The New Activism

of Japan's Youth

By COCO MASTERS AND HANNAH BEECH，時代雜誌（亞洲版），2009年8月21日

A modest house in western Tokyo might not seem like the birthplace of a Japanese social movement. But in this warren of tatami mats, a cluster of earnest students are sitting with their laptops, sipping cold tea and, through their nationwide network of 5,000 volunteers, quietly making a difference. The mission of Katariba, meaning "a place of sharing," as the group is known, is to teach young Japanese that they have a place in society — and that they need to use their political voice. "It's only a small step," says Kumi Imamura, 29, who runs workshops at public high schools to introduce youth to role models, political and otherwise. "[But] you need to take that step forward yourself."

An even bigger step could take place on Aug. 30, when Japan is set to hold parliamentary elections that will pit the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) against the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). Usually, that's a snore-inducing prospect in a country where the LDP has governed virtually uninterrupted for the past 54 years. But galvanized by an impending sense of doom from manifold economic and social problems, this election will likely unseat incumbent Prime Minister Taro Aso and replace him with DPJ leader Yukio Hatoyama. Two recent polls showed respondents nationwide favoring the opposition over the LDP by roughly 15 percentage points. "For the first time," says Daigo Sato, 35, who started dot-jp, a nonprofit that helps university students land internships in the offices of Japanese politicians, "it feels like a real election."

The overriding challenge for the next government is nothing less than to reset the nation. Japan is the world's most rapidly aging country — from now until 2050, its population is expected to contract about 25% to 95 million people; of that number, nearly half will be more than 60 years old. Even more daunting, the young people who must now shoulder the responsibility for an elderly explosion already feel marginalized in society. No longer assured of the lifetime employment previous generations enjoyed, Japanese youth are the first to lose their jobs when companies cut back. They will also inherit a national debt that is spiraling close to 200% of GDP. No wonder many young Japanese worry that the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel is not a hopeful ray of progress — but the beams of an oncoming bullet train. If Japan doesn't address the needs of its youth — family-friendly policies, a social safety net, a vision for the future — Japan's lost decade, as the 1990s economic meltdown was dubbed, might spawn an entire lost generation.

Just as young Japanese are facing up to the burden of their homeland's bankrupt policies, many of them are also realizing that they have no choice but to carve out a space for their future. With traditional employment opportunities shrinking, more young people are turning to volunteerism and the number of youth-led NGOs is rising. Others are trying to convince the under-30 set that their ballots do, in fact, matter. Here are five young Japanese who, in ways big and small, are trying to remake their own lives — and perhaps in doing so, Japanese society as a whole.

Kensuke Harada, 23

The founder of ivote, a website where young voters make pledges to vote, Harada has also planned meet and greets for politicians to interact with young voters

Photograph for TIME by Andreas Seibert

Now a third-year law student at the prestigious University of Tokyo, Kensuke Harada, 23, was once on the road to becoming just another politician. In 2006, he scored an internship with a DPJ legislator who hailed from the same southwestern Japanese city, Okayama. But one year into the internship, Harada realized he wasn't cut out for the baby steps of reform that count as radical change in the gray halls of the Diet. He wanted a more immediate impact. In April 2008, he founded ivote, which encourages young Japanese to pledge online that they will participate in the coming elections. (In recent elections, about 30% of 20-somethings turned out to vote, compared with 60% for the overall electorate.)

Using a Tokyo McDonald's as their makeshift headquarters, Harada and his team of 10 university students have organized get-out-the-vote rallies that encourage youngsters to don their summer kimonos and, in the spirit of traditional festivals, party for politics. He has also planned a series of meet and greets at local pubs that allow politicians to do something unexpected in Japan's tightly choreographed and cloistered electoral season: meet actual young people and trade ideas. Such exchanges have electrified youth participants too. After one such event, young attendees who said they planned to vote nearly tripled. "More than any other reason," Harada says of ivote's participants, "they say they are voting for their future."

Toshio Sudo, 30

Sudo pursued a career as a teacher but became dis�illusioned with campus politics. Now a fund manager at Morgan Stanley, he's focused on his job rather than on politics

Photograph for TIME by Andreas Seibert

If Harada is to succeed in inspiring widespread political activism, he will have to convince the likes of Toshio Sudo, 30. Already in his fifth year as a real estate fund manager at international investment firm Morgan Stanley, Sudo could be the poster child for the Japanese postwar economic miracle. But he is also the epitome of Japan's lost youth. Sudo can't quite shake a sense of disappointment about where his homeland has ended up after decades of financial supremacy. At the University of Tokyo, Sudo defied his father's wishes and studied philosophy and education in order to realize his goal of becoming a teacher. An academic environment more focused on endless campus politics than on innovative teaching quickly disillusioned him. There were other disappointments too, like the realization of just how precarious various Japanese government programs are, from a vastly subsidized agricultural sector to a faulty national pension system. "[It's] a Ponzi scheme," he claims, of the pension fund. "Young people won't get their money back."

Being forced to pay into programs they believe are broken has cultivated a sense of helplessness among many young Japanese. Certainly, the country's graying demographics are daunting. But Sudo also laments a lack of initiative among many youth to do anything about their future. "[Japanese society] pretends to change, but politicians and citizens [procrastinate]," he says. But it's hard to break old habits. When asked how he'll vote on Aug. 30, he doesn't express much enthusiasm for either party. And what does he want out of his own future? "I would rather focus on my job and earning money," he says. "If I can do that, politics in Japan doesn't affect me much."

