Japan's New Middle Class: The Salary Man and His Family in a Tokyo Suburb (3 page)

prestige, to participate in activities unlikely to help his business. More often, however, he will sidestep responsibilities in these activities by offering financial help or services which require little time but will participate vigorously in activities which might have indirect business advantage.

Just as business is combined with community activities, so it is combined with recreation and personal activities. It is often difficult to distinguish working time from leisure time, and the businessman often entertains his clients by a trip to the golf course or a party with entertainment by geisha girls. He may do so without any specific business problem in mind, but at other times he clearly uses the informal atmosphere for business ends. One of the businessmen explained that when he has important business, he first lays the groundwork by providing a good atmosphere with a private party, and at the peak of good will he subtly mentions his business plan and completes the arrangements while everyone is still in good humor. Many evenings are spent in just such parties, and many Sundays and even week days are spent at the exclusive golf clubs, combining business and pleasure. Even if there is no specific business purpose, these activities are paid for by the business expense account.

Business expense accounts also are used to cover a variety of family expenses. Although the businessman may not draw much more salary than a highly paid manager, the extras, paid for by the business, make his style of life very different from that of the salary man. For example, he typically has at his disposal at least one or two chauffeured cars. He is chauffeured to and from work and to any place else he wishes to go; when he is not using the car, it is at the disposal of his wife. If the wife should require household help, in addition to her regular maid, she can call on her husband's employees, and their wages will be paid by the company payroll. A young girl in the company may even be used as a part-time maid. As in the United States, company expense accounts have the virtue of avoiding income-tax payments, but in Japan the scope of company expenses is broad enough to include more personal expenses. Since business is so closely intertwined with family affairs and recreation, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish business and personal expenses.

Just as company expenses extend into areas which Americans re-

gard as personal, so employer-employee relationships go far beyond contractual work relationships. While genuinely interested in his employee's welfare, the successful businessman is very aware of the business utility of offering benefits in lieu of higher salaries. He provides employees with personal services, not because he loves them as his children, but because he realizes that this keeps up the workers' morale and productivity. He knows, for example, that discharging an employee without good reason would have a serious effect on the morale of other workers. The problem is that granting favors on an individual basis can be very bothersome and time-consuming. Because some employees may learn of special considerations given to others and because there are no standard rules about how these benefits are to be given, the special arrangements between employer and recipient can lead to a complicated and entangling network of special secrets and plots. Rivalries between employees who received different favors are sometimes almost unavoidable.

Occasionally the wife of the successful businessman helps employees with their personal problems. The worker would go to the employer to discuss financial problems, but if he had a close relationship with his employer he would probably make at least a formal call on the wife to discuss marriage plans or family problems. For this reason, the husband discusses personnel relations with her, and typically she has a fairly clear idea of the inner workings of her husband's business. Even if the assistance she gives the employees in solving problems is merely perfunctory, it serves to reinforce the closeness of the employer-employee relationship and to guarantee the continued loyalty of the worker.

The wife may also give special free courses in sewing, cooking, flower arranging, and the tea ceremony to help female employees with wedding preparations. With her husband, she also officiates at employees' weddings, company festivities, anniversaries, sports contests, and parties honoring new or retiring employees. Such activities are, in effect, a wife's job and constitute a contribution both to social welfare and to her husband's business.

Not only the wife but several relatives may be working in the same family business. Relatives do not necessarily occupy high positions, and some distant relatives may even be hired as low-

level manual workers. Business families are known for the close ties among relatives in the business, but tensions and conflicts often arise between relatives as to the position and pay each should have. Work relationships often require authority and obedience which seem incompatible with the close relationship of relatives, and it is often a matter of dispute as to whether the worker should be treated primarily as a relative or as an employee. The solution to these problems is not always clear, but there is no question that competence is important in determining the tasks to which relatives are assigned.

The distribution of top positions depends, however, to some extent on kinship position. It is hard to imagine, for example, a younger brother as president with a father or elder brother as vice-president. If he is in the same firm as an elder brother, a younger brother may not be given much room for independent maneuvers, and his wife may take a less active role in the business than the older brother's wife. In larger organizations, an employee works up gradually, but in a family firm the businessman may have the same position for many years, depending on the constellation of relatives in the business. However, if a senior executive dies or if the company expands rapidly, a relative suddenly may be given weighty responsibilities.

Although family and business are closely connected and a wife may often go with her husband to business or ceremonial functions and help promote his work through skillful use of friendships, the businessman is almost completely removed from home affairs. He often arrives home as late as eleven or twelve at night, and sometimes even spends the night in Tokyo. As a result of this full schedule he sees little of his family, and although he may be fond and proud of his wife and children, he is likely to know little about their daily lives. Typically he enjoys playing with his children when they are small, but this interest generally does not carry over into the daily activities of the children in grade school and high school. While the older children may still be awake when the father comes home at night, younger children may go several days without seeing their father. The wife may go to sleep before the husband returns, waking up to greet him briefly on his arrival. A husband may arise after the children have left for school, talk with the wife briefly at breakfast, and then have the chauffeur drive him to the office. Although he may have a joking relationship with the children and may, for

example, talk freely with a favorite daughter, his wife and children generally assume that there is a considerable distance between his life and theirs. They may joke with the father or tease him about his work, his associates, or his activities, but they generally assume that he will not understand or have much interest in their own activities except as they relate to the crucial decisions of education, career, and marital partner.

