The People's Republic of Japan

Eboshi Iwa, Symbol of Chigasaki

A couple of Saturday mornings ago I and a thousand or so other residents of Chigasaki climbed out of bed about 6:30 AM and made our way to the beach.  What—aside from the beauty of the early morning ocean—got everyone out of their comfortable beds and houses so early in the morning?  It was the opportunity to pick up the debris, organic and otherwise, that a typhoon the previous week had deposited on the beach.  We did this dirty and unpleasant stoop-labor for no reward—not even a cup of coffee and a donut!—other than the satisfaction of leaving the commons cleaner than we had found it.  The city announced the Beach Clean-Up, provided the garbage bags, and picked them up once they had been filled and stacked, but that was the extent of municipal support. 

This uncoerced desire to work for the good of the community, for the good of society, for the good of each other seems to me  to be a sort of natural socialism, not the bastardization of it imposed from above by Stalinist bad guys, but an innate and entirely positive aspect of Japanese culture which, far from being imposed from the top, rises up from the bottom.

But wait a minute, the skeptics among you are saying.  Perhaps the Japanese are not coerced in any obvious way, but the coercion is surely there.  The social pressure to be seen as someone who works for the good of the community, for the good of society, for the good of each other—the pensioner pulling his curtain aside to check on who is actually stumbling sleepy-eyed out of their houses on Beach Clean-Up days, the housewife with too little to do who mentions, with affected concern, that she didn't see you at the beach last Saturday—is all that really motivates people to do the right thing.

Perhaps that sort of pressure is part of it, but one needs to keep in mind that the population of Chigasaki is over 220,000.  219,000 people are somehow able to overcome the scowls of the self-appointed neighborhood watch, roll over, and go back to sleep.  I am a perfect example of this.  In the ten years I have lived in Chigasaki I have only gone to the Beach Clean-Ups, which usually happen twice a year, about four times, and yes, I do occasionally feel mildly guilty about that for a minute or two.  I have yet, however, to lose any sleep on account of the peering pensioner and the concerned housewife.

But if pressure from one's neighbors is, in some small way, effective in getting people to do, without thought of gain, socially useful work, then what, really, is wrong with it?  Not a thing, as far as I can tell.

I have seen socialism, and it works.

—David

PS: Off to Inaka tonight for a Blockhead board meeting.

Comments

[eboshiiwa]

[this is good] I enjoyed reading this a lot!Very interesting!


FYI, let me point out 3 things.


1. The population of Chigasaki is over 230,000 now.2. The beach clean up is done every week by NPO groups. They each has their own territory and schedule. The twice-a-year clean up you mentioned is organized by the Kanagawa Pref.3. The area of interest is greatly different from people living in the south (of the station) to those living in the north. The people in the north are usually involved in the activity concerning the foothill area.


I'd like to add my own analysis, but it's too difficult to write in English.... 

[Only a Blockhead]

Eriko:

Thanks for your comments and corrections to my post.

Best,

David

[Lee]

Lovely article, and still as relevant as when you first wrote it.