Kumi Imamura, 29

In 2001, Imamura founded Katariba, a nonprofit that takes politicians to high schools to engage students. Last year, the group sponsored about 100 such events

Photograph for TIME by Andreas Seibert

The perceived gap between politics and normal life is just where Kumi Imamura has inserted herself. If you want a primer on just how voiceless Japanese youth have been, look no further than the history of Katariba, which Imamura founded eight years ago. Determined to create a space in which young people could articulate their hopes for the future, the then college senior approached high schools nationwide and asked whether they would be interested in hosting events that would bring in local leaders to motivate students. In her first two years of canvassing, only two schools agreed to what in many other democracies would be considered a basic civic exercise. But as of today, prompted by students clamoring for such activities, Katariba has held 463 forums in 283 high schools across the country.

By most standards, what Imamura is doing would be construed as political. But, like many in her generation, she's wary of the word politics and prefers to describe Katariba as an educational organization. When she arrived at the élite Keio University campus near Tokyo from her hometown in Gifu prefecture — a sort of stolid, solid Japanese version of Kansas — Imamura was heartened by how many of her peers weren't obsessed with the cult of money that drove previous generations. "Kids nowadays are interested in society," she says. "But they see no connection between that and politics."

Kan Zenke, 34

Part-time work as a security guard helps Zenke support his love of photography. A newlywed, he plans to vote for the DPJ because it has promised benefits for young families

Photograph for TIME by Andreas Seibert

For other Japanese youth, the solution has been, simply, to opt out. Not that Kan Zenke, 34, is a slacker. "I want freedom," proclaims the Osaka resident, with a brio rarely found among a generation conditioned by years of economic disappointment to passively take whatever hand the job market deals them. As a college student, he saved $10,000 from his work as a day laborer and Toyota factory-line worker to take a round-the-world jaunt after graduation, visiting Pakistan and Guatemala, among other exotic locales. Eight months ago, he again escaped from what he calls the "slave-labor" conditions of a company job to pursue his love of art photography. He doesn't understand the passivity many older Japanese display, whether it comes to politics or career choice. "My parents say, 'There's nothing you can do,'" he complains. Zenke clearly disagrees.

It's not easy, however, to thrive outside the system. Zenke, who recently married, has been forced to work three days a week as a security guard at a baseball stadium to make ends meet. Part-time work has become a career cul-de-sac for many young Japanese. The percentage of non-full-time workers within the total workforce has increased to 11.2% in 2007 from 4.7% in 1985. Part-timers are the most vulnerable to budget cutbacks, and they don't qualify for most employment benefits. Still, they have jobs to go to. Roughly 640,000 young Japanese are relegated to so-called NEET status, the acronym standing for "not in employment, education or training."

Zenke, at least, is following his passion. Earlier this year, he exhibited photos taken in botanical gardens around the world at galleries in Tokyo and Osaka. But starving artists need to feed their children — and Zenke and his wife want to start a family within the next year. In part because the DPJ has promised free high school education and has promised monthly allowances to couples with kids, he plans to vote for the opposition this month. In the meantime, his freelance photo gigs are increasing, and he's confident in his art. "I've got nothing to lose," he says.

Setsuko Kanzaki, 31

Kanzaki's plan to keep working after having children makes her an anomaly — 70% of Japanese women don't work after becoming mothers. Despite the DPJ's child-friendly platform, she doubts the party's ability to bring real change

Photograph for TIME by Andreas Seibert

For Setsuko Kanzaki, 31, life is more about building on what she has already achieved. Just by planning to continue working after she has kids, Kanzaki is something of the odd woman out. It helps, of course, that she works in an all-female office of an American company in Tokyo under a manager who doesn't consider marriage and offspring a reason to quit one's job. But Japan's workplace is so devoid of family-friendly policies, like adequate maternity leave or day care, that a shocking 70% of women leave their jobs to give birth. Kanzaki criticizes Japan's postwar goals for having favored a race for middle-class comfort over the promotion of family values. "Concentrating on making money destroyed community and family relationships," she says. "We make money. So what? We feel empty."

If Japan is to continue its economic preeminence, it will have to help women like Kanzaki find the right work-family balance. Despite her international-economics degree and fluent English learned by watching the films of her favorite actor, Hugh Grant, Kanzaki is alienated, at least politically. She didn't vote in the recent Tokyo election because no party appealed to her. Even the DPJ's child-friendly platform didn't sway her, in part because she is disgusted by the continuing reports of funding scandals within the opposition party's leadership ranks. "The DPJ says change, the LDP says change, but nothing changes," Kanzaki says. "People are tired of listening."

Such frustration is familiar to Kyoichi Marukusu, a political-science professor at Tokyo's Mejiro University, whose recent class questionnaire found that students described themselves as "negative, indifferent and unable to see the future." But Marukusu knows that just complaining won't get the next generation very far. "I tell them if they don't voice their opinions," he says, "they will continue to be sacrificed." Japan's youth have a choice: Do they jump in or give in? The future of their country will depend on how many opt for the former.

— with reporting by Yuki Oda / Tokyo