Chapter Five
Native Place, New Time
Two of a Kind
The editors of the Kodaira choshi have split the population of Kodaira into two broad sectors: farm households (noka ) and nonfarm households (hinoka ). Farm households are further qualified as natives (tochikko, jimoto ), while nonfarm households are also referred to as newcomers (ten'nyusha ). Newcomer children, and by extension all newcomers, are called kodairakko.
As discussed in the preceding chapters, newcomers are systematically excluded from native neighborhood organizations. According to the editors of the Kodaira choshi, the "native neighborhoods have put up various barriers against newcomers," ostensibly because of an exclusivism stemming from the "paternal lineage-like nature" of native neighborhoods, particularly the Ogawa Eight (KC 1959, 863, 877). They remind readers that Ogawa-mura was made by the "sweat and toil of the shinden settlers," but they do not attempt to eulogize the postwar immigrants and their part in the making of Kodaira. Since the promulgation of the citizens' charter in 1972, however, newcomers have been encouraged to regard themselves as pioneers involved in Kodaira's "second reclamation." In this chapter, I trace the background of native-newcomer antinomy in Kodaira, focusing on the geohistorical configuration of these sectors and their respective experience of spatial and temporal displacement.
The editors of the Kodaira choshi distinguished the two sectors by the antithetical occupational terms farm and nonfarm households; the differences posed by city administrators today are both temporal (old and new households) and spatial (native and newcomer). The statement on "community" in the Second Comprehensive Long-Term Plan illustrates this later orientation.
Recently, as a consequence of postwar economic growth, the material life of [Kodaira's] citizens has become affluent. At the same time, however, neighborly love and the spirit of reciprocal communality have thinned. The spiritual side of life, in other words, is beset by anomie and loneliness.
The mixing of old and new citizens; the…separation of home and workplace; the proliferation of nuclear families; and demographic fluidity and instability collectively pose pressing social problems. Moreover, these problems are further exacerbated by the indifference and apathy of some residents.
Even so, there are signs among other residents of a strong desire for naturally generated neighborliness and a revival of humanity within regional life. Herein is the germ-seed of a new community configuration with an unlimited, active, creative potential. Harnessing the influx of boundless energy is the first step toward a new age of the local [kyodo. ]
This achievement is contingent upon infrastructural stability in conjunction with the emergence of a spontaneous populism and subjective activism on the part of an area's residents. The citizens' charter was promulgated in October 1972 to instill residents with pride…in their Kodaira citizenship. The charter, a "roadmap of civic life," must be honored and upheld by all citizens collectively. (Kodaira-shi keikaku zaiseibu keikakuka 1980, 129-30)
Lofty rhetoric aside, the statement locates certain problem areas requiring resolution if a "new community" is to be, in the language of the above plan, "re-reclaimed" (saikaihatsu. ) The plan claims that the mixing of natives and newcomers has precipitated a host of pressing social problems. As I show, however, the nonmixing of natives and newcomers also has occasioned problems.
Passing mention was made in chapter 3 of the Hakone Realty Company and the development of Kodaira Gakuen in the 1920s. In 1923 about two hundred hectares of dry-field and forested land in the southern reaches of Ogawa (-mura and -shinden combined) were sold to the company. Two years later, the land was divided into lots measuring 331 square meters. The company also constructed the still-operant Tamako Line, which now serves as the boundary between east and west Gakuen. Each plot came with a 20-square-meter bungalow and was put on the market for 500 yen. Since the main appeal of the Gakuen development was its academy-town image, the company negotiated with Meiji Uni-
versity to transfer its campus to Kodaira. However, in the aftermath of the devastating 1923 earthquake, the university was unable to raise enough funds to subsidize the move, whereupon the company approached the Tokyo College of Commerce (renamed Hitotsubashi University in 1949) and successfully negotiated the transfer of its branch college to Kodaira. Even so, the lots did not sell as quickly as expected, and it was not until the late 1930s that farm householders, from whom the property had been procured, were paid in full. The lengthy delay fostered resentment on the part of natives toward the developers and new residents, foreshadowing the subsequent antinomy between farm and nonfarm households (KC 1959, 438).
Although the development of Kodaira Gakuen marked the first phase of the spatial displacement of farm households, the construction of large-scale military installations from 1939 to 1945 triggered the initial transformation of Kodaira from an agrarian village into a suburban bedroom town. Altogether, five such installations were constructed on land expropriated by the central government from farm households. Farmers in the southernmost portion of the former Ogawa-shinden lost 62 percent of their arable land, and many resigned themselves to a nonagricultural livelihood, renting rooms and houses to military personnel (KC 1959, 442). Only a part of the expropriated land was returned to agriculture; most was converted to residential use in the form of low-rent corporation and municipal housing tracts, initially occupied by ex-military personnel, evacuees, and salaried workers. Residential projects for the most part were developed on forested or relatively unproductive dry-field land, whereas military installations were constructed on prime agricultural land, on which mass-housing projects were built after the war. Between 1946 and 1950, however, there was a brief recrudescence of agriculture in order to ease the immediate postwar food shortage. These in fact were the halcyon years of Kodaira farm households, whose number rose from 749 in 1941, to 819 in 1946, and again to 1,118 in 1950, before declining to 1,020 by 1955. The percentages of full-time agriculturists for those dates were 60, 51, 63, and 57, respectively (KC 1959, 539; KK 1983, 212).
Over 623 mass-housing projects were constructed between 1947 and 1954, representing 869 households (3,803 persons) and 33 percent of the town's overall population growth. The population of Kodaira in 1945 stood at 2,300 households (14,400 persons), doubling to 4,900 households (25,000 persons) by 1947. The other developments facilitating immigration to Kodaira during this period were the
belated growth of Kodaira Gakuen and the construction of public and private facilities, including a rehabilitation center for disabled people, Tsuda Women's College, a branch of Hitotsubashi University, an industrial college, Kanto Police Academy, a Self-Defense Force base, and a major medical center (KK 1983, 206-7). An additional 4,799 families took up residence in these corporation and municipal mass-housing units during the period 1955–1960. The employers of this second generation of mass-housing occupants included the Bridgestone Company, Hitachi, the Telephone and Telegraph Company, the Defense Agency, the Ministry of Labor, and the Agricultural Chemicals Research Institute. In addition, several high-rise public housing compounds (danchi ) were constructed (KK 1983, 210).
The reasons for selecting Kodaira as the site for these large-scale industrial and residential projects included its relative proximity to central Tokyo, the availability of large tracts of arable and forested land for development purposes, the relatively low cost of real estate, and a convenient transportation network (KK 1983, 206). The block- or cluster- like distribution of these new housing units contrasts with the linear arrangement of farm households along historical thoroughfares, such as Oume Road. Just as the Ogawa Eight epitomize the native sector, the corporation and municipal housing units exemplify the newcomer sector.
Neighborhood Associations New and Old
A digression on the fire brigade and the related issue of fire drills will illustrate the nature of native-newcomer antinomy and attempts at its resolution. The fire-fighting division (shobo-gumi ) was a distinct organization by the time Kodaira-mura was formed in 1889. The exact nature of the fire brigades in the seven shinden villages is not known, although the intrepidity of Suzuki-shinden' s Su-gumi has been memorialized in a local folktale. The newly amalgamated village of Kodaira was served by six fire-fighting divisions—Nonaka was regarded as a single village in this case—which were further subdivided. The Ogawa shobo-gumi, for example, comprised eight sections; namely, the Ogawa Eight. This system was discontinued in 1914 and the Kodaira shobo-gumi installed in its place. The change was a nominal one, for the earlier subdivisions remained intact (KC 1959, 987). In 1939,
when military mobilization was a pressing national concern, the fire brigade assumed the role of a vigilance corps, and the subdivisions were regrouped as eight branches, which remain the units of organization today. The newcomer's complaint, in the 1960s, about the exclusivity of the fire brigades is not surprising given the confluence of the firefighting branches with the former shinden -village and intravillage divisions. Moreover, the leadership of the fire brigades has remained the province of Kodaira natives.
