Hanba. Construction site; specifically, one at which including day laborers, spend a period of days, or even lodging on the site in barracks. Also, the barracks at the site.

Harappa. The yoseba in Kawasaki, just south of Heisei Period. (1989-). Named after the Heisei emperor I..M.KllllLUJ. Hibakusha. Victims of the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at

the end of World War II. Many survivors suffer the effects of radioactive fallout.

Hinin. Another group of untouchables in pre-Meiji Japan, which included executioners, prostitutes, and entertainers. Unlike eta, whose status was hereditary, hinin could be reinstated as commoners.

Hisabetsu buraku. See buraku. Hiyatoi rodosha. Lit., "laborer hired for the day." Standard term for day

laborer. Horumon-yaki. Grilled or sauteed pig's guts, richly seasoned. A common dish

in the yoseba. Itte'rasshai. Short for Itte irasshai; lit., "Go and come back." A common

sendoff. Tikatabi. The flexible split-toed footwear worn by gardeners, construction

workers, and so forth on the job. Rubber-soled for sure footing. Short for Tinmin patororu. Citizens' patrol.

Quasi-foreman. A day laborer who is elevated to the role of recruiter and who leads a group of workers on the

240

GLOSSARY

Kaiko-dana. A tiny, cubicle-like lodging space with just barely enough room for one person to sleep in. Now refers to the "bunkhouse" type of lodging.

Kamagasaki. The yoseba in Osaka, and the largest in Japan. Has a doyagai. Kanamachi Ikka. The most prominent yakuza group in San'ya. Kan'i shukuhakusho. Lit., "simple overnight accommodation." The bu­

reaucratic term for doya. Also, kan'i shukusho. Kanpa. Donations, either in the form of money or materials. A word heard

especially at festival time. Kenchinjiru. A stewlike dish containing burdock, carrots, daikon radish,

pork, tofu, and kon'nyaku ("devil's tongue"). Ketaochi. A work site (typically a that flagrantly violates labor laws

and/or contracts, or which has particularly poor conditions or low wages. Ketsuwari. Quitting (one's job) halfway through, whether out of laziness or

because of some legitimate reason, such as a false job description. Kichin'yado. Cheap lodging house; doya. Less formal than kan'i shukuha­

kusho. Kidotai. Riot police. Kotobuki-cho. A major yoseba, located in Yokohama, the port citv south of

Tokyo. Has a doyagai. Meiji Period. I868-I9I2. Named after the Meiji emperor (Mutsuhito). Meiji Restoration (1868). Marked the end of shogunal rule in Japan and the

beginning of the modern state under the reign of the emperor. Min 'yo. Traditional folk song. Mogaki. One who preys on men sleeping outdoors (aokansha). Nikoyon. Lit., "two [one-hundred-yen] plus four [ten.yen] coins." Nickname

for a worker's daily wage, set by the government hiring agencies in the I950S. The term can also refer to a day laborer himself.

An older term for day laborer. Another word for tehaishi, esp. one who sends day laborers to

work at a hanba. Ninsoku. A historical term for day laborer. Thus: ninsoku yoseba. Nomi kai. A kind of informal betting, common in the doyagai, which places a

ceiling on the possible Thus, a bet placed on a horse that wins ten thousand yen in the might yield much more at the track. Certain shops serve as fronts for this type of betting, and the proceeds go to the yakuza gangs.

Obon. The Buddhist Festival of the Dead. The principal summer holiday and along with New Year's one of the two major holidays in celebrated in the seventh month of the lunar calendar, but now served in August (13-15).

Okera. Flat broke, either because of no income or from gambling losses. Onigiri. Rice ball, often garnished with fish or pickles inside and seaweed on

the outside. A popular lunch item. Oyabun. BOSSi leader.

241

GLOSSARY

Pachinko. A very popular pinball game, found in pachinko parlors every­ where in Japan, including San'ya.

Pinhane. Wage skimming, in yoseba jargon. The tehaishi's cut of the day laborer's wage.

