Japan

views updated

Japan

The diffusion of tobacco from European countries to Japan began sometime during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Scholars are unsure of the exact date and route of its arrival. However, in 1601 in Fushimi, Kyoto, Jerónimo de Jesús, a Spanish Franciscan missionary, had an audience with the soon-to-be first shogun (military governor) of the Edo period (1603–1867), Tokugawa Ieyasu. On this occasion, the missionary presented Ieyasu with an ointment made from tobacco and the seeds of a tobacco plant. Further references to tobacco appear in Japanese archives beginning in 1609. Accounts of tobacco use and cultivation are also documented in the paintings from the Keicho period (1596–1615).

During the first 100 years after introduction to Japan, tobacco was strictly regulated and generally banned by the Edo shogunate (feudal government). At first, the new custom of tobacco smoking was practiced by gangs of young men, known as kabukimono, notorious for their wild dress and outrageous behavior. Tobacco became a symbol of this infamous group, which resulted in the shogunate's subsequent efforts to restrict smoking. Regardless, smoking and leaf tobacco cultivation expanded, causing the shogunate to ban production and sales of tobacco completely. The Edo shogunate promulgated about forty bans on the sale and use of tobacco during the seventeenth century, though the prohibitions failed to prevent the expansion of smoking. By the late seventeenth century the government sought to regulate sales and cultivation instead, though occasionally reverting to a policy of prohibition. In the eighteenth century, the government began to actively encourage tobacco cultivation.

Consumption

At the start of the Edo period, tobacco began its popularization, but during the Genroku years (1688–1704) of the Edo period, tobacco became part of the mainstream despite its continued official prohibition. Smoking finely chopped leaf tobacco in the Japanese kiseru pipe became a common foundation for Japanese tobacco culture. Pipes similar to the kiseru are used to smoke tobacco throughout Asia; however, the practice of smoking fine-grained tobacco in extremely small-bowled kiseru pipes was solely practiced by the Japanese. Even in the twenty-first century, the only fine-grained tobacco produced for use in a kiseru pipe is in Japan. One piece of the finely shredded tobacco, known as koiki, measures approximately 0.1 millimeter wide and 76 millimeters long. The late Edo period craftspeople set the standard for fine-grained tobacco production by hand. Later upgrades in technology allowed the production of fine-grained tobacco to be mechanized. The Japanese preference for a milder-tasting tobacco contributed to the development of the fine-grained type. The Japanese skill in knife and sword craftsmanship also propelled the production of a precisely chopped tobacco.

At first, tobacco consumption in Japan was mainly an indoor activity. Rooms for entertaining guests were equipped with the tobacco bon, a smoking tray usually containing a kiseru pipe, tobacco jar, ashtray, and hire (tinderbox). Outdoor smoking later became customary when the tobacco pouch was introduced. The tobacco pouch was easily portable and could be used to carry tobacco for smoking on the public streets. The products used for carrying and storing tobacco were all originally developed from other receptacles such as the incense tray, flint pouch, and inro (pillbox). Each of these items was modified to suit its specific purpose of carrying tobacco or storing ashes. The use of particular high-priced materials as pipe decorations gave birth to the production of various smoking paraphernalia. Fast-paced production technology of these pipes and accessories was encouraged in order to address the emerging popularity of tobacco.

As smoking grew in popularity, tobacco use soon became commonplace among the performers of Kabuki theater. In the yukaku courtesan quarters, which served as a brothel, a prescribed manner for tobacco use also emerged. Smoking tobacco was steadily becoming a fashionable undercurrent of the Edo period common culture. The Japanese used the word iki to denote a fashionable character, an adjective they applied to the manners of a stylish smoker.