Recently, fire drills have been conducted by the neighborhood associations, the subject of the following paragraphs. Neighborhood associations are referred to as jichikai or chonaikai, and although the terms are used synonymously, the former literally means "self-governing association." It is the demilitarized, postwar equivalent of the earlier chonaikai (also chokai ), or "town-section associations." Some neighborhood associations have retained the older name—Gakuen Nishi-chokai, for example, of which I was a member. On the other hand, the Ogawa Eight have assumed the more modern and "democratic"-sounding jichikai —1-bangumi-jichikai, for example—although these associations, as their names reveal, essentially are isomorphic with the bangumi formally established in the 1720s.
City hall defines jichikai (and chonaikai ) as follows:
Jichikai are associations spontaneously organized and democratically administered by the local residents. Their purpose is to promote and facilitate neighborliness and mutual aid between members and to raise the quality of their social welfare. Jichikai, in short, are nonprofit organizations formed within a specific area of the city and registered with city hall. Excluded from jichikai status are organizations formed solely for the management of street lights [etc.]. (Kodaira-shi seikatsuka 1973)
In 1967 there were 220 registered neighborhood associations, increasing to 272 by 1969, to 314 by 1971, and to 380 by 1984. According to the staff of the Civic Life Department, which oversees jichikai affairs, the greatest number of new registrations coincided with cityhood in 1962, when more subsidies became available to neighborhood associations. The staff suggested a correlation between overall population growth and the number of neighborhood associations formed, but the number of associations has continued to grow since 1976, when the population stabilized at around 153,000 persons. Rather, as I see it, neighborhood associations signify another type of settlement pattern in the episodic making of Kodaira. Their growth correlates with spe-
cific local developments, such as a new "my home" tract or an apartment complex in, say, uptown Hanakoganei, where many of the newer associations are located. Neighborhood associations that encompass an entire high-rise project or mass-housing complex tend to be most consistently active as social welfare organizations. The 1,440-household Kodaira Danchi-jichikai in Kihei-cho is a case in point. The members' manual published by this association is as professional and thorough, in its design and content, as the city's own residents' handbook.
Each neighborhood association is required to submit to the Civic Life Department a membership roster together with a statement of purpose, bylaws, and operating procedures. Only the largest (and wealthiest) associations, however, distribute members' handbooks. There are some exceptions to this rule. The large and wealthy Ogawa Eight jichikai, for example, have submitted only brief rosters. These associations are composed primarily of native households and also overlap with other historical consociations, including shrine and temple parishes and fire brigades. Manuals detailing the purpose and function of the jichikai are unnecessary, given the familiar informality preferred by natives. Moreover, the intended audience for members' handbooks in general is newcomers, whose membership in Ogawa Eight circles is not altogether welcomed anyway.
The exclusivity of the Ogawa Eight jichikai has prompted some newcomers to form their own associational enclaves, such as the twelvehousehold Juni-sho Kita-jichikai, which lies within the territory encompassed by the Ogawa 1-bangumi-jichikai (see map 5). The name Junisho Kita reflects the fact that it is located north (kita ) of the No. 12 Elementary School (junchi-sho. ) Regarding jichikai names in general, native associations invariably are named after a historical, geographic entity, such as a shinden village, oaza (large [village] section), bangumi, or aza (small [village] section). The names of newcomer associations are much more diverse, based as they are on housing projects, landmarks, flowers and trees, calendrical terms, colors, ideals, and even weather patterns.
Neighborhood associations also are formed by budding off of a "parent" association, usually after a period of internal dissension. The rationale for forming a splinter group must be submitted to city hall, and the records show that the most common reason for divisiveness involved the management of sewers and sewage disposal.[1] Generally speaking, internal dissension is most common in newcomer associations formed among tract-home owners. By the same token, the small-
Map 5.
Neighborhood association territories. 30 = Takanodai; 46 = Ogawa 1-bangumi;
47 = Ogawa 2-bangumi; 48 = Ogawa 3-bangumi; 49 = Ogawa 4-bangumi;
50 = Ogawa 5-bangumi; 61 = Juni-sho Kita; 66 = Ogawa 6-bangumi;
67 = Ogawa 7-bangumi; 68 = Ogawa 8-bangumi; 180 = Kodaira Danchi;
196 = Hitachi Hitotsubashi Shataku; 197 = Akanedai; 198 = Gakuen Nishi Jutaku;
199 = Gakuen Nishi-machi; 200 = Toei Danchi; 201 = Gakuen Higashi-cho;
280 = Miyuki-cho; 339 = Hanakoganei Minami-cho 2-chome. Names and numbers
as they appear in the neighborhood ssociation registry were kindly provided by
the Civic Life Department. The map is a reduced and modified version of
the one maintained by the department and represents the situation in 1984.
Only key associations mentioned in the text are outlined and identified.
est associations frequently are ephemeral, since their raison d'être often is but a single exigency needing immediate resolution, such as sewage disposal—despite the fact that jichikai are not to be premised on single issues. Finally, unlike their native counterparts, newcomer jichikai are neither extensions of prewar and interwar associations nor entities superimposed on Edo-period and later neighborhood divisions, and therefore tend to be more prone to fractionation.
Some neighborhood associations divide; others merge to form larger, presumablv more efficient (or less redundant), units; and not a few collapse after several years of existence. A staff member of the Civic Life Department pointed out, somewhat sarcastically, that a significant number of these short-lived associations were formed simply to qualify for subsidies from city hall, although in 1984 subsidies amounted to 3,265,800 yen—an average of only 8,550 yen per association. In practice, the actual amount varied according to the size and needs of a jichikai. Separate funding for street lights and bulletin boards is also provided by city hall.
As I see it, jichikai membership in Kodaira assumes three basic patterns: exclusive, voluntary, and solicited. The first characterizes the natives' neighborhood associations; the second, small-scale newcomer jichikai formed among a group of like-minded neighbors. The third pattern, solicited membership, is not uncommon among older, nonnative, large-scale organizations, such as Gakuen Nishi-chokai.
One recent newcomer wrote to a citizens' advice column in the local newspaper that immediately after the family's arrival they had been approached by a jichikai official who sought to register them in that neighborhood's association. The newcomer noted that never before had they experienced such zealous recruitment efforts. Although they regarded membership as a bothersome responsibility, they were worried about the possible negative repercussions should they decline to register. After praising jichikai as "autonomous, democratic organizations," the newspaper's anonymous advisor noted that, although membership is not (legally at least) compulsory, the benefits accruing to those who join probably outweigh the more bothersome aspects. Neighborhood associations, the advisor concluded, are the basis for "solidarity-making" and "cheerful neighborhood-making" (KSH, 20 October 1979).
The advisor glossed over the fact that a number of neighborhood associations, such as the unidentified one in question, are keen on increasing their membership in order to broaden both their financial base
and their local influence. Since I am most familiar with Gakuen Nishi-chokai, the city's largest and supposedly wealthiest association, a discussion of its operations will serve to contextualize the third pattern (i.e., solicitation) of jichikai membership and provide general insights into the operations of neighborhood associations.
