Abstract
Basho-fu (Musa liukiuensis) weaving has long been part of the cultural identity of Ogimi villagers and has continued in the village as a cottage industry despite its almost complete disappearance throughout the rest of the Ryukyu archipelago. It has survived largely due to the concerted efforts of a few villagers and is now carried on mainly by middle-aged and older women. Almost every elderly woman in Ogimi has at least some experience in basho-fu weaving, and most still participate in some stage of the production process. Aged women form the bulk of the core group of workers that carries out the labor-intensive u-umi (spooling) and u-biki (fiber-cleaning) activities. Without this core group of elderly women, the whole production process would be in jeopardy. Thus, older women in Ogimi play a key role as valued workers in maintaining the basho-fu production process. In exchange for their continued participation, these elderly women receive symbolic capital in the form of respect and honors, as well as wages for their labor. We argue that participating in traditional basho-fu weaving helps these older women maintain an active engagement with life as healthy and productive members of society, a role that has been culturally sanctioned and has taken on moral import in Japan’s rapidly aging society. Interestingly, “doing basho” may be considered one means to help achieve successful aging in this particular cultural context.
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Notes
There is no term in English that serves as a direct translation for the Japanese term ikigai, but it might best be thought of as one’s raison d’etre or reason for living. Mathews (1996, p. 12) translates the term as “what makes life worth living” and notes that ikigai may be conceived of either as the “object that makes one’s life worth living” (i.e., one’s work, family, or dream) or as the “feeling that life is worth living.” The term has taken on increasing importance in an aging Japan and the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare included it as part of their health promotion strategy (Healthy Japan 2010) to encourage older people to achieve better health and more fulfilling lives (see also Nakanishi, 1999).
Life expectancy figures (life tables) for individual prefectures are available every 5 years, with the most recent figures for Okinawa prefecture (for the year 2000) published in 2002. At that time, life expectancy for women of Okinawa prefecture was 86.01 years, the longest of the 47 Japanese prefectures. Abridged life tables for Japan as a whole are available from the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare on a yearly basis. The most recent tables (for the year 2005) show that Japanese women have a life expectancy of 85.49 years, making them the world’s longest living for the 21st consecutive year.
The term symbolic capital was derived from Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic capital as detailed in his book, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste (1984). Symbolic capital refers to the amount of honor and prestige possessed by a person with regard to acting social structures. Bourdieu extended (and transformed) the Marxian notion of economic capital to include categories such as social capital and cultural capital. For Bourdieu, the position an individual occupies in the social space is defined not by class, but by the amount of capital one possesses and by the relative amounts that social, economic, and cultural capital account for within the social structure.
Ogimi has a reputation as a longevity village (chouju mura). In 2004, there were 13 centenarians out of a total population of only 3,500, despite the out-migration of some of the centenarian cohort into homes for elders outside of Ogimi village. The atmosphere of longevity is enhanced because of depopulation problems that many Japanese rural communities face, whereby the youths of the village leave to find work in urban areas and the village takes on the characteristics of a so-called rural de-facto senior citizens community (see Ogawa, Lubben, & Chi, 1995).
Kijaha denotes the traditional name of this hamlet in Ogimi village.
Gateball is a game similar to croquet. It is played by two teams of five players each, and points are scored for passing the ball between each wicket (gate). It is very popular among older Japanese and is promoted by the Japanese government as a way to keep older people active and healthy (see Traphagan, 2000).
It is readily apparent that the value (in terms of symbolic capital) of basho-fu weaving as a nationally designated “important intangible cultural property”, the treasured objects produced from basho-fu, and the weavers themselves, as living cultural treasures (Toshiko Taira is a living national treasure or ningen kokuhou), has increased considerably. Although not explored in this article, the extent to which Japanese domestic tourism-which often involves journeys to find a “real” (traditional) Japan and seemingly modern identifications of basho-fu weaving (and other Okinawan arts, crafts, and cultural practices) with a more ancient Japan—has contributed to this increase in symbolic value remains a project for the future. (For recent explorations of contemporary Okinawan cultural practices, politics, historical memory, identity reconstruction and reframing, and social and political responses to structural constraints, see Hook and Siddle (2002) and Hein and Seldon (2003). See also Martinez (2004) for an analysis of the impact of tourism on the traditional ama (diving women) practices of Kuzaki, Japan.)
Japanese law requires that all households report births, deaths, marriages, divorces, and criminal convictions to their local authority, which compiles the information into a detailed family register (koseki) that encompasses everyone within their jurisdiction. The koseki fills the role that birth certificates, death certificates, marriage licenses, and the census play in other countries, all in one. Therefore, we could verify the ages of villagers with a high degree of accuracy.
Measurements of disability-free or disability-adjusted life expectancy are still in their infancy and differ between countries. The Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare in Japan measures “disability-free life expectancy” by calculating the term that one remains “self-reliant” (i.e., without the need for care [kaigo]). The need for care or support in activities for daily living, such as bathing, going to the toilet, preparing meals, and so on—also ranges from needing a low level of care (level 1) to completely bed ridden (level 5). Okinawa ranks near the top of Japanese prefectures in terms of disability-free life expectancy (see Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare, 2000).
