Religion in Japanese Daily Life

David C. Lewis

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781317194378
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Études ethniques

Are Japanese people religious – and, if so, in what ways? David Lewis addresses this question from the perspective of ordinary Japanese people in the context of their life cycles, and explores why they engage in religious activities. He not only discusses how Japanese people engage in different religious practices as they encounter new events in their lives but also analyses the attitudes and motivations behind their behaviour. Activities such as fortune-telling, religious rites in the workplace, ancestral rites and visits to shrines and temples are actually engaged in by many people who view themselves as 'non- religious' but express their motivations in terms other than the conventional 'religious' ones. This book outlines the religious options available, and assesses why people choose particular religious activities at various times in their lives or in specific circumstances. The author challenges some widespread assumptions about religion in urban and industrial contexts and also shows how some of the underlying motivations behind Japanese behaviour are expressed both in religious and non-religious forms.

1The fieldwork area

Religion and lifestyle

Most aspects of religion in Japan have some links with lifestyle, as indicated by the chapter titles in this book. Religious rituals may occur when a person gets married, has a child, moves house, becomes ill or dies. There may also be religious rituals at work, and leisure activities might include religious activities too. The amount of time spent at work or available for leisure can influence such activities. How much space is in the home can influence whether one installs a Buddhist domestic altar or opts for a smaller substitute. Whether or not elderly parents are living under the same roof may also influence the extent to which one participates in certain rituals, especially memorial rites for deceased relatives. Therefore the social context is relevant to any understanding of the reasons why people may or may not participate in certain rituals.

Questions of representativeness

A question that can be asked about any fieldwork site anywhere in the world is the extent to which that locality is representative of the wider collectivity of which it is a part. Anthropological studies of an ethnic or occupational group benefit from the fact that the larger collectivity may have a relatively small aggregate population and be relatively homogenous, so a village study is quite likely to be representative. It is a different matter when considering a nation-state like Japan. Despite the way in which sometimes broad statements have been made about ‘the Japanese’ as a whole, in describing various characteristics of their society, actually it is not homogenous and there are differences according to factors such as region, social class, gender, age or education. Rural–urban differences are another reason why I have decided to focus on the urban context as being more typical of contemporary Japanese society.

Nevertheless, in the absence of any indications to the contrary, it is likely that any fieldwork site to at least some extent is still representative of the broader society of which it is a part. Simply because the ‘microcosm’ is within the ‘macrocosm’ means that it shares at least some of the attributes of the wider context, as any local area is subject to the same kinds of influences from the national media, government policies, educational system and other socio-economic forces. Of course, there may be local variations in certain features. However, those that are shaped to some degree by these nation-wide factors are likely to be relatively consistent in most parts of the country.

Any fieldwork site will also have a predominance of people who come from that part of the country. However, in a very mobile society such as Japan an indication of the degree to which a local area might be representative of the country as a whole may come from looking at the areas of origin of those currently dwelling there. My research was conducted in two adjacent housing estates, one of which, Kita-ōji, consists of owner-occupied dwellings whereas the other estate, Sonoyama, consists of company housing (shataku). Many of the employees living in shataku accommodation are there because they have been recruited or moved from other parts of the country and lacked their own homes when moving to this area for work. As my fieldwork area is located in the ‘Kinki’ region of central Japan – the area that includes the cities of Kyōto and Ōsaka – one would expect a high proportion of the residents to be from that region; this is indeed the case for Kita-ōji. However, a substantial sprinkling also come from every other major region in the country.¹ The proportions of local residents from the different regions of Japan are given in Table 1.1.²

Table 1.1Proportions of population samples in Kita-ōji and Sonoyama according to regions of origin

Regions of origin	Kita-ōji (percentages)	Sonoyama (percentages)	Regional populations as proportions of the national population (percentages)
Hokkaidō	0.5	1.2	4.6
Tōhoku	1.6	5.1	7.8
Kantō	6.7	15.3	31.2
Chūbu	9.9	12.9	17.0
Kinki	61.5	27.1	18.0
Chūgoku	9.6	14.1	6.3
Kyūshū	6.7	19.2	11.7
Shikoku	3.5	5.1	3.4
Numbers in sample	374	255	–
Numbers with missing data	26	12	–