Gakuen Nishi-chokai
Gakuen Nishi-chokai (hereafter GNC), established in 1949, was originally known as Mutsumi-kai and comprised 267 households. There were 1,826 member households in 1984. Its present territory includes all of Gakuen Nishi-machi and part of Tsuda-machi, the latter theoretically an illegal addition, since chonaikai, as the term implies, are associations (kai ) limited to households within (nai ) a specific cho. According to one of the GNC officers, the partial inclusion of Tsuda-machi is a throwback to the earlier prewar association of which the present association essentially is a continuation. In contrast to the mammoth GNC, the four other neighborhood associations within Gakuen Nishi-machi are much smaller and composed entirely of newcomers. They are enclaves within the larger GNC domain.
The absence of horizontal affiliations between jichikai inhibits the overall effectiveness and influence of all but the largest neighborhood associations in mediating relations between residents and city hall and in negotiating for public welfare projects such as sewer systems. The largest associations, including GNC, procure a heftier share of the subsidies offered by city hall and enjoy a substantial income from membership fees and donations, which affords them both financial stability and flexibility.
GNC currently (1985) comprises twelve wards (ku ), which are further subdivided into 113 squads (han ), and is administered by thirty-two officers (twenty-five of whom serve concurrent terms): emeritus chair (one person), consultant (one), secretary (one), chair (one), vice-chair (three), accountant (one), and ward managers (twenty-four). In addition, each squad is headed by a ward secretary. Although the thirty-two officers nominally are limited to a two-year term, and the ward secretaries to a one-year term, successive reelections are not prohibited. Among the Ogawa Eight jichikai, it is not unusual
for an officer to have served in the same capacity for over twenty-five years. The GNC bylaws indicate that the officers are elected from among the ward managers (the ward secretaries are elected from among the members at large), although, as one officer remarked, the GNC posts usually are rotated among "old boys."
As of 1985, both GNC and the old-boy network are headed by Ogawa Z., a descendant of Kurobei. Ogawa and several other officers are also assemblypersons. The overlapping of their duties and interests is noteworthy, inasmuch as, according to the bylaws, "It is inappropriate for this association to collaborate with the municipal administration or to represent or function as a subordinate appendage thereof" (Gakuen Nishi-chokai 1982, 9). A number of GNC members told me that certain assemblypersons tended to view neighborhood associations as similar to koenkai, or politicians' personal support organizations (cf. Allinson 1979, 195-96).
The somewhat "tainted" politicking within GNC also is evident in connection with the construction, in 1984, of a bona fide meeting house. Prior to that time, the officers met once a month at the welfare center, and the ward secretaries convened their three annual meetings at an elementary school, where the annual general meeting was also held. The ground-breaking ceremony was conducted by GNC officers; for, as a ward manager explained, engaging the services of a Shinto priest would have exceeded by several times the 42,218 yen that was spent. The officers were less economically minded about furnishings, however, since a plain, simple shoe shelf (constructed by a GNC member) had cost over 76,500 yen. Similarly, the drains were installed by a native firm, Ogawa Construction, for the tidy sum of 190,000 yen, and the total cost of the meeting house, a prefabricated building, came to 2,115,253 yen (Gakuen Nishi-chokai 1984c). Finally, Chair Ogawa's local stature and the fact that he serves on the city assembly's construction committee doubtless were instrumental in procuring a site for the meeting house, prime real estate on which a regional center is slated for eventual construction by the city.
True to the historical propensities of the Ogawa household, the current GNC chair, who assumed the post in 1982 after serving concurrently as vice-chair and general director, oversees the association in a somewhat autocratic manner. Actually, Ogawa Z. and the officers preside over what appears to be, judging from my experience as both a GNC member and a guest at the officers' meeting, a virtual oligarchy—
a seeming consequence of the members' apathy coupled with the officers' arrogance. A description of the ward secretaries' second meeting on 27 October 1984 contextualizes my overall impressions.
The meeting began at two o'clock in the afternoon at the new meeting house. The fact that I was able to sit in on the proceedings—as the first rank-and-filer, not to mention foreigner, to do so—was the result of several months of circuitous permission seeking. I first approached my squad's manager, who contacted the ward secretary, who put the question to the general director, who approached the chair, who then mulled over my request for many weeks with the other officers before finally giving his consent. In the meantime, I was asked to prepare a short autobiography and statement of my reasons for attending the otherwise exclusive meeting. I was also visited without warning on several occasions by the ward secretary's wife—partly out of her curiosity alone and partly to assess my character and lifestyle. At the meeting, she zealously assumed the role of my caretaker, introducing me to the officers and her female colleagues, after coaching me on how I should thank them for the privilege of attending. The general director ordered me to sit in the far corner of the room and asked that I please refrain from actively participating in the proceedings.
Each officer signed a rollbook immediately upon entering the meeting house—only 96 (66 percent) of the 145 officers and ward secretaries attended. My caretaker explained that attendance was much higher at the first meeting in April. Stretching across the south end of the spacious rectangular tatami room was a row of low formica tables, behind which sat, from (their) left to right, the general director (also a Kodaira native), the chair, the public relations section chief, the women's section chief, and the accountant. Seated on cushions along the east wall were, from (their) left to right, the chiefs of the traffic, crime, equipment and facilities, disaster-prevention, public welfare, and youth sections. The ward secretaries filled up the middle of the room. Only 12 of the 96 persons present were men, 9 of them section chiefs. The head of the women's section was the only female of that rank. The other women were attending as proxies for their absentee husbands, who were the nominal ward secretaries. The de jure leadership of GNC, in other words, is virtually all male. Although Kodaira's (married) female residents are extolled by city hall as, collectively, the nucleus of "cheerful neighborhood—making," in addition to being both the target audience for neighborhood association activities and the overwhelming majority of those attending jichikai meetings, they have not yet assumed
any formal leadership roles in that particular organization, nor have they had access to such roles.
The ward secretaries' meeting proved to be a rather perfunctory affair. The chiefs read their state-of-the-section reports. Longest was the accountant's painstaking reading of the entire budget, despite the fact that copies had been distributed beforehand to everyone in attendance. This is an opportune moment to briefly review the GNC budget for 1984. The annual income and expenditures balanced out to 3,959,300 yen. Seventy-two percent of the association's income came from annual membership fees: 130 yen a month (1,560 yen per year) per single-family dwelling. Apartment buildings are charged a lump monthly sum of 1,000 yen, which is divided equally among member tenants. Nearly 9 percent of the GNC income in 1984 consisted of subsidies from city hall: 346,700 yen, well above the average grant of 8,550 yen cited earlier. The remaining 19 percent derived from additional grants and miscellaneous sources (Gakuen Nishi-chokai 1984a, 1984b).
The chair's report consisted of two announcements made on behalf of the Self-Defense Forces, whose camp actually lies within Gakuen Higashi-cho. One concerned a free helicopter ride, and although the offer was open to all present, Ogawa quite arbitrarily gave the nod to a fellow officer who had expressed interest, all the while joking that the chopper might crash whereupon the officer's wife would strike it rich on insurance money. (The morbid humor was prompted by a recent rash of "insurance money murders" sensationalized in the mass media.) The second announcement involved two guest tickets to a military function, which Ogawa doled out in a similarly arbitrary fashion.
The ward secretaries' meeting is not an occasion for dealing with the details of GNC operations. There was virtually no input from the proxy secretaries present, whose main function seemed to be to serve as an audience for the section chiefs' reports. More pressing business, such as preparing the annual budget, is conducted at the monthly ward managers' meetings, at the officers' extraordinary meetings, and through personal communication between certain officers.
