居 (i)
living
眠り (nemuri)
sleep
居眠り inemuri
The Japanese art of (not) sleeping. Inemuri.
The
Japanese don’t sleep. They don’t nap. They do ‘inemuri’. Dr Brigitte Steger
explains.
By Brigitte
Steger
6 May 2016
The Japanese don’t sleep. This is what everyone
– the Japanese above all – say. It’s not true, of course. But as a cultural and
sociological statement, it is very interesting.
I first encountered these intriguing attitudes
to sleep during my first stay in Japan in the late 1980s. At that time Japan
was at the peak of what became known as the Bubble Economy, a phase of
extraordinary speculative boom. Daily life was correspondingly hectic. People filled their schedules with work and leisure
appointments, and had hardly any time to sleep. The lifestyle of this era is aptly summed up by a wildly popular advertising slogan of
the time, extolling the benefits of an energy drink. “Can you battle through 24
hours? / Businessman! Businessman! Japanese businessman!”
Hectic: Frenetic
Aptly: Appropriate
Many voiced the complaint: “We Japanese are
crazy to work so much!” But in these complaints one detected a sense of pride
at being more diligent and therefore morally superior to the rest of humanity.
Yet, at the same time, I observed countless people dozing on underground trains
during my daily commute. Some even slept while standing up, and no one appeared
to be at all surprised by this.
If sleeping in a bed or a futon was considered
a sign of laziness, then why wasn’t sleeping during an event or even at work
considered an even greater expression of indolence? What sense did it make to
allow children to stay up late at night to study if it meant that they would
fall asleep during class the next day? These impressions and apparent
contradictions led to my more intensive involvement with the theme of sleep for
my PhD project several years later.
Initially, I had to fight against prejudice as
people were reluctant to consider sleep a serious topic for academic enquiry.
Of course, it was precisely such attitudes that had originally caught my
attention. Sleep can be loaded with a variety of meanings and ideologies;
analysing sleep arrangements and the discourse on it reveals attitudes and
values embedded in the contexts in which sleep is organised and discussed. In
my experience, it is the everyday and seemingly natural events upon which
people generally do not reflect that reveal essential structures and values of
a society.
We often assume that our ancestors went to bed
‘naturally’ when darkness fell and rose with the Sun. However, sleep times have
never been such a simple matter, whether in Japan or elsewhere. Even before the
invention of electric light, the documentary evidence shows that people were scolded for staying up late at night for chatting, drinking
and other forms of pleasure. However, scholars – particularly young samurai –
were considered highly virtuous if they interrupted their sleep to study, even
though this practice may not have been very efficient as it required oil for
their lamps and often resulted in them falling asleep during lectures.
Scold: If you scold someone, you speak
angrily to them because they have done something wrong.
Napping is hardly ever discussed in historical
sources and seems to have been widely taken for
granted. Falling asleep in public tends to be only mentioned when the nap is
the source for a funny anecdote, such as when someone joins in with the wrong
song at a ceremony, unaware that they have slept through most of it. People
also seem to have enjoyed playing tricks on friends who had involuntarily dozed
off.
Wide: Something that is wide measures
a large distance from one side or edge to the other.
Early rising, on the other hand, has clearly
been promoted as a virtue, at least since the introduction of Confucianism and
Buddhism. In antiquity, sources show a special concern for the work schedule of civil servants,
but from the Middle Ages onwards, early rising
was applied to all strata of society, with “going to bed late and rising early”
used as a metaphor to describe a virtuous person.
Concern: Worry, interest.
Onwards: Ahead. From Middle Ages onwards
is like since Middle Ages
Another interesting issue is co-sleeping. In
Britain, parents are often told they should provide even babies with a separate
room so that they can learn to be independent sleepers, thus establishing a
regular sleep schedule. In Japan, by contrast, parents and doctors are adamant that co-sleeping with children until they are at
least at school age will reassure them and
help them develop into independent and socially stable adults.
Adamant: If someone is adamant about
something, they are determined not to change their mind about it.
