The Waitress

Cover of the magazine Ukiyo (うきよ), 11/1921. (Found here)

The word ukiyo is probably familiar to many in the compound ukiyo-e, "images of the floating world". Ukiyo means thus floating world, but the cover reveals through subtle hints that this is a new world - the old-time bijin (美人 - "beautiful person", the female subject-object of countless ukiyo-e woodcuts) has changed into a modern girl (モダンガール), a waitress at a Western-style café.



(Waitresses at Café Printemps, 1922; source)

That is my guess; the little clues consist of her laced apron combined with a fresh blush, a matching comb and a coquettish gesture. She resembles the Taisho era popular image of the café waitress, which still lives on in Japanese pop culture. For a basic introduction to the café boom in 1910's and 1920's Japan, see Elise K. Tipton's article "Pink Collar Work" in the excellent journal Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context.


(Two Taisho era waitresses; more images here)

In some ways, the café waitresses carried on the geisha tradition of providing inspiring company, selling a romantic fantasy over a cup of coffee or tea. Because they were associated with modernity and Westernization, but perhaps even more because their customers were poor students and aspiring intellectuals, the waitresses were often ridiculed and depicted as prostitutes (and some of them doubtlessly had to be; their salaries were extremely low, and Tipton has some interesting stories about waitresses trying to organize themselves and join the labour movement). (Some examples of cartoons here.) Today, the "maid café" fad plays on similar strings - it is the fleeting dream that is desirable, not the fulfillment of desires. In this case, nostalgia enhances the value of the fantasy. Because the 21st century waitress is no longer a threat to the social order, the early 20th century waitress is seen as an innocent and plucky character in a historical romance. She is even desirable (and marketable) as a costume, like other characters from bygone times: the samurai, the ninja, the courtier.


A Taisho waitress costume from a contemporary costume rental service.

Takiji Kobayashi

"1920s proletarian novel strikes chord with young underemployed" - The Japan Times, Friday, July 18, 2008



I first read about Takiji Kobayashi (小林 多喜二 1903-1933) in the Finnish socialist literary magazine Kirjallisuuslehti (1934, p. 290). He was a politically conscious writer and dissident in imperial Japan, tortured to death by the police. His rediscovered novel, Kanikosen ("Crab-Canning Boat", 1929), deals with the difficult working conditions and labourers' collective struggle 80 years ago, and the modern-day part-time proletariat has discovered its relevance.

Shinchosha Publishing Co. said that in a normal year around 5,000 copies of the book would be reprinted. But this year, it has already printed nearly 380,000 copies.

The Japanarchy blog has a big post on Kobayashi, including many images of the manga based on Kanikosen. The comments include valuable discussions, too (how often do you see that?!). A must-read if you are interested in radical labour activism and Japan in the 1920's and 30's. Warning: The post includes some difficult photos of the deceased Kobayashi.
Here is a 10-minute clip from the 1953 movie by Sô Yamamura.

And here's an article by a guy who worked at fish-processing ships himself, and what he felt when he read the manga versions.

(Crossposted at Chirayliq)

Der Goldvogel

Some of my readers know that the Goldenbird is a symbolic object/creature in W.B. Yeats's Byzantine poems, of which I've written an undergraduate paper in English literature. Never mind that now; I have some German discoveries to share.

Let's start with a children's verse from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, by Ludwig Achim von Arnim (published 1805-1808).

Goldvogel, flieg aus,
Flieg auf die Stangen,
Käsebrode langen;
Mir eins, dir eins,
Alle gute G'sellen eins.

The web directory Zeno.org is great for literature and art searches. It contains a lot of hard-to-find, copyright-free German material, and works like an online library for a variety of purposes. Just for fun, I did a quick search for "Goldvogel". And what do I find? Not one, but two quotes from Das Kapital by Karl Marx!

