Vol.67 No.1 (2015)
Contents
Article
NAGASHIMA Yuki
Employment and Replacement of Merchants’ Servants in Early Modern Kyoto: A Case Study of the Endo Household (1)
Review
SUGIYAMA Takeshi
Conceptual Examination of ‘Creative Villages’: A Geographical Approach (20)
Research Note
HANAOKA Kazumasa, LIAW Kao-Lee
Understanding the Japanese-born Residents in the United States from the Determinants of their Wage Pattern: An Analysis Based on the Micro Data of the American Community Survey (41)
Focus
TANAKA Kazuko
A Preliminary Observation of the Drawings and Paintings Related to Sven Hedin Stored at Kyoto University: A Legacy of His Stay in Japan in 1908 (57)
Meeting Reports
Special Presentations in Annual Meeting 2014 (71)
136st Research Seminar of Historical Geography Study Group (92)
Notes for Contributors of the English Papers (100)
Subscription (102)
Abstracts
Employment and Reproduction of Merchants’ Servants in Early Modern Kyoto: A Case Study of the Endo Household
NAGASHIMA Yuki
Graduate Student, Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University
This study explores the nature of the labor market in late Edo period Kyoto, labor migration to Kyoto, and the regional structure of Kyoto and its surrounding areas, based on the employment and replacement of merchant’s servants. Previous studies on such themes have been conducted mainly in the historical demography field, and some of the proposed theories from that work include a dual structure of the urban labor market. This study builds on previous research by examining the Endo household which operated a drapery shop in Kyoto.
The Endo household’s servants were live-in, as with other merchant households. They were largely divided, depending on their workplace, into tana-omote (front office) and oku (domestic). The former group was composed of male clerks and their trainees, known as tedai. The latter group did housework and was further categorized into two types: genan (males) and gejo (females).
On the whole, the servants came from eight provinces, including Kyoto, the north Kinki region, and the Sea of Japan region. It seems that the distribution was influenced by conventional economic ties and areas of other large cities.
Many of the tedai were from Kyoto and were employed because of their connections to the Endo household. One such connection was through bekke, the Endo household’s branch families. Other connections were neighbors and business partners of the household. The bekke was an especially important connection. Their children often became live-in servants in the merchant’s household. In contrast to the tedai, most genan were from the predominantly agricultural hyakusho class in the north Kinki and Hokuriku regions. However, because the genan are not recorded in the old documents of the Endo household at the end of the Edo period, daytime employees may have replaced them. The gejo were from various socioeconomic groups, hailing mainly from Omi (modern-day Shiga Prefecture) and Kyoto.
As a result, the dual structure of the urban labor market is evident in this case study of the Endo household. The distribution of birthplaces and systems of servant’s replacement varied according to their duties: tedai, genan, and gejo. Thus, it is necessary to examine merchants’ servants based on their backgrounds and actual working condiitons in order to understand labor migration to Kyoto.
Studying servant employment by considering historical demography gives insight into the labor market, labor migration, and urban society.
Key words: Kyoto, Edo period, servant, labor migration, labor market, Endo household
Conceptual Examination of ‘Creative Villages’: A Geographical Approach
SUGIYAMA Takeshi
Urban Research Plaza, Osaka City University
Research focused on ‘creativity,’ as exemplified in creative cities and the creative class, is now at a flood throughout the world. In recent years in Japan, ‘creative village theory’ has been advocated by researchers of creative cities, and rural village studies that utilize the concept of ‘creativity’ have been undertaken. However, the issue remains that the content of these studies has not resulted in research that directly examines the concepts of ‘creativity’ or of ‘rural village theory.’
This paper attempts a conceptual examination of ‘creative village theory’ from a geographical perspective. In particular, it is organized around the following two discussion points:
First is a reconsideration of the meaning that is implied by the term ‘creativity.’ One has to say that examination of the concept will be insufficient if one only looks at creativity in the aspects of innovation, practicality, and aesthetics. ‘Creativity’ is related to ‘wisdom’ and its meaning includes a ‘moral’ dimension. In addition to that, the discussion focuses on the issue within moral geography of what the significance is of wisdom in the substance of rural villages.
Second is a re-examination of ‘endogenous development theory’ which is at the core of creative village theory in Japan. In European rural theory, a turn towards ‘neo-endogenous development theory’ that can be seen as a territorial approach is advancing on both theoretical and on policy fronts. I have proposed that it is necessary for creative village theory to incorporate in its vision the wave of ‘neo-endogenous development theory’ that is being studied centered around rural economics in recent years.