The meeting closed with a terse statement by the women's section chief in her only remarks, since she had nothing to report earlier about her section's affairs. Between Ogawa's announcements and her closing remarks, the general director made a speech urging the (proxy) ward secretaries to work harder at increasing the association's membership, which, he lamented, amounted to only 18.2 percent of the Gakuen
Nishi-machi population. Ogawa, in turn, criticized newcomers for their "absolute lack of interest in jichikai and neighborhood affairs." My calculations indicate that, of the 54 percent of the cho' s households registered with one of the five jichikai in Gakuen Nishi-machi, 47 percent belong to GNC. The general director's numbers differ from mine because he based his percentage on the difference between the total number of GNC households and the total number of people (as opposed to households) living in the area. The result is a low, and therefore rhetorically useful, percentage that is a misleading and inaccurate indicator of GNC membership, since households and not individuals usually register with an association. Nevertheless, although newcomers are excluded from various historical consociations, their reluctance to join a neighborhood association may be interpreted as an expression of their desire for autonomy.
Following the meeting, green tea and several varieties of Japanese confections were served by the women in attendance. Meanwhile, I chatted with Ogawa, who insisted that GNC operated "democratically" but in the same breath shouted "Oi!" for one of the women to serve him more tea. The women congregated around a block of tables in the northwest corner of the room talking loudly, no longer their earlier silent selves. Apart from myself, the only persons sitting at the front row of tables were the male officers. Shortly before I left at four o'clock, when the refreshment period ended, the public relations chief asked me to write a short essay for the GNC newsletter about my impressions of both the meeting and my neighborhood and to make comparisons with equivalent organizations in the United States. (Later, in exchange for my essay, I was presented with a small hand towel.)
Typologically, Gakuen Nishi-chokai is a hybrid organization: partly native (Ogawa Z. and several of the other officers) and partly newcomer (ward secretaries and the rank-and-file members). Unlike the Ogawa Eight jichikai, however, GNC natives are not also agriculturists, although their natal households may be or were so in the past. An analysis of the GNC handbook, in which all the members are listed by ward or squad, name, occupation, and address, reveals that the association has no farmer members and that sarariiman predominate, followed by military personnel and merchandisers. The GNC natives, in short, are native by virtue of their genealogy in Kodaira, most having become sarariiman- ized by the early 1960s, when a poll conducted by city hall revealed that about 79 percent of a typical farm household's annual income derived from nonagricultural sources, particularly land sales and
rentals. Although Ogawa Z. remains quite adamant about maintaining distinctions between "blue-blood" Ogawas and the household's fictive kin, most native householders of my acquaintance in Gakuen Nishi-machi seemed less concerned about the genealogical "purity" of their ie than with its historical seniority.
Varieties of Jichikai Experience
One form of spatial displacement is occupational in nature. In the sarariiman- ized farm households, this displacement may be manifested as a move out of the fields and into the office. The difference between native office workers and newcomers, however, is that the former have long roots in Kodaira and are, for the most part, locally employed. Certain GNC native leaders, for example, are both business-people and members of the assembly. That Gakuen Nishi-machi originally was part of Ogawa-mura doubtless has much to do with the fact that natives dominate its leadership.
The largest of the 380 neighborhood associations has 1,826 registrants, and the smallest has 2 registrants. The majority (209, or 55 percent) of the associations consist of 10 to 50 members. Naka-machi (formerly Ogawa-shinden ) in particular abounds in small, autonomous associations and has the double distinction of being the city division with the largest number of jichikai (47, or 12.3 percent) and the largest number of associations headed (as of 1984) by women: 5 out of 17 citywide. The 17 neighborhood associations headed by women comprise a mere 4.5 percent of the total number of the city's jichikai. They range in size from 7 to 83 households, with most averaging 25. All consist of quintessential newcomer households: new housing tracts, mass-housing units, and high-rise projects. How these gynecocratic jichikai operate—whether they differ, self-consciously, from their androcratic, androcentric counterparts, and whether female headship is perpetuated as a matter of principle—is a subject for an independent study proper, particularly in connection with the role (formal and informal) of married women in neighborhood-and community-making. The concentration of publicly active women in Naka-machi is manifested by their status as formal neighborhood leaders. Generally speaking, Kodaira's female leaders preside over neighborhood associations that have fewer than 100 members (25 on the average) and are orga-
nized among newcomer households. The largest, most bureaucratic, and native neighborhood associations are headed by males.
If Naka-machi has the highest concentration of neighborhood associations, three city divisions share the dubious distinction of having but one jichikai each: Takanodai, Miyuki-cho and Hanakoganei Minami-cho 2-chome (see map 5). To be sure, they are large associations: 464, 322, and 617 member households, which comprise 66 percent, 70 percent, and 82 percent of the total cho households, respectively. Both their large size and higher-than-average membership percentage (the average being 60 percent) may be attributed to a variety of factors.
Miyuki-cho, consists of a small resident population sandwiched between the Kodaira Country Club and Koganei City. In Hanakoganei Minami-cho, company housing units predominate. Takanodai is characterized by a dense cluster of houses and a large number of shops. Shopkeepers, generally speaking, are more inclined toward neighborhood-making, in order to secure steady and stable clientele. Although they are jichikai members, they also maintain their own special organizations, known as shotenkai, or shopkeepers' associations. Kodaira boasts twenty-four such associations, which are clustered mosly around each of the city's seven train stations. The shopkeepers are organized under the auspices of the Kodaira Chamber of Commerce. In 1984, in response to consumers' opinions, the chamber issued a twelve-point plan for the revitalization of the city's shopping districts. A public opinion survey conducted in 1983, for example, revealed that local consumers favored the installation of parking zones for bicycles and cars; the establishment of larger retail stores, such as supermarkets; and more helpful and polite city clerks (C 1983, 59). Among the twelve points was included one designed to foster furusatosei, or furusato- ness, by sponsoring spring and autumn festivals, early-morning markets, ancestors' festival dances, local arts and crafts fairs, and songfests (Kodaira shokokai-dayori, 20 March 1984).[2]
The extenuating circumstances for Naka-machi' s double distinctions are geographic and nomenclatural. The place-name Nake-machi, literally "relationship-ville," was purposely selected in 1962, when the former intracity divisions were reorganized as cho, to signify and encourage "civic harmony and intimacy" (KCH, 5 September 1962). The central citizens' hall was constructed there, and the central library was built nearby (both were relocated in 1984–85 to an even more "central" location in the vicinity of city hall). Moreover, in 1969 the city's board of education moved its office to the central citizens' hall, which effectively
increased traffic in and out of Naka-machi, the fourth-largest cho. As I heard mentioned repeatedly at the fourteenth annual Kodaira citizens' hall convention, held on 5 February 1984, the overwhelming majority of those who use the facilities—an art gallery, local-history seminars, arts and crafts classes, language classes, and rental rooms—at citizens' halls are women, and newcomer women in particular. The statistics show a female usership of 70 percent citywide in 1982–83, all of whom have lived in Kodaira for less than ten years. The most frequent users live within two kilometers of a hall (KSH, 5 March 1969).
While mass-or high-rise housing projects seem to facilitate jichikai membership among newcomers, nativeness is the catalyst for membership in the Ogawa Eight. As explained in chapter 4, nearly 90 percent of the eight Ogawa Eight jichikai comprise native households. Nativeness, apart from being a significant factor in its own right, also implies parish (shrine and temple) membership as well as inclusion in historical neighborhood divisions, such as the bangumi. Newcomer jichikai effectively incorporate propinquitous but otherwise autonomous households, whereas those neighborhood associations composed of native households essentially have been superimposed, like a transparency, upon preexisting, bounded organizations. Moreover, the fact that these historical associations, such as the shrine and temple parishes, have always been headed by male househeads virtually—and unproblematically—sanctions the male leadership of the Ogawa Eight jichikai. Also relevant in this connection is that, generally speaking, these native males are locally employed—as farmers or local businessmen—and therefore, unlike newcomer males but like married newcomer females, are part of the city's daytime population. There is, then, a resemblance between native males and married newcomer females in view of their daily presence in Kodaira and participation in local institutions and neighborhood activities. But whereas native males preside over historical organizations, newcomer females are the de facto representatives (and in some cases de jure leaders) of comparatively new neighborhood associations.
