This Is Japan [antikvár]

ASAHI : Mirror of Japan Changes in Japanese Reading Taste Do the Japanese have a high intellectual level? A first glance at statistics of book and magazine sales in Japan would certainly suggest so. In 1959, the 90 million people on these islands bought no fewer than 100 million books and 770 million magazines, worth §97 million and §25 million respectively. On an average, that means, every Japanese, new-born babies and old people with failing eyesight included, laid out about one dollar to buy himself or herself 1.2 books, and another §2.80 to buy 8.7 magazines in the course of that year. An astonishing feature of this love of the printed word is the enormous sale of weekly magazines. About 50 magazines sell in all a total of 12 million copies every week. However, a number of these weeklies are no more than sensational rags, trading on sex and scandal. Over the past few years, the reading public in Japan has undergone a considerable change. In pre-war days, this public was intellectually the cream of society. But the habit of reading has spread to the masses, and the motive in buying books and magazines is changing from the desire for cultural improvement to the desire for amusement plain and simple. In other words, there is a growing tendency to buy books and magazines for "escape" pleasure rather than as a means of increasing knowledge. Statistics reveal the following facts about the reading public in Japan: (1) men read more books and magazines than women; (2) students account for the largest percentage of readers, followed by office workers and professional people; (3) 60 per cent of all readers are under 24 years of age; and (4) the overwhelming majority of readers belong to the so-called middle classes in the towns and cities. Faced with an increase in reading habits among the masses, what role, one wonders, should the non-daily publications of the newspaper companies play in Japan? They should not, of course, aim merely at supplementing the earnings of the newspaper offices, but should try to perform those functions which the newspapers cannot fulfil. The question can perhaps be best answered by examining how, in practice, the more responsible of Japan's newspaper companies are tackling the task before them. Japan's leading dailies are all national newspapers; they neither speak for, nor support, any specific political party or organization. Their neutrality, of course, does not prevent them from carrying views and commentaries of their own, as well as of their contributors, but they give far more space to news. Their periodical publications do not try to cover all the news, but select only those items that are of exceptional interest to specific groups of readers, delving beneath the surface of political, economic and social newsgathering at the roots of each question and commenting on it as fairly as possible. Not, of course, that they confine themselves to political, economic, and social news; they deal with cultural, recreational and artistic topics too, and some specialize—on art, for example. Nor do they always rely on the printed word, but sometimes place the emphasis on pictures and photographs instead. All the leading newspaper companies in Japan, like their counterparts in the United States and Europe, publish books and magazines in this fashion. The Asahi has its own independent publishing department with a staff of more than 200, which produces, in addition to three weeklies, two monthlies, and several other magazines, more than 60 books every year. Let us look at these now in more detail. The Asahi publishes three weeklies: (1) Shukan Asahi, one of the oldest weeklies in Japan, began publication 40 years ago and has a larger circulation than any other weekly. It is comparable, perhaps, with Time and Neiusweek in the United States. However, one distinguishing feature common to all Japanese weeklies is the large amount of space given to fiction. The magazine always carries three serial stories, avidly read by its readers. It is also noted for the promptness and accuracy with which it takes up current topics, and the skill with which it examines them from different angles. (2) Asahi Graph, also about 10 years old, presents news in the form of photographs, rather in the manner of Life. (3) Asahi Journal, a weekly, is only two years old. The only quality magazine ot its kind in Japan, it devotes the greater part