근대 일본에서의   노동과 오락의 문제

An Issue on Work and Recreation in Modern Japan - From the Late Meiji Era through the Taisho Era -

This paper tries to inquire into the social significance of Leisure and Recreation as defined in modern Japan, and its objective lies in clarifying such significance within the relationship with modern ‘Work’. In the agriculture-oriented traditional society, there existed no concept about ‘Leisure’ which was to be clearly distinguished from Work hours, and the domain of recreation was not relevant to a separated relationship with that of work. However, new work regulations in the modern society established the domain of leisure and recreation where leisure was separated from work as ‘Time of No-Work.’ This was meant to be the emergence of the concept of ‘Leisure’ or ‘Recreation’ that was different from what it had been due to the newly formed work system in the modern society. With the above interest as the background, the range of consideration in this paper covers the period starting from the late Meiji Era through to the end of the Taisho Era when the relationship between the modern work and leisure/recreation began to systematize and materialize, and it focuses on the class of factory workers who lived their lives in an urban environment. In addition, by making use of the magazines and newspapers, etc. as well as the given situation to attempt work management, as references, it identifies the general characteristics of the leisure or recreation as provided in the modern Japanese society. Through the aforementioned consideration in this paper, and by focusing on the establishment of the relationship between work and recreation in the modern society, it has been, in the historical context, attempted to examine the fundamental questions of how leisure/recreation established a close relationship with work in modern Japan and what sort of social significance was being obtained. Recreation was, as defined newly in modern Japan, what was made by the positive involvement of the social norm for the so-called ‘Conservation of Work Force’ or ‘Re-Creation of Work.’ Due to such, a socially affirmative significance was given to the time for worker s leisure/recreation on the one hand, however, the recreation that was being spent only for personal amusement confronted negative views on the other hand. Hence, the domain of no-work as separated superficially from work, that is, the issue of workers leisure/recreation has become to attract attention from others as a subject that was in need of social administration and guidance. Furthermore, the social norm and interest as in the ‘Recreation for Work’ have been gradually accepted also in workers personal lives even though they were making conflicts with the personal desire that surrounds the time for recreation. As a result of sharing mutual significance by the superficially separated work and recreation in terms of the aforementioned relationship between them, a mutual relationship of which the separating boundary is rather ambiguous has come to be constructed.