It is instructive to note the overall extent of jichikai membership and participation in Kodaira, since city administrators regard neighborhood associations as the basis for community-making in general. Public opinion surveys conducted by city hall in 1979 and 1983 reveal that 20 percent and 25 percent, respectively, of the average 1,500 male and female respondents were actively involved in jichikai affairs (C 1979, 58; 1983, 49). In 1979, 9.2 percent of the respondents served in a
leadership capacity, 11.2 percent were actively participating members, and 31 percent occasionally participated; 3.1 percent considered themselves members in name only, and 45.5 percent were not in any way involved injichikai affairs. Half of those surveyed in 1983 indicated that they had no interest in jichikai activities, although the survey did not indicate whether they may have been nominal members of an association at that time.
My own calculations show that in 1984 an average of 40 percent (ranging from 10 to 70 percent) of the city's 54,790 households were not registered with a neighborhood association. Some of these householders regarded PTA membership in particular as sufficient community involvement. Married women tend to become more involved in jichikai affairs as they get older, having earlier been active in citizens' hall and subsequently PTA activities. The general trend of female participation illuminates the processual nature of membership. Women in their twenties and early thirties—usually newly married or young mothers—tend to pursue their own interests and thus make use of the citizens' hall facilities; those in their late thirties and forties are concerned primarily with their children's needs and participate in PTA affairs; women in their fifties and sixties develop an interest in their neighborhoods, becoming increasingly active in jichikai affairs (Kodaira-shi kyoiku iinkai 1980, 16).
The Community Mystique
Ideas and boundaries of "community" are problematic issues for natives and newcomers alike—for the former, because of spatial displacement within their historical setting; for the latter, because of spatial displacement within a new setting. A 1979 public opinion survey conducted by city hall included a question on the respondents' knowledge of the term community. In the questionnaire, the term, which was never defined, was rendered in katakana as komyunitei.[3] Like the postwar term jichikai (neighborhood association), komyunitei is preferred for its modem, democratic ring, although the more dated kyodotai (communal corps) is favored within the affective and nostalgic context of furustato rhetoric. Komyunitei signifies the city's bureaucratic modernity and progressiveness, while kyodotai imparts an ambience of "tradition" through its allusion to the communal solidarity presumed to
have characterized Edo-period agricultural villages. Of the 1,569 respondents, 51 percent professed to be very knowledgeable about the term community; 35 percent had heard of the word but were unsure of its meaning; and 12.5 percent had not heard of the word and did not know what it means.
The respondents most familiar with the term komyunitei (55 percent of the above 51 percent) hailed from survey areas that collectively encompass the city's university, sarariiman, and uptown sectors. The lowest percentages of knowledgeable persons (15 percent of the 51 percent) were registered in areas that coincided with the most visually and residentially intact portions of the native sector—namely, the former Ogawa-mura, Ogawa-shinden, and Onumata-shinden. The survey also revealed that those who were most familiar with komyunitei were students, civil servants, and engineers, while those who were least familiar included farmers, manual laborers, and unemployed persons. Differences between natives and newcomers thus cleave along linguistic lines as well. Natives tend to be unfamiliar with trendy, foreign-derived jargon, but, at the same time, they are protective of their own local dialect. Miura, the incumbent priest of Shosen-ji, for example, believes that the preservation-through-use of a local dialect is the key to the native sector's integrity and continuity. Kodaira natives regularly use hyakkoi to refer to chilliness or coldness, instead of the more conventional or standard word, tsumetai.
Unfamiliarity with the term komyunitei does not necessarily imply an unappreciation or absence of community, in the sense of a bounded and integral place whose members negotiate its boundaries. Nor is mere familiarity with the term per se tantamount to its concrete manifestation. Public opinion surveys conducted by city hall define the presence of komyunitei by the degree of tsukiai, or interaction, between proximate households. In a 1979 survey, tsukiai was characterized by two activities: greeting neighbors and, when a family goes on vacation, asking neighbors to look after the house (rusuban ).[4] The figures indicate that 73 percent of the respondents regularly greeted their neighbors. Ninety percent of those respondents involved in agriculture (i.e., the native sector) and 80 percent of those over thirty-five years of age exchanged greetings, while students, office workers, and salespersons, who collectively comprise the most transient population, greeted only certain persons. Only 28 percent of the respondents always asked their neighbors to look after their house. Rusuban implies a certain level of intimacy and trustworthiness between households and apparently is less
evident in Kodaira, with its predominantly newcomer population, than is the courtesy of greeting one's neighbors (C 1979, 54–55). Community, however, cannot be determined solely by fixed and measurable criteria; affective and subjective considerations also are involved. The logic of the survey suggests that the mere exchange of greetings is indicative of the existence of komyunitei, which is a simplistic and erroneous notion. It is clear that the Ogawa Eight—which has the highest percentage of farmers, the group least familiar with the term—forms an integral group whose like-mindedness is strengthened by history, geography, religion, and, most recently, nativeness.
The integrity of the native sector, epitomized by the Ogawa Eight, is both reflected in and perpetuated by congenial interhousehold relations, which until recently were encouraged by the use of communal wells and jointly owned agricultural equipment.[5] Several natives identified modern plumbing and the private ownership of farm equipment as factors leading to the relatively diminished contact between farm households.
Cognitive maps of komyunitei, a social construction, are as varied as the groups bounded by it. Although only 51 percent of the respondents in the 1979 public opinion survey were familiar with the word, about 84 percent nevertheless had a definite idea of its spatial or geographic scope:
|
Kodaira City planners, for reasons of convenience, regard "community" and the elementary school district as synonymous, but the respondents seemed to favor the neighborhood association as constituting as komyunitei in its own right (C 1979, 61).
As I see it, geographic scope is not the crucial factor here, since neighborhood associations assume various sizes and configurations anyway. The Ogawa Eight jichikai conform to the historical bangumi division, on which they have been superimposed; the Gakuen Nishi-
chokai encompasses an entire city division; and some neighborhood associations are limited to high-rise projects, while others consist of only two households. The 44.4 percent of the respondents in the 1979 public opinion survey who selected neighborhood association as the spatial unit that most closely conformed to their cognitive map of komyunitei were basing their choice not on size, as the survey implies, but on the "official" definition of neighborhood associations as "spontaneously organized and democratically administered by the local residents…to promote and facilitate neighborliness and mutual aid" (Kodaira-shi seikatsuka 1973). The premise of the city's survey therefore is inadequate, for not only are some of the areal units listed coincident, incorporated, or overlapping but the questionnaire fails to distinguish between territory as administrative unit and territory as cognitive map. The salience of jichikai as the most widely acknowledged, affective geographic unit is augmented by the fact that in Kodaira the 380 neighborhood associations are not even informally incorporated as a federation. Rather, each constitutes an entirely autonomous enclave within the city, just as certain jichikai are independent enclaves within the territory of a larger neighborhood association.
