Mirroring Minds: Recruitment and Promotion in Japan's Law Faculties

Abstract

During the Heian period, from the ninth to the eleventh centuries, there existed in feudal Japan a popular game known as kai awase.1 The game, which can be translated literally as matching, began when one half of a clamshell was placed outside-up in front of the contestants. Nearby were piled an assortment of shells from the same variety of clam, and the winner of the game was the person who was able to pair the featured shell with its matching half. As life in the Japanese islands became more complex, so too did its games. Soon the shells were adorned with lines of Waka poetry or pictures, with contestants forced to match shells not only for shape but also for aesthetic fit. Objects used in matching games also became more varied, with flowers, incense, and roots all coming under scrutiny. Most long-lived and significant were the poetry matching contests, which thrived during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. These employed elaborate rules of decorum where a theme was assigned and teams were judged on poems they composed. Contestants would train for several months, matches could continue for as many as 1500 rounds, and poems were strictly controlled as to their diction and style. If asked what relevance clamshells and poetry have to their professional lives, most Japanese law professors would return a puzzled look. But the resemblance between the traditional games of matching and the selection of legal academics is striking. In the path from student to anointed professor, the decisive step is often the singling out of a particular student as a professor's heir. The professor, like one half of a clamshell come to life, is in search of its perfect complement; the student who emerges from the heap is the one who best embodies his (rarely her) overall characteristics. Like crustaceans trying to pair their variegated shells, or lines of poetry seeking to join in a slant rhyme, legal scholars and hopeful progeny