Program Three in the eight-part video documentary series, “Nippon: Japan Since 1945.” Produced by the BBC in 1990. Released and broadcast in US as “A&E Premiers” with Jack Perkins as host and narrator. 50 minutes.
Although it is a program from a different series than “Reinventing Japan” on the Allied Occupation years, this documentary further extends our appreciation of the historical dynamics of contemporary Japan. Just as “Reinventing Japan” parallels the early childhood of the postwar “baby-boomer” generation, this covers the period in which they grew up as teenagers and twenty-somethings. In the context of postwar Japan, the “miracle years” usually refer to the 1960s, the decade of extraordinarily high growth in the Japanese economy. In the documentary, however, the reference is more broadly to the two postwar decades, 1955-1974, from the aftermath of the Allied Occupation through the Tokyo Olympic Games of 1964 to the prosperity and emergent problems in the early 1970s. The midpoint of these decades was the Tokyo Olympic Games of 1964, with which the documentary opens. These were the first Olympics held in Asia, and they were immensely important to the Japanese as a demonstration to the world that the nation was again ready to assume a leading place in the international community. The documentary then goes back to provide a retrospective of the enormous social changes that had preceded the Olympics. It covers a wide range of developments that are central to the topics we will be concerned with for the remainder of the course. These include:
- the massive population exodus from the countrysides to the cities, especially to Tokyo, which reinforced its apical position as the political, economic, media, and educational capital of a uni-polar society
- the early, aggressive sales campaigns to encourage consumer spending, as shown by the elite squad of mattress salesmen going off to “battle”
- the entry of women into factory employment (again)
- urban sprawl and unchecked pollution (metropolitan populations doubled in the 1960s)
- the expansion of the so-called danchi, the public high-rise housing projects built to accommodate the burgeoning urban populations, but with important consequences for family size and form
- the domestic electric durable appliance boom (despite the image of the Japanese economy as export-driven, over 90% of its output was sold in domestic markets; these were decades of extraordinarily high rates of household savings, but also personal spending)
- condom ladies, “love boxes,” abortions, and mizuko–the ambivalent technologies of family size management, also with implications for the “New Middle Class” family
- the massive street demonstrations and political uproar over Prime Minister Kishi’s efforts to renew the US-Japan Security Treaty in 1960, showing how fragile was the apparent solidity of the “1955 system”
- Prime Minister Ikeda, another of Yoshida’s protégés, and his “Income-Doubling” policy that attempted to refocus popular attention from contentious politics to economic growth
- the “3 C’s” consumer treasures and the horrors of Minamata Disease, which together symbolized the promise and peril of these “economic miracle” years
The documentary returns in conclusion to the 1964 Olympics and the dramatic victory by the women’s volleyball team over the defending champion Soviet Union. That is, if Japan could not fight the Cold War through military means, it could at least contribute athletic victories! Coached by the authoritarian ex-platoon commander, Hiroumi Daimatsu, and captained by Mitsue Nakamura (they later married), the team’s brutal training, well-documented sacrifices, and subsequent victory were seen as a metonym for Japan’s resurrection after the war.Perkins is a bit silly in the role of host, but the archival footage and interviews are excellent, and the coverage provides a valuable visual supplement to this week’s readings and lectures.
As a point of reference, there is a book that was written to accompany this series, Nippon, New Superpower, by William Horsley and Roger Buckley (BBC Books, 1990).