In order to assess the degree of residents' commitment to Furusato Kodaira, city hall conducted a questionnaire survey in 1974, hoping to measure the extent of their jimoto-ishiki, or local-person consciousness. This is not the same as nativeness but, rather, is an approximation of nativeness. Thirty-five of the sixty-six respondents claimed to possess local-person consciousness, while seven indicated that they had "something that approached local-person consciousness." Two persons actually said that they were local persons and that Kodaira was their native place. City analysts concluded that 67 percent (forty-four respondents) therefore possessed kyodo-ishiki, or local-place consciousness. What they did was conflate local-person (jimoto ) and local-place (kyodo ) consciousness. For natives both aspects of local consciousness stem from their genealogical and residential history in Kodaira. Among newcomers jimoto names their acquired familiarity with Kodaira, and kyodo names their anticipated future (and imagined past) in Kodaira.
In 1962 the former shinden territories were reorganized as cho (also machi ), or city divisions (see map 6). Following the opinion of the Diet, Kodaira's administrators regarded cho as "more modern and rational" units of sociogeographic organization. In a series of articles published in the local newspaper during the period 1960–61, the administrators attempted to convince residents of the need for boundary changes,
which were scheduled for implementation in October 1962. The introductory article stressed that "compared to the West, the Japanese system of address is confusing and irrational: house no. 5 could be flanked by nos. 20 and 300, because they were numbered according to the order in which they were built" (KCH, 1 June 1960).
In the 1920s Kodaira had been divided into eight oaza, or major (village) sections: the seven shinden villages and Kodaira Gakuen. In the context of imminent cityhood, their awkward shapes were deemed inconvenient and unbefitting a modern city. Moreover, the names "such-and-such shinden " were declared bumpkinish and wholly contrary to a city image, although in the context of furusato-zukuri there is a movement under way to restore historical place-names, now valued for their nostalgic worth, lest they be completely forgotten. Mail delivery and travel were unnecessarily complicated under the old system, since, for example, five different locations bore the name Nonaka Zenzaemon-gumi (KCH, 1 July 1960).
Cityhood, then, effectively marked a purposive geohistorical shift from an agrarian past to a present dominated by office workers and high-rise apartment buildings. Complementing the "modern," albeit impersonal and cramped, cement high-rises was a new concern for punctuality and Clock Time, the opposite of which was disparaged as Kodaira Time. A "punctuality campaign" was inaugurated by city hall in 1961, and punctuality itself was lauded as both the key to increased productivity and the very foundation of a "cultured life." The campaign was spearheaded by the newly elected mayor, Oshima, and supervised by retired army officers. The mayor declared a "Commemoration of Time Day," to be observed annually on 10 June. Four years earlier, when elected chair of the assembly, Oshima had vowed to eradicate Kodaira Time, epitomized by farm households, which he defined as chronic tardiness and a complete disregard for fixed schedules. The assembly was to serve as an exemplary model of punctuality, to which end the members were required to be seated three minutes before a session began (KSH, 5 June 1965).
Clock Time is exalted in the Kodaira citizens' charter, whose third article proclaims, "Let's build a city characterized by punctuality and clockwork orderlines." To concretize the charter's proclamation, a pedestal clock, donated by the Kodaira Lions Club, was installed in front of the old city hall. Although it since has been replaced, photographs show it to have been a cement obelisk. The present clock is incorporated into the marble archway fronting the new (1983) city
hall. In a very conspicuous and literal wayt, then, spatial reorganization has been accompanied by temporal reform. More specifically, the replacement, in the 1960s, of shinden division and rustic place-names with cho and other more modern-sounding toponyms, together with the replacement of Kodaira Time with Clock Time, signaled the ascendance of white-collar styleand the concomitant demographic dominance of newcomers.
When Old-timers Are Immigrants
Immigration was a routine feature of shinden village-making and characterizes the postwar development of Kodaira. Historically, immigrants or newcomers were not marginal; rather, "immigrant" designated a temporary status category, which changed automatically into that of "old-timer." "Newcomer," in comparison, is a permanent status category; for the postwar tendency, epitomized by the editors of the Kodaira choshi, has been toward freezing the dichotomy of farm household and nonfarm household. This practice, in turn, has reinforced the ascribed statuses of these two basic categories of Kodaira resident. While nowcomers eventually may come to feel like local persons, or to express a local-place consciousness, they will never make the transition to tochikko, although as kodairakko they may approximate that status.
The numerical superiority of the immigrant population over the "host population," and the city's consequent suburbanization, have provoked among natives a redressive reaction of the sort more typically observed, ironically, among newcomers. The reaction in question consists of three interrelated activities, which collectively amount to a valorization of nativeness within Furusato Kodaira. In Kodaira minority natives behaved like immigrants in their efforst to adjust to the influx of newcomers during the 1960s. Newcomers, on the other hand, did not have to adjust to the natives' society, which at that time was regarded as retrogressive. Thus, in the 1960s, local and national programs were inaugrated to rationalize farm household management; and the need for fixed, annual schedules was stressed (KCH, 1 December 1959, 1 May 1960). The adjustment process has three salient features, which also describe the forms of redress employed by Kodaira natives.[6]
The first feature or activity, information gathering, is evident in the self-conscious collection and compilation of folkloric and local-history materials as a means of conceptually consolidating the native sector. The research and publications of the Kodaira Local History Study Society, a native group, exemplify this movement.[7] So does the new monthly Komyunitei Kodaira, which was founded in 1984 by a group of tochikko to publicize the achievements of Kodaira natives. The inaugural issue included a cover story on Mayor Senuma's vision of Kodaira twenty years hence and a long article on a wide-scale riot against the Meiji government in 1870. Senuma, the incumbent priest of Enmei-ji, is a tochikko, and the feature story both sheds light on a shadowy historical episode and martyrizes the leaders of the Kodaira Seven, for several of the men perished in prison (Komyunitei Kodaira, 1 May 1984).[8] These publications are available at city libraries and citizens' halls and, potentially at least, serve to impress upon newcomers the colorful and laudable history of native households. Commemorative steles and signboards marking historical landmarks function in the same way. By locating the remembered past in the present landscape, they reclaim and revivify that past.
A second feature of the adjustment process, the distinctive presentation of self, is a strategy to increase visibility and thus win special attention and treatment. Two cogent methods of distinctive presentation are stereotyping and mythologizing. Natives contribute to a stereotype of themselves to ensure their special status within Kodaira. The features of this stereotype include the somewhat ribald and self-consciously maintained tochikko dialect; daredevil performances in the citizens' and shrine festivals; and a "traditional" religious piety manifested in the form of the consociations discussed in chapter 4. Mythologization includes the multiplication, exaggeration, and dramatization of historical elements and episodes, such as the 1870 rebellion mentioned above; the samuraiorigins thesis about the Ogawa household; and the figure of the intrepid shinden pioneer and civic ancestor, Ogawa Kurobei. Shinden mythopoeia imbues natives collectively with a certain charisma, and the pioneer spirit recently has been appropriated by city hall toward the reclamation of Furusato Kodaira.
The editors of the Kodaira choshi have helped to magnify the natives' distinctive social presence. A section on "traditional" seasonal activities includes the following anecdote, which in effect, illustrates the differences in sensibility between the native and newcomer sectors:
A Kodaira native immigrated to Tokyo and secured employment as a sarariiman. It was a long time before he returned to visit his parents. His mother made a favorite local dish for the occasion, called dojogayu, a gruel made of flour and red beans. All those years in Tokyo had spoiled her son; his palate had become too sophisticated to tolerate the local gruel. The moment his parents left the room, he moved to dump the soup outdoors but, in his hurry, fell off the veranda. (KC 1959, 1220-21)
On the one hand, the anecdote suggests the vulnerability of native tastes to the bourgeois climate of Tokyo and, by extension, the incompatibility of farmers (natives) and office workers (newcomers). On the other hand, it satirizes the fickleness of recent converts to a Tokyo lifestyle aesthetic, which is cast as the antithesis of a hitherto unproblematic "Kodaira" lifestyle aesthetic.