From 1639 to 1867, Japan was a country closed to foreigners. Against the backdrop of Japan's cultural isolation, smoking became part of the common culture of adults, regardless of social class and gender. (Although smoking had become a legal custom, Japan did not pass a statutory law forbidding minors under the age of twenty from smoking until 1897.) During the Meiji period (1868–1912), cigarettes, cigars, and pipes made their way from Europe and America to a Japan that formerly had a restricted definition of tobacco mediums. In particular, consumption of cigarettes became popular in big cities.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, 80 percent of tobacco consumed nationally was the finely shredded tobacco for kiseru pipes, called kizami. Kizami consumption was stable until the early Showa period (1926–1989). However, cigarette consumption, particularly in urban areas, rose drastically during the Taisho period (1912–1926). Although by 1921 the majority of tobacco sales were cigarettes, kizami was still enjoyed throughout Japan. With Japan's World War II defeat in 1945 and the subsequent period of reconstruction, traditional Japanese culture went into decline while an Americanized lifestyle spread throughout the country. Following the American pattern, the demand for cigarettes grew and the kizami tobacco and kiseru pipes gradually disappeared.

In 1957, the first Japanese-made filter cigarette, Hope, entered the market. Because the main tobacco choice of Japanese smokers was filter cigarettes, demand rose quickly: By 1979, production of domestically produced filter cigarettes had reached 300 billion. Following this peak in tobacco production the percentage of Japanese smokers started to decrease, causing a fall in production as well.

The decline in smoking is linked to rapid urbanization, which led to a perceived deterioration in smoking manners, and, more importantly, a growing awareness of tobacco's negative health effects. With these two issues in mind, the Japanese government began to regulate smoking; for instance, the Health Promotion Law of 2003 prohibits smoking in public spaces. The proliferation of stronger antitobacco laws leaves the future of Japanese tobacco culture in question. At the turn of the twenty-first century, the smoking rate of Japanese adults was 49.1 percent of males and 14 percent of females. These figures bring the national average of smokers to 30.9 percent.

Production, Manufacturing, and Regulation

In the major cities of Edo (Tokyo) and Osaka, tobacco specialty shops began to appear in the late seventeenth century. These shops were typically family-owned enterprises that centered their businesses on selling tobacco leaves (some that were shredded in the shop, and others that were shredded and blended in the growing district), as well as products such as old-fashioned lighters. By the 1800s the expansion of nationwide tobacco cultivation had already begun; 250 major regions were producing tobacco. Famous tobacco leaves such as kokubu of Satsuma, Japan, and hattori of Settsu, Japan, were under production. As tobacco became an important agricultural crop, cultivation technologies and plant refinements improved.

Around the fifth year of the Meiji period (1872), domestic tobacco production, trade, and promotion intensified. During the period from 1888 to 1898, companies such as the Iwaya Co., based in Tokyo, and Murai Bros. and Co., based in Kyoto, gained power. Above all, the Murai Bros. and Co., which introduced American production technology, became the forerunner of all tobacco trade companies in Japan.

The Meiji government also brought a new approach to tobacco taxes. It aspired to replace the former land tax with a new tax on tobacco sales. During the prior Edo period, feudal lords, flouting the shogunate's efforts to prohibit tobacco, began to tax tobacco crops. After the Meiji government abolished feudalism, the incorporation of tobacco into the national tax system provided funds for building the infrastructure necessary for a free market economy. The government also utilized tax revenue from tobacco sales to finance the modernization of industries.

In 1876, the Japanese government implemented a new tobacco control law called tabako zeisoku. This law enforced the taxation of commercial tobacco sales and the use of revenue stamps to make sure the tax was being paid. In the ensuing decades, the government revised the law and eventually introduced a measure known as the Tobacco Monopoly Law in 1904. The Tobacco Monopoly Law placed most stages of tobacco production under the government's control. Although this law angered private tobacco dealers, the government's financial straits, partly caused by the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, and resentment of the enormous profits going to the British American Tobacco Company, ensured the monopoly's acceptance.

The government-run tobacco monopoly closed its doors in 1985, after eighty years. Once again, the tobacco industry became privatized, with Japan Tobacco Inc. becoming the only tobacco manufacturers in the country. The Japanese tobacco business gradually changed to fit the contemporary international market system, although, as elsewhere, the government continues to profit from taxes on tobacco. Researchers estimate tax revenue from tobacco consumption to be approximately 2 trillion Japanese yen (about $18.2 billion) in 2001.

See Also China; Origin and Diffusion; Philippines.

? MASUYUKI HANDA