typical Japanese family

A Visit With a Japanese Family in 1964 Part 4: “It’s Supper Time!”

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Here is part 4 of a series on how the Organizing Committee of the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 presented the typical Japanese family to the world. In these series of pictures, the writers again show how similar the typical Japanese and Western families actually are. Moms shout out to kids that dinner is ready, and they settle together at the dinner table to a wide variety of cuisine.

13 Amid the cackling and shouting of the kid on the lawn we hear Mother’ s voice. It’s supper time. Japan adopted daylight-saving-time shortly after the war, but the problem of getting the children inside while it was still light out proved too great, and daylight-saving-time was abandoned.

14 All the family members gather in the kitchen area for supper. For dinner you can expect any variety of Western, Chinese, Indian or Japanese food. No other nation offers such an array of homecooking. The availability of fresh meats and an abundant supply   of   fish give the homemaker scores of menu ideas. Rice, the all­ time favorite in Japan is losing some of its popularity to bread, especially at breakfast time. The main food seasoning is soy sauce, which was first introduced. to Japan from China centuries ago.   Try a little on your fish.

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When I read that Japanese typically eat Indian food, I had to pause for a moment. Indian food? Then I realized that one of the most popular dishes in the Japanese diet is indeed curry rice, a thick yellow curry that has been popular since the late 19th century when the British introduced it to the Japanese.

The article ends as does the day of the typical Japanese family – with everyone fast asleep, except the eldest son burning the midnight oil studying for university exams.

16   The   family   has retired for the night.   What a long time we’ve been here!   Only   one   light is burning.   It’s in the room of the oldest boy who is studying for the university entrance examinations .   He is   preparing   for the fiercest competition he may ever face. Taro, the family dog, is keeping the vigil outside. Well, good night now, have a good rest.

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A Visit With a Japanese Family in 1964 Part 2: The Not-So-Typical Japanese Home

This is part 2 about an article written in “Tokyo Olympics Official Souvenir 1964”, a book designed to make sense of Japan to visiting foreigners during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. While the article was interesting, the pictures were fascinating.

As stated in part 1, the Olympic Organizers wanted to put foreign visitors at ease, that Japan wasn’t so different. The article shows a picture of the family Kato. Kato is a typical Japanese name, but the house they live in – definitely not typical!

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1 Here we are-this is the Kato   home.   Nice, isn’t it? Kato-san is a company manager and he, with his wife and eldest son’s family live in a nine-room, upper middle class home. The house, constructed recently at a cost of ¥9 million (S25,000), is of hinoki (Japanese cypress), considered the best home building material.

Hmmm, I don’t know about you, but 9 rooms, even for an upper middle-class home seems insanely spacious. And then there is the space around the house itself. If you’ve lived in a typical neighborhood, even in an upper-middle class abode, you rarely see such space around the house. More likely is that you could open your window and practically touch the house next door.

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2 This is the front entrance. As we slip out of our shoes and into house slippers, we meet- Kato-san’s eldest son who is making the opposite change. He’s on his way to the office.

Clearly the eldest son is Westernized. He’s not in kimono – rather, he’s in the modern-day office wear of white shirt, trousers and necktie. And another familiar cultural cue of the 1960s: the wife stays at home to do the housework while the husband is working hard for the family.

3 With her husband off to work, the wife is in the living room, guiding the   vacuum   cleaner   over   the   rug and under the Western-style furniture. You’ll notice the display shelves, a genuine Japanese touch.   Resting   on them are some of the family’s art treasures.

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Not only are the Japanese Westernized, they’re civilized!

8   The clock has ticked by a few hours and Mother is in the garden hanging out the wash. She smiles as she hears her daughter practicing scales upstairs. Musical education at home was a rarity in prewar   Japan, but is extremely popular now, especially for young people. Japan is proud to be the producer of some of the world’s finest pianos.

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9 Kato-san’s three grandchildren are on late summer vacation now, from late July to early September. The oldest girl, home from college, is spending her leisure time playing the piano, while her brother, who is a high school student, and the youngest boy, who is in junior high school, are making plastic models and assembling a radio.

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But not everything is Westernized. The Japanese actually do enjoy their green tea. And thanks to this article, foreigners can avoid the embarrassing faux pas of adding sugar to their green tea.

4 Upstairs, Kato-san is sipping hot green tea (without cream or sugar) which his wife has just brought him. He doesn’t have to go to the office until later. This sunny spot is a typical all-purpose Japanese room-a simple airy living room during the day, a dining area when you bring the low table to the center of the room, and at night, when the bedding is taken from the closets, and placed on the tatami presto, It’s a bedroom!

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A Visit With a Japanese Family in 1964 Part 1: East meets West, but Don’t Worry – They’re Westernized!

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Organizers of the Tokyo Olympic Games in 1964 were worried about how they were going to accommodate all of the expected 30,000 visitors during the peak. In addition to hotels, youth hostels and even large passenger liners, owners of private homes were asked to make rooms available for foreign visitors. Over 580 private homes alone added an additional 1,445 beds to capacity.

Those who stayed at a Japanese private home likely had a unique and wonderful experience. But there must have been some initial concern by foreigners in crashing at a stranger’s place, particular in the land of the rising sun, where the people were inscrutable and the food moved on its own.

Perhaps the Organizing Committee felt a need to explain the Japanese family to the Westerner. Towards the end of the book, “Tokyo Olympics Official Souvenir 1964”, the publisher, Dentsu, dedicated a few pages to demystifying the Japanese family.

Dentsu’s approach was to apply the tried but true formula of the harmonious meeting of East and West. In this article, we visit the Kato family – a symbol of this pleasing integration:

We’ re on our way to Mr. Kato’s or “Kato-san’s” home. Let me give you some tips before we get there. You’ll find “dual” living arrangements there-Western modes and time-honored Japanese tradition peacefully co-existing under one roof. The Japanese have not dispensed with tatami rooms (straw mat floors), but one room is usually Western style with a rug and furniture. Kimono at home is the rule and Western dress outside, for the office, school and business.  

It’s not just the house and the rooms, but also how the typical Japanese family eats and sleeps.

At mealtime you’ll see the family is as dexterous with fork and knife as with chopsticks (called hashi), but on the other hand they may favor chopsticks even for Western food. Each family member will have his own set of hashi, and guests are provided with disposable ones which are discarded after use. With the same relish, Kato-san and his son drink hot Japanese sake (rice wine) or whiskey on ice. At night some of the family may sleep on futons (feather bedding) and others will sleep in beds. The people of this country are “sensitive pragmatists”­ – there is beauty, versatility and comfort in their homes and lives.

Now Dentsu figured that the visiting Westerner has been programmed by WWII propaganda of how Japanese children and mothers were under the total subjugation of the man of the household, and how entire families were under the total subjugation of the Emperor of Japan. In this article, Westerners were reassured that times have changed, and so have the Japanese, but not entirely:

The Japanese home is no longer ruled by a huffing-puffing patriarch. Husband, “wife and children are a close group. While the chief decision-maker is the bread-winner, wives these days usually hold the purse strings and the women’s voice in domestic affairs is to be with. The Japanese Civil Code attempts to regulate inheritance so that one third of a man’s estate goes to his wife and two­ thirds to his children. It is still common,   however, for an estate, settled in terms of a will, to award the lion’s share of the inheritance to the eldest son, reflecting the traditional value placed upon family line, rather than upon individuals.

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