Reassure: Encourage
Maybe this cultural norm helps Japanese people
to sleep in the presence of others, even when they are adults – many Japanese
say they often sleep better in company than alone. Such an effect could be
observed in spring 2011 after the huge tsunami disaster destroyed several
coastal towns. Survivors had to stay in evacuation shelters,
where dozens or even hundreds of people shared the same living and sleeping
space. Notwithstanding various conflicts and
problems, survivors described how sharing a communal sleeping space provided
some comfort and helped them to relax and regain their sleep
rhythm.
Shelter: A shelter is a small building
or covered place which is made to protect people from bad weather or danger.
Notwithstanding: In spite of, despite
Regain: Recuperate
However, this experience of sleeping in the
presence of others as children is not sufficient on its own to explain the widespread tolerance of inemuri, especially at school and in
the workplace. After some years of investigating this subject, I finally
realised that on a certain level, inemuri is not considered sleep at all. Not
only is it seen as being different from night-time sleep in bed, it is also
viewed differently from taking an afternoon nap or power nap.
Widespread: General
How can we make sense of this? The clue lies in
the term itself, which is composed of two Chinese characters. ‘I’ which means
‘to be present’ in a situation that is not sleep and ‘nemuri’ which means
‘sleep’. Erving Goffman’s concept of “involvement within social situations” is
useful I think in helping us grasp the social
significance of inemuri and the rules surrounding it. Through our body language
and verbal expressions we are involved to some extent in every situation in
which we are present. We do, however, have the capacity to divide our attention
into dominant and subordinate involvement.
Grasp: Hold
In this context, inemuri can be seen as a
subordinate involvement which can be indulged in as long as it does not disturb
the social situation at hand – similar to daydreaming. Even though the sleeper
might be mentally ‘away’, they have to be able to return to the social
situation at hand when active contribution is required. They also have to maintain
the impression of fitting in with the dominant involvement by means of body
posture, body language, dress code and the like.
Inemuri in the workplace is a case in point.
In principle, attentiveness and active participation are expected at work, and falling
asleep creates the impression of lethargy and that a person is shirking their duties. However, it is also viewed as the
result of work-related exhaustion. It may be excused by the fact that meetings
are usually long and often involve simply listening to the chair’s reports. The
effort made to attend is often valued more than what is actually achieved. As
one informant told me: “We Japanese have the Olympic spirit – participating is
what counts.”
Is a
case in point: Is an example.
Shirk: Avoiding
Diligence, which is expressed by working long
hours and giving one’s all, is highly valued as a positive moral trait in
Japan. Someone who makes the effort to participate in a meeting despite being
exhausted or ill demonstrates diligence, a sense of responsibility and their
willingness to make a sacrifice. By overcoming physical weaknesses and needs, a
person becomes morally and mentally fortified and is filled with positive
energy. Such a person is considered reliable and will be promoted. If, in the
end, they succumb to sleep due to exhaustion or a cold or another health
problem, they can be excused and an “attack of the sleep demon” can be held
responsible.
Moreover, modesty is also a highly valued
virtue. Therefore, it is not possible to boast about one’s own diligence – and
this creates the need for subtle methods to achieve social recognition. Since
tiredness and illness are often viewed as the result of previous work efforts
and diligence, inemuri – or even feigning inemuri by
closing one’s eyes – can be employed as a sign that a person has been working
hard but still has the strength and moral virtue necessary to keep themselves
and their feelings under control.
Feigning: Simulating
Thus, the Japanese habit of inemuri does not
necessarily reveal a tendency towards laziness. Instead, it is an informal
feature of Japanese social life intended to ensure the performance of regular
duties by offering a way of being temporarily ‘away’ within these duties. And
so it is clear: the Japanese don’t sleep. They don’t nap. They do inemuri. It
could not be more different.
Dr Brigitte Steger, Senior Lecturer in Modern
Japanese Studies, University of Cambridge. This piece was first published in
CAM, the University of Cambridge’s alumni magazine.
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