Asia Times: Growing up in the new Japan



	January 13, 2000	atimes.com

Japan

Growing up in the new Japan
By Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO - Fifty-one-year-old Keiko Arata celebrated Adult Day 31 years ago. ''I was a meek and quiet young woman who was overwhelmed with her brand new kimono and a speech given to the audience by a government official. Young people don't act like that any more,'' says the slightly graying middle-aged woman, who lives in a large house in a plush residential area of Tokyo.

Reflections on Japanese youth today, and what they will become in a changing society, were rife as the country observed ''coming-of-age day'' on January 10.

As in past years on that day, thousands of young women and men dressed in expensive versions of traditional attire made specially for the occasion made trips to city halls and temples to mark their new legal status as adults.

According to Japanese law, youth who turn 20 can be treated as adults and are allowed to vote, drink alcohol, or smoke without parental supervision. Some 1.2 percent of Japan's 127 million people are ''new adults'' this year, says the prime minister's office.

The Management and Coordination Agency reports that 1.64 million people celebrated the event this year, down from 1.7 million a year before. But sociologists say the point is that this year's Adult Day is not quite the same as past ones.

''Ten years from now, these young adults will be living a life very different from their parents as a result of a new era in Japan,'' opines Hidehiko Sekizawa, an expert on youth affairs at Hakuhodo Research Institute, a private think tank.

Research conducted by the institute reveals that youth are no longer passive conformists as was the norm especially during the past two decades, when Japan's economic boom was at its peak. Today, more and more young people are expressing individualism and variety in their lives and turning their backs on values such as conformity and group loyalty that were once considered the best in Japan.

''For example, we will no longer see unflinching loyalty to the company as was the norm in Japan till recently. Instead Japan's future generation will have job loyalty because they take pride in what they do,'' says Sekizawa.

Experts trace this change to the fact that Japanese companies, facing stiff international competition, are undertaking painful restructuring programs that are already seeing tens of thousands of their loyal workers jobless and out on the streets. College graduates are no longer assured of a life-time job. In order to survive the harsh realities, Japan's young adults must strive harder to develop special talents to be able to stay ahead of their counterparts.

This new work culture is the reason for the thriving business of Yu Hirano, manager of Loft Plus One, a bar that in addition to drinks, offers a nightly topic for discussion among its patrons. ''Today's young people are outspoken because they do not expect the company to take care of them,'' he explains. At the bar, discussions regularly focus on social change and they get so serious that the 200 seats are almost always filled.

Likewise, the new outspokenness is reflected in the growing popularity of magazines like Nomadica, founded by students of prestigious Waseda University and based on the principle that values held by people outside one's own group should not be judged bad or dismissed.

Hakuhodo also points out that a major characteristic of Japan's new generation will be an openness to foreigners, in contrast to their elders who are generally suspicious of outside influences. ''The old trend in Japanese society saw the West as 'superior' and Asia as 'inferior'. That thinking is long gone among young people who do not care whether their boss is a foreigner or of Japanese origin. What they are looking for is any individual as long as he is clever and unique,'' explains Sekizawa.

Naoko Ariyoshi, who became a ''new adult'' in Tokyo on Monday, says she is looking forward to adult responsibilities like voting in the future. ''I want something done to change Japan for the better,'' she says. Indeed, a survey this week by the English-language daily Japan Times shows that 58 percent of young adults polled want to vote, a much higher percentage compared to the usual dismal turnout of less than 40 percent on average.

The government seems to have a different idea of the young generation's concerns - it moved Adult's Day, traditionally January 15, to January 10 so that it would fall on a Monday. The expectation was that consumer spending would be boosted by the extra long weekend. But, says Sekizawa, while Japan's new adults will be eagerly consuming, they will do so differently from their parents, expressing individuality in their choice of products and lifestyles.

''The time when the Japanese market was filled with goods mass produced for a society that lived similar lifestyles, is over. Young Japanese will be looking for different products that suit their various lifestyles,'' he says.

(Inter Press Service)

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