In the children's rhyme, the goldenbird is asked to fly off and bring cheese sandwiches from the "pole" (perhaps like pretzeln, they were hanging from the bakery roof) to "me and you and all the good journeymen" - the goldenbird can satisfy the needs of the hungry (or merely peckish).Onward to Marx, Das Kapital Vol.II (The process of the circulation of capital, pp. 417-418):

"[Lengthy scenario where person I uses 500 pounds sterling to buy consuming goods from person II and could consider selling the goods back for 500, but that depends on whether there's a buyer; even though the goods are the equivalent of 500 pounds, I loses on the deal, while II gains; I'm really bad at economic theory as well as practise - and you should read the original if you must know the details...] – Die 500 in Produktionsmitteln aber, die I auf dem Hals hat, sind nicht in Warenform existierender Mehrwert; sie sind an der Stelle der vorgeschoßnen 500 Pfd. St. Geld da, die I besaß neben seinem Mehrwert von 1000 Pfd. St. in Warenform. Als Geld befinden sie sich in stets realisierbarer Form; als Ware sind sie momentan unverkäuflich. Soviel ist klar, daß einfache Reproduktion – wo jedes Element des produktiven Kapitals in II wie in I ersetzt werden muß – hier nur möglich bleibt, wenn die 500 Goldvögel zurückkehren zu I, das sie zuerst ausfliegen ließ."

The goldenbird is capital!

A few decades earlier, Marx wrote the following in a manuscript on "need, production and division of labour", pp. 547-548:

"... das Privateigentum weiß das rohe Bedürfnis nicht zum menschlichen Bedürfnis zu machen; sein Idealismus ist die Einbildung, die Willkür, die Laune, und ein Eunuche schmeichelt nicht niederträchtiger seinem Despoten und sucht durch keine infameren Mittelseine abgestumpfte Genußfähigkeit zu irritieren, um sich selbst eine Gunst zu erschleichen, wie der Industrieeunuche, der Produzent, um sich Silberpfennige zu erschleichen, aus der Tasche des christlich geliebten Nachbarn die Goldvögel herauszulocken – (jedes Produkt ist ein Köder, womit man das Wesen des andern, sein Geld, an sich locken will. Jedes wirkliche oder mögliche Bedürfnis ist eine Schwachheit, die die Fliege an die Leimstange heranführen wird – allgemeine Ausbeutung des gemeinschaftlichen menschlichen Wesens, wie jede Unvollkommenheit des Menschen ein Band mit dem Himmel ist, eine Seite, wo sein Herz dem Priester zugänglich; jede Not ist eine Gelegenheit, um unter dem liebenswürdigsten Schein zum Nachbarn zu treten und ihm zu sagen: Lieber Freund, ich gebe dir, was dir nötig ist; aber du kennst die conditio sine qua non; du weißt, mit welcher Tinte du dich mir zu verschreiben hast; ich prelle dich, indem ich dir einen Genuß verschaffe) –, sich seinen verworfensten Einfällen fügt, den Kuppler zwischen ihm und seinem Bedürfnis spielt, krankhafte Gelüste in ihm erregt, jede Schwachheit ihm ablauert, um dann das Handgeld für diesen Liebesdienst zu verlangen."

Juicy! Again, the goldenbird is money, capital that can be converted to a variety of goods. This text deals with the ideology behind the process - the first quote was part of the answer on HOW capitalism works, and this quote tells us WHY it works.

But what is my own goldenbird?...

Empty Pockets

Illustrations from Le Petit Journal Illustré.


Prices are high in France, February 1, 1920. Especially prices on imports are increasing. Important to remember when you make a story about the Roaring Twenties: they weren't so roaring for most folks, especially not in the early years. C'est la guerre!


How to be thrifty - stay out of cafés and dancings ('les dancings' were a popular form of entertainment, contrary to modern prejudice, the ordinary French have been pretty open-minded about Anglo-Saxon loanwords!). Be content with one serving of beefsteak. Have your old shoes fixed. More drastic: pour water in your wine and quit smoking! Is this France?