Leisure in Japan, China and India

Abstract

The focus of this chapter is leisure in the history of Japan, China and India in pre-modernity and modernity. This chapter will avoid making Orientalist assumptions about civilization and the onset of Westernized cultures but will instead explore the relationships among political and social history, leisure, culture and globalization. The first section of this chapter will discuss examples of the traditional leisure form and practice in Japan, China and India: music and dance, tea-drinking rituals and chrysanthemum festivals (Siu, 1990). I will argue that traditions in all three countries need to be understood within the context of each country’s individual histories. For each example of the traditional, I will then explore the circumstances that led to its establishment as a particular tradition, and the underlying tensions between the concept of leisure and the dominant philosophies and religions of each country. Set against this exploration of the traditional will be an account of historical change and the ways in which the meaning and purpose of these traditional leisure forms has been shaped by the tension between communicative agency and instrumental power. In the second section of this chapter, I will begin with an overview of modern leisure forms in each of these countries, followed by a more detailed account of particular examples in each country, such as the growth of popular music piracy in North India in the twentieth century (Manuel, 1993).