CULTURE: Traditional Japanese Music and Dress Finds New Admirers

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Sep 10 2002 (IPS) - Tickets to a concert by the Yoshida Kyodai, a pair of young musicians who have catapulted to fame this past year, have been snapped up by enthusiastic fans in a matter of days.

But the crowds that flock to the concert are not queuing up to hear traditional Japan-Western classical music or well-known jazz artists.

They are listening to the Japanese ‘tsugaru shamisen’, a musical instrument resembling the banjo and whose origins hark back hundreds of years to the snow-covered peaks in Japan’s north.

Soulful and twanging melodies are produced when the three-stringed ‘shamisen’ is plucked by a large pick.

“We began playing the ‘shamisen’ when we were five. But we have evolved our own style of the traditional music which is why we are,” said Ryoichiro, the eldest of the two brothers at a press conference in May.

Sporting dyed brown hair, cut in a style that makes them look as if they belong more to a rock and roll band than the ‘shamisen’, Ryoichiro and Kenichi are proof that Japanese traditional arts are undergoing a popular revival.

Their first album, released in November 2000, sold 100,000 copies astonishing the music business that normally puts a ‘shamisen’ album at the bottom of the list, with sales of around 5000 copies annually being the usual.

“Their music delves into my soul. The ‘shamisen’ played by the brothers is not old-fashioned because they have a new way of playing which appeals to young people,” says 17-year old Mitsuki, one of the brothers’ tens of thousands of fans.

Indeed, the popularity of the Yoshida Kyodai duo is responsible for encouraging the Education Ministry to introduce in April the studying of the traditional Japanese instrument as part of the school curriculum.

“The official nod to ‘shamisen’ is a landmark in the rising popularity of traditional arts,” says Minako Oshima, marketing manager at Sony Music. Sony, the sole distributor for the Yoshida Kyodai, marks the first time the recording giant has taken on a traditional Japanese music album.

Oshima explains the huge appeal of the players is their success at blending the old and the new.

“Shamisen has been played for centuries by veteran players. But the old style is formal as the experts show no facial expression or move their body,” she explains.

“On the other hand, the Yohsida Kyodai are like foreign players. They sway to their music and laugh and shout. Youth love it,” she said.

The revival of traditional Japan is not only restricted to music. Japanese fashion magazines are reporting young women have begun to remove the cobwebs from their grandmothers closets in search of the old.

For instance, in July, despite the unbearable humidity, it was not uncommon to see young Japanese women wearing the ‘yukata’, the cotton version of the ‘kimono’ that was originally worn by both genders after a bath.

Described as the ‘old look with a new twist’, sales of the ‘yukata’, according to Japanese department stores, are soaring.

“The yukata is cheap and has begun to look like Western clothing,” says Shin Wada, head of the ‘kimono’ section of the Hanshin department store. “More than 90 percent of your yukata customers are younger than 30-years-old.”

In place of the traditional cherry blossom look, new designs range from lilies to Mickey Mouse and even come in bright colors.

Candy pink ‘yukata’, which is worn with equally colorful wooden ‘geta’, the traditional wooden footgear for weather, is signalling a metamorphosis in what is traditional.

Observers describe the new trend as a sign of the rediscovery of Japan’s past.

They point out that during the Meiji Era in the nineteenth century, Japan embraced Western civilization as a national movement in a bid to modernize the country.

During that period, Japanese ‘kimono’-clad, sword totting samurai cut-off their top knots and donned Western-style suits and ties, and women began to admire Western dress and learned about ball-room dancing.

The fascination with things Western has continued until now, the ‘Asahi’ newspaper declared in a June editorial which went on to say that, “young people are slowly beginning to admire their past”.

A recent survey by a popular Japanese online shopping mall shows the lack of Japanese tradition in the day-to-day lives of the youth.

Of the more than 5,000 respondents polled, 70 percent of which were 31 years of age or younger, only 2.4 percent said they had ever played a ‘shamisen’, and one in three respondents said they had never worn a ‘kimono’.

In addition, 31.5 percent had seen a ‘kabuki’, Japan’s respected traditional drama, only five times in their lives.

‘Tanka’, the classical Japanese verse, is also now popular with Japanese youth. Best seller Tawara Machi, who turned 40 this year, has a huge following among young women.

Tawara uses ‘katakana’, the Japanese alphabet for western words, the first time in classical poetry. ‘Chocolate Reunion’ her latest book, that deals with romantic liaisons, complicated love and personal satisfaction, is immensely popular.

Professor Tadashi Noguchi who teaches Japanese culture explains the growing interest in old Japanese things with a modern twist as the result of the carefree attitude of young people today.

“There is nothing sinister about trying to find out more about your roots. It is not nationalism in the bad sense at all,” he says.