Finally, the third activity engaged in by Kodaira natives is the manipulation of interaction. The scale of manipulation varies from almost exclusive control over maintaining, and in some cases drawing, historical boundaries, and the determination of land use and disposition, to a tenacious influence in local politics. Two of the city's three mayors have been tochikko; and in 1962, when natives (farm households) accounted for 4.5 percent of the total number of households, 35 percent (nine of twenty-six) of the assemblypersons were natives. This is nearly the same percentage as in 1984 (32 percent, or eleven of thirty-one), when 9.6 percent (three of thirty-one) of the assemblypersons but only 2 percent of all householders were farmers.[9] Generally speaking, the relative decline in the number of native assemblypersons has been more gradual than the decline in the overall proportion of natives to newcomers.[10]
Conclusion: Community through Nomenclature Revisited
What was the process by which the Kodaira Seven (shinden ) were transformed into the Kodaira Thirty-three (cho )? In 1962 the city's steering committee for boundary reorganization and renaming decided on a general plan of action, which met with the assembly's approval. The plan spelled out several objectives, not all of which were realized. They are presented below, along with the supporting arguments for their implementation.
1. Boundaries are to be clearly delineated by railroad tracks, roads, canals, and other artificial landmarks. The historical boundaries are not precise. The lack of precision has not posed problems for natives—for whom the border between Ogawa-mura and Ogawa-shinden is still designated as "X' s house" or &ldquo,'s tea bushes"—but this essentially mnemonic system of demarcation is extremely inconvenient for newcomers. Moreover, words like shinden and X-gumi are rustic and uncitylike (KCH, 1 July, 1 September 1960; 1 February 1961; 20 February 1962).
2. Cho size is to be determined by the character—commercial, industrial, or residential—of the area in question. According to guidelines established by the construction ministry, commercial cho should measure about six hectares, industrial cho about thirteen hectares, and the residential cho about ten hectares.
3. Cho names must be easy to learn and remember and should be endearing. Redundancies, as exemplified by Bunkyo ward's sixteen toponyms containing the name Komagome, should be avoided. Moreover, place-names should reflect each cho' s "peculiar characteristics."
Place-names were solicited from among the resident public at large, and the new city divisions were introduced formally on 1 October 1962, on which date Kodaira became a city. Map 6 shows the former shinden sections, together with the newly designated cho. The names were selected for the following reasons:
Nakashima-cho Since the area already was called East/West Nakashima, it was most convenient to keep that name.
Josui Hon-cho. Josui Shin-machi, and Josui Minami-cho:Josui, or canal, was selected to unite, toponymically, three separate shinden sections (Ogawa Suzuki, and Nonaka Zenzaemon-gumi ) located south of the Tamagawa main canal.
Takanodai: Since the rather complicated character for taka (hawk, falcon) was not among the ideographs designated by the government for daily use, it instead was written in cursive syllabary. The name Takanodai alludes to the fact that the area was part of the Tokugawa's falconry reserve. Between the years 1620–1692 and 1717–1866, the southern portion of Ogawa-mura was incorporated into the takajo, falconry reserve, of the Owari province branch of the Tokugawa ie The reserve eventually encompassed 170 villages in
Map 6.
Boundaries of new and old divisions.
New divisions: NK = Nakashima-cho;
JS = Josui Shin-machi; TD = Takanodai; OG1 = Ogawa-
cho 1-chome; OG2 = Ogawa-cho 2-chome; SK = Sakae-cho;
ON = Ogawa Nishi-machi; OH = Ogawa Higashi-cho; JH = Josui
Hon-cho; JM = Josui Minami-cho; KH = Kihei-cho;
TS = Tsuda-machi; GN = Gakuen Nishi-machi;
GH = Gakuen Higashi-cho; NM = Naka-machi;
MS = Misono-cho; MG = Megurita-cho;
MY = Miyuki-cho; SZ1–2 = Suzuko-cho
1–2-chome; TJ1–2 =Tenjin-cho
1–2-chome; ON1–2 = Onuma-cho 1–2-chome;
HM1–3 = Hanakoganei Minami-cho
1–3-chome; HK1–6 = Hanakoganei 1–6-chome.
(Old divisions): (OM) = Ogawa-mura; (OS) = Ogawa-shinden;
(NS-Y) = Nonaka-shinden (Yoemon-gumi); (NS-Z) = Nonaka-
shinden (Zenzaemon-gumi);
(SS) = Suzuki-shinden; (MT) = Megurita-shinden;
(ON) = Onumata-shinden. (Adapted from KK 1983,
244)
the region northwest of Edo. During the period 1731–[1741] and 1759–1793, the reserve was supervised by the Ogawa household, which gained much prestige from this coveted position. Supposedly, only households with a samurai pedigree were selected to supervise the falconry reserve, a point used to validate the samurai-origins thesis of the Ogawa ie. The position warranted a modest stipend, but the strict rules under which the reserve was to be administered made it more of a bane than a boon. Hunting, raising poultry, and erecting scarecrows within the precincts were forbidden; and the permission of domain officials was needed in order to stage a festival or to install a water wheel, on account of the potentially disruptive noises generated. Also, villagers were obliged to equip and entertain the falconers, in addition to bearing the cost of maintaining the reserve (KC 1959, 82–85).
Ogawa-cho (1- and 2-chome), Ogawa Nishi-machi, and Ogawa Higashi-cho: The name Ogawa was left intact to memorialize both Kurobei and the earliest shinden village.
Sakae-cho: Sakae, which means "flourishing or thriving," was selected for this peripheral cho to reflect a desire for prosperous relations between Kodaira and the neighboring town of Yamato (Higashiyamato City since 1970).
Kihei-cho: This place-name derives from the bridge of the same name, which in turn was named after a local celebrity of yore.
Tsuda-machi: Tsuda Women's College is the namesake of this cho.
Gakuen Nishi-machi and Gakuen Higashi-cho: Kodaira Gakuen, the "academy town" housing tract established in the 1920s in what is now Gakuen Higashi-cho, was the inspiration for this place-name.
Naka-machi: As I already have noted, the place-name of this centrally located cho was selected to signify intracity harmony and neighborliness.
Misono-cho:Misono, which means "beautiful park," ostensibly was chosen to symbolize Kodaira's "garden citification," although the presence of the municipal cemetery was probably the more influential factor.
Megurita-cho: Megurita-shinden is the namesake of this division.
Miyuki-cho: This place-name memorializes Emperor Meiji's delighted admiration—miyuki means "august delight or pleasure"—of the blossoming cherry trees dotting the area. In April 1883, Emperor Meiji and his entourage journeyed to Suzuki-shinden to view the
cherry blossoms, about which he later composed several haiku. The Suzuki-shinden head commissioned and in 1902 gave to Kaigan-ji a stele commemorating the imperial visit. Two thousand cherry trees were planted in the 1730s along a six-kilometer stretch of Itsukaichi Road under the orders of the local magistrate (KK 1983, 76–78; Kodaira kyodo kenkyukai 1983, 41–42; Yamazaki 1983, 23). The precedent set by the local magistrate was followed in 1980, when the Rotary Club donated seventy cherry trees for planting in Hanakoganei 6-chome as part of the "(re)making of historical Kodaira" campaign inaugurated in 1977 (KSH, 5 April 1980).
Suzuki-cho (1- and 2-chome ): The name is that of the former shinden, although both cho together constitute a smaller area than their namesake village.