Compared with the national percentages, a greater proportion of the residents in both Kita-ōji and Sonoyama are from the Kinki region and from areas such as Chūgoku and Kyūshū, from which there has been considerable migration to the Kinki. The higher concentration of such people in Kita-ōji reflects the more localized recruitment nets of many firms where Kita-ōji residents are employed. By contrast, the Toray company recruits people from all over the country. These differences mean that Sonoyama tends to be a little more representative of the national population, and Kita-ōji of the local situation. These are differences of degree, as no local area is ever likely to be representative of the whole nation in terms of proportions by areas of origins. Nevertheless, this contrast between Sonoyama and Kita-ōji does provide a balance between local characteristics and nationally distributed trends when considering attitudes to religious phenomena.³

The place of origin (shusshinchi 出身地) of each respondent was asked in the questionnaire, in order to ascertain urban versus rural differences. However, in practice these turned out to be difficult to determine from the addresses alone, on account of insufficient local detail by many informants, who gave only their prefecture or city (shi) of origin, and also the ambiguity of some Japanese administrative terms, which can include both urban and rural areas.⁴ Nevertheless, it usually became clear in the course of most interviews whether the individual was from a predominantly ‘big city’ or ‘small town’ (or rural) area. Few were clearly from villages, so in Table 1.2 those from smaller towns are included with the ‘rural’ figures.

Table 1.2Urban/rural (or small town) origins of interviewees

	Kita-ōji men	Kita-ōji women	Sonoyama men	Sonoyama women	Row totals
Urban	18	24	20	12	74
Rural	4	10	8	4	26
Totals	22	34	28	16	100

In practice, rural–urban differences were not noticeable for many of the religious practices and attitudes which will be discussed in the following chapters. Nevertheless, even if many attitudes are very similar in both rural and urban areas, and the types of practices (such as grave visits, possession of safety charms, etc.) virtually identical, there appeared to be a slight qualitative difference, in so far as a few individuals who seemed to me to be somewhat ‘more religious’ tended to be from rural areas.⁵ However, this was a very subjective assessment because it is difficult to find an objective way of assessing the many elements involved, in so far as each individual represents a slightly different mix of religious practices (such as possession of safety charms, practice of ancestral rites, visits to shrines or temples, consultation of fortune-tellers, and so on). Moreover, the degree to which some of these are observed in practice varies with stages in the life cycle.

Although these impressions would tend to indicate that some secularization has taken place between rural and urban areas, such statements can only be made with extreme caution, taking into account the following factors:

(a)This is largely a subjective assessment of certain individuals, but there are relatively few objective studies of rural areas that can provide quantitative and qualitative assessments of the extent of religious belief or practice at the household or individual level.⁶

(b)Even where some studies are available, they do not necessarily show decreased religiosity in urban areas: for instance, daily worship at Buddhist household altars may be more common in urban than in rural areas (Smith 1974: 107–11).⁷

(c)There can be considerable variation among different rural villages in the degree to which certain religious concepts are taken seriously.⁸

(d)Comparisons between urban and rural areas may fail to take into account a ‘substitution effect’ whereby ‘religiosity’ may be manifested in different forms in urban areas. This is particularly relevant to the emergence of many ‘new religions’, largely in urban areas, the adherents of which can appear to be ‘very religious’. Christianity also tends to be more concentrated in urban areas and comparisons between a ‘devout Christian’ and a ‘devout Buddhist’ may be problematic to some extent.

(e)Although the five individuals who seemed to me to be ‘very religious’ were mainly from rural areas, many others who were very close to coming into this category were from urban areas. These were people (mostly women) who bow occasionally or regularly to images of the Bodhisattva Jizō when they pass by such statues, or who sometimes pray to the moon, mountains or other natural phenomena, or might consult priests or mediums about certain crises (such as those involving marriage or illness). They were not counted among the ‘very religious’ partly because of their not having a household altar at which they pray daily, but their attitudes are such that they pray at such altars when visiting relatives, or conduct similar rites when visiting grave sites, and it is likely that they would pray regularly at a household altar if they were to become responsible for one in the future. It should also be noted that three of the five individuals whom I described as ‘very religious’ had experienced serious...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: A grass-roots perspective
• 1 The fieldwork area
• 2 Roots of Japanese religiosity
• 3 Growing up
• 4 Finding one’s way
• 5 House and car
• 6 Work
• 7 Leisure
• 8 Times of crisis
• 9 Death
• 10 Shifting worldviews
• Appendix: Personal profiles
• Glossary
• Index