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afford to include former ‘luxury’ foods, such as meat, fish and fruit, in their
daily diet. Rapid urbanization and the transition of the patterns of income
distribution (as a result of the movement of people from rural areas to
improve their income positions) are considered chiefly responsible for the
changing consumption patterns in post-war Japan. 12 Those who moved to
cities embraced the urban lifestyle more rapidly than their counterparts who
remained in the countryside. In time, however, under the steady influence of
the media and profit from the land and rice subsidies, farm households
began to emulate urban consumption patterns persistently and to follow
new trends. One of the most notable shifts that took place during the
1960s and ’70s was the proliferation of industrially processed food and
electrical household appliances in the growing number of Japanese kitchens.
Japan’s infatuation with the American lifestyle had begun already
during the first years of the occupation. As Simon Partner reports,
American movies, jazz music and well-fed American servicemen handing
out chewing gum and money to clamouring Japanese children provided
Japanese with a first-hand evidence of American affluence. With the devastated
Japan of the 1940s as a backdrop, the United States ‘seemed to be
a paragon of efficiency, productivity, good living, and happiness, a place
where even the unemployed had flush toilets; where used cars still
gleamed like new’. 13 Although the occupation policies were not specifically
designed to reproduce American economic successes and lifestyles in
Japan, the focus on economic recovery that gained ground after the
‘reverse course’ of 1947 led to technology transfer and managerial assistance
on the part of the Americans and helped to transform wartime producers
of munitions and military equipment into producers of consumer
goods. During the 1950s Japan’s new leaders and farsighted entrepreneurs
who envisioned Japan as a mirrored image of the United States embarked
on the mission of creating a consumer market for electrical goods. 14 In
1955, with strong government support, the ‘bright Japan’ (akarui Nihon)
campaign and the New Life Movement Association propagated the idea of
rational, ‘bright life’ (akarui seikatsu) as the symbol of Japan’s future. 15
Electric goods companies began to invest heavily in advertising their new
products. Next to smaller appliances, such as toasters, electric rice cookers
and ‘hot plates’ that could be used to fry foods directly at the table, the
three major status symbols of the 1950s were a television set, a washing
machine and a refrigerator. By 1965, more than 50 per cent of all Japanese
households owned an electric refrigerator, and five years later the share of
refrigerator-owners reached nearly 90 per cent. This percentage was higher
than the average in European countries. 16
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