However, it is insufficient for neo-endogenous development theory to simply be adapted to ‘creative’ village theory. It is necessary for creative village theory to take on the role of oversight to ensure that the ‘external forces’ which are emphasized in neo-endogenous development theory do not lead to neo-liberalism. It is desirable that creative village theory develops as a research field that balances the two aspects of ‘moral geography’ and ‘neo-endogenous development’ in a way molded to the realities of rural villages themselves.
Key words: creative village, creative, wisdom, moral, neo-endogenous development
Understanding the Japanese-born Residents in the United States from the Determinants of their Wage Pattern: An Analysis Based on the Micro Data of the American Community Survey
HANAOKA Kazumasa
International Research Institute of Disaster Science, Tohoku University
LIAW Kao-Lee
School of Geography and Earth Sciences, McMaster University
By applying a nonlinear regression analysis to the micro data of the 2005-2007 American Community Surveys, this study focuses mainly on the dependence of the wages of male and female Japanese-born residents in the United States on (1) current age, (2) educational attainment, (3) the length of stay in the host country, and (4) the age at entry. To achieve better insights, the Japan-born residents are compared with their counterparts born in India, the Philippines, and Germany.
Our main finding is that the wage pattern of Japanese-born males is radically different from those of their Indian-born and Philippine-born counterparts: (1) their wage level rises sharply as their current age increases from 25-29 to 45-49, (2) the wage premium of achieving a post-graduate degree over bachelor’s degree is very small and statistically insignificant, (3) the wage level of recent arrivals is substantially higher than that of earlier arrivals, and (4) those who arrived at relatively older ages earn substantially higher wages. In addition to the fact that many of these Japanese-born males were dispatched from Japan by Japanese corporations, this paradoxical finding suggests that their wage pattern is influenced substantially by Japan’s social norms and employment practices. Being relegated to secondary economic roles or excluded from the Japanese employment system, Japanese-born females have diverse psychological and socioeconomic reasons for migrating to the United States and are found to have a wage pattern that deviates less from those of their counterparts born in India and the Philippines. Although the wage pattern of German-born males also deviates to some extent from those of their Indian-born and Philippine-born counterparts, they differ markedly from Japanese-born males in having a very large wage premium for having completed postgraduate education.
Our main contribution lies in highlighting that in understanding the immigrants of a host country, it is important to pay attention to the socioeconomic conditions of the country of origin.
Key words: Japanese residents in the United States, wage, nonlinear regression analysis, micro data, American Community Survey
A Preliminary Observation of the Drawings and Paintings Related to Sven Hedin Stored at Kyoto University: A Legacy of His Stay in Japan in 1908
TANAKA Kazuko
Kyoto University
Sixty works of reproduced drawings and paintings were recently found in the Department of Geography, Faculty of Letters, Kyoto University. They were drawn and painted with pencil, pen, or watercolor. On some of the works, short alphabetical notes include Tibetan place names and comments in Swedish. A preliminary observation of these works made clear that: (1) Four young art students made the reproductions. (2) They made copies from Sven Hedin’s original works drawn and painted in Tibet during his explorations in Central Asia (1905-1908). (3) The reproductions vividly depict mountains, lakes, Tibetan temples and monks, ethnic costumes and people of Tibet, etc. They are artistically very excellent. (4) After his explorations, accepting the invitation of the Tokyo Geographical Society, Hedin visited Japan for one month at the end of 1908. Hedin stayed in Kyoto from November 28 to December 12. (5) At the time when Hedin delivered a lecture at Kyoto Imperial University on November 29, 108 sheets of his original paintings, drawings, and maps were exhibited in an adjacent room. It is conjectured that the four art students may have reproduced some of the exhibited paintings and drawings in less than two weeks before Hedin left Japan.
This observation indicates that the reproduced works found at Kyoto University are evidence of international academic exchanges in modern Japan. Hedin was welcomed by people in many disciplines, and they had intellectual and cultural discussions. The reproduced works are also very important visual materials showing the Tibetan landscape and culture of about one hundred years ago, because field surveys by foreigners had been severely restricted or forbidden in Tibet for centuries. These sixty reproductions are extremely valuable as research objects for the study of the modern histories of geography, ethnography, Sinology, Tibetan studies, the arts, and their disciplinary interactions.
Key words: Sven Hedin, drawings and paintings, reproduced works, Tibet, Kyoto, modern Japan