Piitaro. A derogatory term for day laborer. ~ Rakugo. Comic monologue. A traditional narrative art.

Sasajima (or Sasashima). The yoseba in Nagoya, located close to Nagoya Sta­ tion. No longer has a doyagai.

Senjti Kawara-cho. A small yoseba to the north of San'ya in Kita Senju, Adachi Ward.

0" Shichibu. The flared knickers worn by shokunin, especially by the many ,/ laborers who are tobi.

Shinkansen. Commonly known as the "bullet train. II The superexpress that connects Tokyo with the major cities of Honshu and Kyushu.

Shiro techo. "White card. II A popular appelation for hiyatoi rodo hihokensha tech6, or logbook for insured day laborers. Used by day laborers registered with a municipal government to obtain unemployment compensation.

Shochii. A distilled liquor made from potatoes, barley, rice, or other grains. Generally about fifty proof.

Shokunin. Skilled workers, including carpenters, electricians, and tobi. Showa Period. 1926-89. Named after the Showa emperor (Hirohito). Soapland [sopurandol. The name given to bathhouses in Yoshiwara and other

quasi-brothel districts after the Turkish government, in the 1980s, protested the use of "Turkish baths" in this context.

Suiton. A thin broth containing flour dumplings and flavored with daikon radish and onions.

A term for day laborer. One who stands and waits for a job.

Taisho Period. Named after the Taish6 emperor (Yoshihito). Takobeya. A descriptive term for a particularly poor hanba, likening the

cramped accommodations to an octopus trap'(a pot that is easy to slip into but virtually impossible to escape), and where one is forced to do hard labor.

Tatami. A thick, woven rush mat used for flooring in most rooms of a tradi­ tional Japanese house. The size is roughly three feet by six feet but can considerably. Rooms are often measured by the number of tatami mats accommodate.

@ Tehaishi. Labor broker, who supplies day laborers with work off the street. under the employ of the yakuza.

C>.> Tobi. Also tobi shoku. Skilled, highly paid workers who assemble and disas­ semble scaffolding on buildings. Many work as day laborers.

Toniiru. A stcwlike dish in a miso broth similar to kenchiniiru. Tonka. Escape, typically from a takobeya. Umeshu. Plum brandy. An alcoholic beverage made with Japanese plums

(ume) fermented in sweetened shochii, with roughly the alcoholic content of a sherry or port.

242

GLOSSARY

Yakuza. Generic term for gangster or group of gangsters in Japan. The latter is known more formally as boryokudan. Originated from itinerant peddlers (tekiya) and gamblers (tobakushi;

Yama. Another name for San'ya, taken from the first character of the two­ charactcr compound (yama [lit., "mountain"] and tani [lit., "valley"]). Thus: "Yamaman."

Yamaguchi-gumi. The largest yakuza syndicate in Japan. Based in Kansai. Yoseba. The place (such as San'ya) where day laborers gather to get work. It

mayor may not have a lodging quarter (doyagai).

243

Copyright © 1996 by Cornell University All photos by Edward Fowler

All rights reserved. ~reof, must not be from the publisher.

Sage

First published 1996 by Cornell University Press First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 1998

San'ya Blues by OKABAYASHI NOBUYASU

© 1968 by FUJIPACIFIC MUSIC INC. & BelAir Music Publishing, Ltd.

Used by permission of JASRAC License no. 9593003-501

English translation of "San'ya Blues" by Edward Fowler © 1996 by FUJIPACIFIC MUSIC INC.

Cornell Universitv Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such

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Library of Congress Data

Fowler, Edward. San'ya blues: laboring life in contemporary Tokyo I Edward Fowler.

p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-I3: 978-0-8014-8570-1 (pbk.: alk. paperJ

I. Day laborers-Japan-Tokyo. 2. Working class-Japan-Tokyo. 3. San'ya JapanJ-Social conditions. I. Title.

1996 96- 1 38 98

Paperback

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To Hiroko in memoriam

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