In conclusion, the high incidence of suicide among the elderly in Sweden is the bitter fruit of the individualist doctrine, the unfortunate result of losing a sense of self when one is isolated from the goals and challenges of life. In contrast, suicide among the middle-aged in Japan is the tragic result of a self that has been spoiled by excessive dependence on the group or on support from the family.
Mieppari (Self-Display)
It was a windy day in Yokohama. As a friend and I were walking down the street, we came across a fellow on a scaffold painting a signboard. The scaffold was swaying in the wind and the painter was hanging on with all his might. Out of concern, my friend walked under the signboard. He was surprised to discover that he knew the acrobatic painter. "Hey! Don't you think you'd better leave that work to someone a little younger? It's dangerous. Why don't you come on down?" The old man shouted back: "Even in a city as large as Yokohama, I'm the only one who could paint a signboard in a wind like this!"
If it were merely pride of workmanship that motivated this painter, he would not have had to expose himself to such danger. No. This was a fierce mieppari (act of self-display). According to the dictionary, the first half of the word, mie, means "the act of being conscious of another person and trying to show oneself off to best advantage before him." This is not necessarily a bad thing. "I am the only one capable of doing this, no other painter would dare it, I am a superior painter"—such was the message the old man was eager to convey. This is mieppari, or "display of the self."
The wife of a certain family goes shopping. She checks her daily spending account and decides that the only dish the family can afford that day is mackerel (a relatively inexpensive fish) and that mackerel will have to do. But on the way to the market she meets another woman from the same company housing quarters, and by the time she gets to the store the mackerel she had intended to buy has become tuna (a much more expensive purchase). She found it impossible to buy mackerel in front of another woman of the same social rank. Her "honor as a woman" was at stake. "Honor" is an inner dictum, an internal standard of conduct. When it was manifested externally in this case, it became display. In Japan, honor and pride are intimately connected with the place one occupies in the social hierarchy. To avoid sacrificing her honor, the housewife bought the tuna, though not without a sigh and an ironic smile to herself. Maybe she will be able to balance the books next time.
Display of this sort in Japan is a response to the rigid social hierarchy. It is, in a way, an act of resistance, or at least of battling to assert one's true place in that order. If the woman who wanted to buy mackerel had been a department head's wife and the woman she met on the way had been of lower rank, she would have been even less likely to buy the mackerel. For the honor of "Mrs. Department Head" it would have been necessary to buy not just tuna but prime fillet of tuna. The housewife is under this stricture whether or not she is shopping with someone else. As long as she thinks, "Someone might see me, and anyway that fishmonger is liable to talk," she would not consider touching the mackerel. The reason that mackerel and another inexpensive fish, the sardine, sell poorly in Japan is because they don't contribute to this fierce contest to display status.
Japan is a rank-conscious society, and each person lives under the careful scrutiny of every other member. No one wants to be bested. If one family puts up a pole with carp-shaped banners (done in Japan for the sons of the family on the Boys' Festival, May 5), you can be sure the next-door neighbors will raise a banner too, no matter what the expense would do to the family budget. "We can't be outdone" is the logic behind this eternal struggle for self-display.
In the 1960s, the three "magic appliances"—the electric refrigerator, the electric washer, and the television set—spread through the country like wildfire. This had nothing to do with any special efforts by appliance salesmen. All they had to do was say, "The people next door bought one," and the deal was closed. When one or two women are seen carrying a handbag made by some prestigious European firm, it's only a matter of months before hundreds of travelers bring back the same thing from their next trip to Europe. In no time at all the streets are full of women wearing "charmink" coats and parading the same handbag on their arm. This is called a woman's "miep-Paris." On a larger scale, it is an example of the problems posed by living in a hierarchical society where appearance is the standard by which one's place in the hierarchy is judged.
Self-display in Western society is a bit different. In the West, self-display is on a scale grander than mackerel and tuna, handbags and coats, or risking one's life in a violent wind to show how good one is at one's work. In the West, self-display often takes the form of "the bigger, the better." People build large swimming pools or purchase private aircraft or gorgeous yachts. It was a strong desire for self-display that motivated a certain billionaire to make a famous opera singer his wife, then leave her for the widow of an American President. He was, in effect, announcing to the world, "I can do anything!" His display was an attempt to assuage the wound of being excluded from the cream of society in spite of his great wealth. In short, display in the West is often used for struggle against the class system, while in Japan it is used for asserting one's place within the order of the hierarchy.
In earlier centuries, when Japan indeed had social classes, display served the purpose of class conflict there as well. In the Tokugawa period, as stated before, all Japanese were divided into four classes: samurai, peasants, craftsmen, and merchants. The merchants, lowest on the scale, battled against the class system by many kinds of display. They lent large sums of money to the samurai and, if no repayment was made, received permission to carry small swords in return. They ransomed geisha—usually geisha who had fallen in love with some samurai—and, in general, lived a life of luxury.
Today the efforts of parents to get their sons into a first-rate university at whatever cost and the bright kimono that young women wear as the "unnecessary necessity" at their graduation ceremony or on Adults' Day are both manifestations of the struggle with the hierarchy. Of course, I am not saying that display is utterly without value. In fact, display is the moving force behind much of Japan's cultural and economic development.
The Blend Society
From the han (clans) of samurai, za (guilds) of merchants, and kumi (groups) of firefighters during the feudal period, to the modern "National Railway Family," the "home company" organization, and the various ministries of the government, there have been many sorts of organizations in Japan. The important point is that they are all social groups as well as bureaucratic or industrial organizations, and they have always displayed three traits.
These are (1) a hierarchy that forces the individual to define his own limits by his position in the order; (2) an exclusivity that prevents members of one group from identifying with members of another group; and (3) a cohesiveness that blends the members of each group into a uniform entity. These traits are aptly manifested in the modern industrial or bureaucratic organization in the form of the seniority system, the in-company union, and lifetime employment. Every "self" in Japan lives by, and is in fact created by, responding to these three traits, as illustrated in part in Chapter 1.