The Crested Kimono: The World Beneath Paris and London, 1800-1945

by Matthews Masayuki Hamabata

Book Overview

Matthews Hamabata got off to an unpromising start when he first arrived in Japan to study influential business families. An unmarried, third-generation Japanese-American graduate student, he was there to learn about business executives in their roles as male principals and heads of households. Some Japanese were less than hospitable and often downright rude to him, and the souvenirs bearing the Harvard University emblem that he had brought along...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801499755
• ISBN13: 9780801499753
• Release Date: August 1991
• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Length: 204 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 9.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Crested Kimono

The book, Crested Kimono, is an excellent example of the potential for the integration of real life experiences with sociological theories. It is also extremely well written and tends to read like a novel. Professor Hamabata, an American citizen of Japanese ancestry, divided his book into seven chapters: (1) Boundaries, (2) Perspectives, (3) Households, (4) Death, (5) Authority, (6) Marriage, and (7) Love. I shall briefly describe each of these chapters, making personal comments where it seems necessary. I shall conclude with a general critique. The first chapter, "Boundaries," explained how Professor Hamabata was able to establish relationships with some elite Japanese families-thus making his research possible. When he first arrived in Japan, Hamabata was planning to conduct ethnographic research among top business executives. However, the contacts that he made turned out to be quite superficial. Indeed, Hamabata "wondered why [he] had traveled all the way ! to Tokyo only to hear what could be read in documents available in almost any American University." Moreover, he suffered from two major problems of identity: (1) Was he a Japanese or an American. (2) Was he a sexually available male or a immature student? After deciding to play back-and-forth with the first question, he determined that it would be best (in terms of his study) to assume the identity of a "immature graduate student." Yet, in assuming such an identity, he was soon shut out of the "man's world," which he had hoped to gain access to. However, by spending a lot of time with the wives and children of elite businessmen, he was able to obtain a lot of information on love and marriage-but the importance was yet unclear. In chapter two, "Perspectives," Hamabata discovers that the lives of elite businessmen "cannot be understood apart from the women who act as their partners." This short chapter represents an attempt to demonstrate the legitimacy of basing hi! s study (almost entirely) on observations and interactions ! of elite women and their children. Hamabata wants the reader to believe that his study is somehow advancing beyond the traditional wisdom of sociologists. He wants to go beyond the "neat boundary that sociologists have usually drawn around the family." In short, he is arguing that his idea about Japanese wives has broken new ground. However, the argument that his study is ground-breaking in its initial idea is somewhat misleading. I would agree that his study has indeed added knowledge to the field, but its success was largely based on his unique circumstances (e.g., physical appearance, language ability, and personal connections). More to the point, it is misleading to suggest that scholars of Japan have failed to see the connection between the family and the economy. Many writers before Hamabata have noticed the connections that women have with and within the family enterprise. For instance, as Suzanne Vogal writes, "the interdepend