Tenjin-cho (1- and 2-chome ): Tenjin Hollow is the subject of several folktales and the inspiration for the name of this cho. In the folktale "The footprints of Daidara, the Boy Giant," the three hollows in Kodaira (Tenjin, Heian, and San'o) are said to have been formed when Daidara passed through the area en route to build Mount Fuji. Thus, the hollows (i.e., the giant's footprints) are all the same size and point in the direction of Mount Fuji (Kodaira minwa no kai 1981, 54).
Onuma-cho (1- and 2-chome ): Although this cho was named after Onumata-shinden, the appellation was shortened to the presumably less rustic, and allegedly more easily pronounced, Onuma.
Hanakoganei (1–6-chome ) and Hanakoganei Minami-cho (1–3-chome ): As part of a place-name, hana (flower) is analogous to the "pearl" in "Hong Kong, Pearl of the Orient." Hanakoganei has uptown overtones and suggests a cultured, residential area. It was a name much preferred to the comparatively boorish Nonaka Yoemon-gumi. Although Koganei is a historical place-name, and the name of the city sharing Kodaira's southwest border, the cho supposedly was named after Hanakoganei Station (KCH, 5 September 1962).
Each municipal mass-housing and high-rise project was provided both with proper names, such as Sakurajosui, Nobidome, and Hitotsubashi, and with impersonal names, such as Nos. 3, 6, and 7 Toei Jutaku. Somewhat ironic, in light of the rationale for the renaming campaign, is the presence of several municipal housing tracts bearing such "tabooed" names as Ogawa-shinden and Onumata-shinden. These mass-housing
units bear the names of the shinden villages originally peopled by newcomers, whose initial status was not unlike that of the residents of the municipal housing tracts. Perhaps the newness of the units was thought enough to offset the backwardness of these historical names.
The proposed boundary and name changes generated both scorn and legitimate worries among natives: scorn because of what they regarded as the wholly cosmetic rationale for the new cho names; worries because of their fear that the territories of neighborhood associations and shrine and temple parishes would be altered drastically, spelling the potential division of hitherto intact neighborhoods. City administrators assuaged such fears by adopting a compromising posture with respect to the geographic correspondence of jichikai and cho. The partial inclusion of Tsuda-machi within the territorial scope of the Gakuen Nishi-chokai was one such compromise (KCH, 20 February 1962). Shrine and temple parishes retained their native constituency, although their physical boundaries were disrupted by the changes.
Ogawa Eight natives have had altogether less to worry about in either case. First of all, in the area encompassed by the former Ogawa-mura, Oume Road was not designated a cho boundary (as was Itsukaichi Road) but was retained as the organizational nexus of the natives' society, thereby contributing to the overall integrity of the Ogawa Eight. Second, as noted in chapter 4, the parishes of both Shinmei-gu and Shosen-ji remained as they were prior to the 1962 reorganization, and their constituent divisions continue to be called by their historical names. Although the internal organization of these parishes has grown more complicated since their original twofold division in the seventeenth century, the former Ogawa-mura itself remained a distinct entity until 1962. The newly designated Ogawa-cho, on the other hand, crosscut these historical boundaries, effectively fragmenting the territorially intact shinden -village units and creating, virtually overnight, new geographic entities. To circumvent the disruptive influence of cho -level identification, the parish boundaries of Shinmei-gu and Shosen-ji were retained by those institutions as they were before cityhood. These are the same borders—the parishes and the bangumi, as opposed to the cho or school districts—that are maintained collectively by Kodaira natives through religious (e.g., the Yagumo lantern-float procession) and secular (e.g., neighborhood association) activities. The borders also are demarcated symbolically by memorial steles and signboards, just as they were demarcated in the Edo period by small shrines and religious statues.
The fluidity of contact in everyday life—commuting to school or work, shopping—almost ensures that natives and newcomers engage in a broad dialogue on place identity. It is a dialogue that gravitates toward collective representations which have credence to both groups (Suttles 1972, 51–52). Of course, dialogue is not just a modulating activity, for it also constitutes a means by which to highlight and rationalize that which differentiates one interlocutor from others. Thus, it may serve as a process by which diverse groups and individuals arrive at agreements and disagreements about the meaning(s) of a given place, such as Furusato Kodaira (cf. Erickson 1980, 50, 94, 104). This dialogue may assume dramaturgical proportions, as represented by the Yagumo lantern-float procession in April and the citizens' festival in October, or it may assume the more literal form of a mayor-citizens roundtable discussion. The boundary reorganization and renaming campaign of 1962 and the ongoing reformulation of land use constitute yet other modes of dialogue.
Generally speaking, whereas local-person and local-place identity among natives emerged from and continues to be generated by historically structured modes of consociation, this identity among newcomers is a recent by-product of voluntary, obligatory, and/or solicited relationships. Writing in the late 1950s, the editors of the Kodaira choshi claimed that, although newcomers were not incorporated into the historical (native) neighborhood divisions and consociations, such institutions were not necessary for the "urban lifestyle" embodied by the newcomers (KC 1959, 761). City hall has since retracted that allegation, for the romanticized notion of an agricultural-like lifestyle as inherently neighborly motivates both the production (and reproduction) and the consumption of furusato-zukuri rhetoric.
The entity "newly reclaimed Kodaira" suddenly was acclaimed in the industrializing 1960s. Reclamation does not denote an end state but, rather, involves a continual effort to remedy something and make it fit, and ultimately to contemporize it. In the 1650s and 1720s, barren land was made fit for cultivation, and villages were built; in the early postwar period, farmland was made fit for commercial, industrial, and residential use; and in the 1970s, the reclamation of Furusato Kodaira from urban sprawl was initiated. The version of the "newly reclaimed Kodaira" salient in the 1960s was but one episode in the ongoing contemporization of the city. While "progressive" newcomers were lauded by city hall and in the local press, Kodaira natives were gearing up to redress their threatened place through such reparative strategies as par-
ish exclusivity and the formation of a local-history and conservation society, whose publications commemorate the intrepid shinden pioneers and their descendants. These strategies have, in effect, contemporized the "living history" of the native sector, for through them history has become historicism: an appeal to a cultural genealogy that distinguishes even sarariiman -ized natives from newcomers. It is a historicism that serves well city hall's recent furusato-zukuri campaign and earlier efforts to "reclaim" Kodaira. The names selected for the cho created in 1962, for instance, effectively redistributed the local color and historicity formerly locked up within each shinden name. Stripping an area—Nonaka Zenzaemon-gumi, for example—of its nominal patina exposed a surface dotted with symbolic landmarks (e.g., Tenjin Hollow) and exotic flora (e.g., Hanakoganei, or Flower of Koganei), ripe for nomenclatural exploitation.
Furusato Kodaira may be conceptualized as a relationship of past, present, and future, in which the present is a staging ground for imagining the future by remembering (re-membering) the past. The paradox remains that the promotion of Furusato Kodaira has also had the effect of emphasizing sectoral differences, because the "authentic" community to be reclaimed conceptually and nomenclaturally amounts to a tenuous compromise between the city's natives and newcomers mediated by city hall. Were it not a tenuous compromise, repeated references in the local media to such oppositions as "then" (past and future) and "now" (present), "traditional" and "modern," and "farm household" and "nonfarm household" would not be necessary. Cities, villages, neighborhoods, associations, and consociations are not isolable, transcendent entities; they are the mental and material constructions of identifiable individuals and groups operating under certain sociohistorical conditions. Like overworked palimpsest, these constructions bear the indelible imprint of the beliefs and ideas, whims and cogitations, pettifoggeries and values of those individuals and groups. The making of Kodaira is a perpetual task, and Furusato Kodaira is the latest contemporized version of a "newly reclaimed Kodaira."