At times the businessman's wife feels lonely and complains that her husband is not home enough. Some wives are particularly distressed about the husband's visits to his favorite bars and geisha house where he receives special attention because of his prominence and the size of his expense account. Sometimes, although she does not readily admit it, the wife may be jealous of his affection for special girls in these bars. Usually she knows little about the details of her husband's leisure activities and though she may try to learn more about them and may in some cases know the husband's girl friends, she is not likely to interfere unless the husband fails to give her the money and facilities she desires for the home. She feels that she has much to be thankful for. Her husband provides well for her and the children, and she is treated with honor and respect in the community. She particularly appreciates their luxurious style of life for she enjoys electrical appliances, an automobile, and other material benefits still not available, even in cheaper versions, to the average salary man.

Because her husband knows so little of the children's interests and activities, and the maid performs only the simpler tasks, the wife must take over almost completely the care and management of the children, and she turns to them for companionship. She is concerned that her children uphold the family position in the community. Because of the societal stress on success, she helps the young children with their homework and hires tutors for the older children. If the children have difficulty passing entrance examinations on their own merits, she may send them to private schools where they can escape open competition with the salary man's children. She knows that even if a son fails difficult examinations, he still can assume a position of importance in his father's firm.

Capable children, who pass difficult examinations to universities, will have a choice between becoming high-level salaried employees

or members of their father's business. While the bulk of the family fortunes will remain in the business, there is no difficulty providing generous financial help to all children, including those who become salary men. Indeed there is no problem in providing equal inheritance to all children.
^[7]
As long as there is a successor in the business the parents usually will not raise serious objections if a child chooses to work for a good company or for a government bureau. If, on the other hand, there is only one son or if an elder son is already working elsewhere, there will be pressure from the parents for the boy to take over the family business. Not only will this solve the practical problems of providing a place of activity for the elderly father and permit the parents to continue the same style of life in their old age, but it gives them the satisfaction that their efforts will continue to bear fruit in the coming generation.

If two or three sons are interested in the business, they can divide the responsibilities within the firm. While the elder son may have more power than younger sons, it is not the exclusive power that accrues to the family head in the traditional rural family. If a family has no son, the daughter is likely to be married to an enterprising and talented young man who would be competent enough to take over the business and continue the family line. But while the concept of the family line remains strong, it is probably not so strong as in the rural areas and is closely tied to the interest in continuing the family firm. Business families do not make sharp distinctions between the elder brother who continues the family line and all other children who are outsiders, but they do distinguish all children who enter the business from those who do not.

Indeed, even the responsibility of looking after the elderly, keeping up the family plot, the family graveyard, and the family treasures is likely to go to the child or children who remain in the family business. Those who remain in the business consider family tradition important, much more so than do most salary-men families. Indeed, business families usually have more in their family history which they can point to with pride. Sometimes these families have

[7] In rural areas, where division of a family farm into smaller parts would often make it impossible for anyone to make a living, the postwar law requiring equal inheritance has created serious problems, and various informal techniques have been developed to try to avoid dividing the property. Because these businesses are large enough to absorb all sons, there is no such problem.

a particularly distinguished ancestor or a family line which has been kept intact for many generations. Sometimes they have swords, festival dolls, ornaments, prints, scrolls, or books of calligraphy which have been passed down as family treasures for several generations. These heirlooms and family rites for the departed are important because they are symbols of the prominence of the family, distinguishing it from the "ordinary" families in the community.

Since most college graduates, including law-school alumni, are employed in large organizations, the only independent professionals in Mamachi are doctors and dentists. There are no specialists within dentistry, but most doctors specialize in either internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, or obstetrics-gynecology. In Tokyo, many doctors work for large hospitals, but the doctors in Mamachi are in private practice, with their offices and a few hospital beds attached to their homes. Because a doctor in private practice ordinarily does not have an affiliation with an outside hospital, these beds are necessary to perform operations or look after patients who require constant care; the Japanese word usually translated as "doctor's office" (
iin
) actually denotes both the office and these facilities for the patient to stay overnight.

Ancillary professions are not well-developed, but the doctor generally has one or two assistants who perform the combined duties of nurse, medical technician, and cleaning lady, or, in the case of the dentist, the duties of dental technician and maid. In some establishments, the wife may perform the more professional aspects of the work, and an assistant may also serve as the maid in the family household as well as the nursing assistant. In others, assistants may perform all of this work. The doctor's relationship with these assistants is likely to be very close and paternalistic, and the assistants may even live with the family.

The independent professional has neither the heavy financial reserves of the successful businessman nor the large organizational backing of the salary man. His security rests entirely on his skill in building up a large practice. He generally establishes a practice in his neighborhood and maintains a close personal relationship with his regular patients. Patients are likely to select their doctor on the