An ongoing study in Ogimi (Goto et al., 2003) has lent support for the importance of social roles in the successful aging of elderly female villagers, by suggesting that women who lack social roles show an increased risk for mortality. Interestingly, elderly Okinawan villagers in the Ogimi study were also found to live longer; be more active; be employed longer; and have higher scores in measures of social contact, lower rates of admission to hospital, and higher functionality in activities of daily living when compared with their elderly counterparts in a demographically matched village in Akita prefecture (Shibata et al., 1994). Living arrangements were also markedly different. Rates of living alone for the women in the Okinawan sample were close to 40%, whereas less than 10% of the Akita sample lived alone. Most elders in Akita lived with sons or daughters. Therefore, informal support also differed between the two samples. In Akita, family-centered networks were dominant, whereas in Okinawa, neighbor and friendship networks were dominant (Shibata et al., 1994). The high rates of living alone in the Okinawan village may encourage the elders to maintain their autonomy, to be employed longer, and to have wider contact with society. Tight nucleated settlement patterns in most Okinawan villages also allow for easy walking between houses of neighbors and friends and thus encourage contact.
One could also argue that there is some kind of colonized ideology operating here as well. The value given to productivity may be due, in part, to the history of Okinawan proletariatization. The early life-course experiences of the current generation of oldest old in Okinawa (such as conscription into colonial labor organizations and mainland Japanese factories) took place at the same time that Okinawans were stigmatized as lazy and indolent. The poet Yamanoguchi Baku captures this dilemma in the ambiguous poem Kaiwa (see Yonaharu, 1999), and Tomiyama (1990) deals with it at length in his 1990 book Modern Japanese Society and the Okinawan: The Process of Becoming Japanese. Christy (1993) also deals with this issue in his paper The Making of Imperial Subjects in Okinawa.
Life expectancy at age 65 for Okinawan men and women is currently the longest among the 47 prefectures. However, changes in morbidity and mortality patterns over the past two decades have resulted in a slowed growth trajectory for men and women compared with those of other prefectures. According to the most recent prefectural data from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare (2002) for the year 2000, among men of the 47 prefectures of Japan, Okinawan men ranked first in life expectancy at age 65, ninth at age 40, 23rd at age 20, and 26th at birth. Younger generations are showing increased obesity (among other lifestyle-related diseases) compared to their mainland Japanese counterparts (see Todoriki et al., 2004; Willcox, 2005). Okinawan women were still ranked first in life expectancy at all ages in 2000, although life expectancy gains are slowing among women, as well (Willcox, 2005).
There exists a north-to-south gradient in life expectancy and centenarian ratios, with persons living in the southern regions living longer than those in northern regions (although certain exceptions apply). A large part of the differences in longevity can be explained by the lower rates of cerebrovascular disease in southern regions. Lower stroke rates, in turn, can be partly attributed to dietary factors, including lower intakes of sodium (a major risk factor for hypertension, stroke, and stomach cancer) in southern prefectures such as Okinawa (see Iseki et al., 2005; Matsuzaki, 1989; Mizushima, Moriguchi & Nakada, 1992; Tsugane, Sasaki, Kobayashio, Tsubono, & Sobue, 2001; Willcox, 2005; Yamori & Horie, 1994).
Mortality declines from infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, gastroenteritis, pneumonia, dysentery, and malaria—the major killers during the 1950s—account for most of the life expectancy gains experienced during this period. In large part, this can be attributed to a unique public health nursing system that covered a very wide range of public health services such as mass health screening, health education, home visits, family planning, child health care, mental health, nutrition, and communicable disease control programs that included dispensing of medicine. This system was not universal in Japan but was started in 1951 under the United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyus and continued following Okinawa’s reversion back to Japanese administration in 1972 before finally being fully integrated into the national public health nursing system in the late 1990s (see Omine et al., 1995; Sakihara & Abe, 1996).
High rates of suicide among elderly women in East Asia have been used to challenge the commonly accepted view that the “three-generation residence” and a support system relying only (or mainly) upon children (mostly sons and daughters-in-law) in Asian countries is a cultural asset, as has been suggested in past international discourse on elderly care. The counter-argument-that Asian elders are currently very vulnerable in their socially constructed, almost-total dependence on children—has become increasingly vocal (Hu, 1995; Rockett & Smith, 1993). Therefore, it is not surprising that there have been accompanying calls for structural changes to traditional systems of elder care as well as for an increase in opportunities for women through work, volunteering, adult education, sports activities, artistic efforts and for more allowance for the individual pursuit of autonomy. As was mentioned in the text, Japan has moved decisively in this direction, and socialization of care for frail elders was put into effect through public, mandatory long-term care insurance in the year 2000. The program covers both institutional and community-based caregiving (see Campbell & Ikegami, 2000). The core of the community-based caregiving system is a home-helper program that is intended to augment family—provided care and social support, rather than to promote completely independent living. Traphagan (2003) argues that this compensatory approach to elder care is based on an intergenerational social contract in which it is assumed that some degree of dependence on family members is both an expected and preferred outcome of growing old.
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Acknowledgments
This study has benefited from the financial support of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (Monbukagakusho) of the Government of Japan to Dr. Craig Willcox and by the National Institute on Aging (Grants RO3 AG021293-01 and K08 AG22788-02) to Dr. Bradley Willcox. We are also indebted to the representatives of the hamlet of Kijaha and the village of Ogimi for their advice and support. Above all, gratitude is due to the Taira family and the older people of Kijaha, who openly shared their valuable time and experiences with us. We also thank Dr. Christopher Nelson for his helpful comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript.
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Willcox, D.C., Willcox, B.J., Sokolovsky, J. et al. The Cultural Context of “Successful Aging” Among Older Women Weavers in a Northern Okinawan Village: The Role of Productive Activity. J Cross Cult Gerontol 22, 137–165 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10823-006-9032-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10823-006-9032-0