Brigitte Steger

Sleeping through Class to Success Japanese notions of time and diligence

Keywords: diligence, high school, Japan, sleep, time

Japanese high-school students often study until late into the night and sacrifice their sleep in order to pass entrance and other exams. On the other hand, they often take a nap in the (late) afternoon, and daytime napping or inemuri is widely tolerated. This article asks what cultural and social sense it makes to keep students up for studying, when they cannot concentrate on what is being said in class. It examines notions of time and diligence based on the ethnographic findings and analyses sleep, especially inemuri, from sociological perspective.

Introduction

Japanese are known for their long working hours and, in the extreme: karo shi, death from overwork. Yet, even the most diligent people need recuperation. In this article, I look at attitudes towards punctuality, perseverance, diligence, long working/study hours and other work-and time-related values from the perspective of sleep and sleep patterns, demonstrated by high-school students. Highschool students attempting to enter a university with a good reputation are urged to follow the slogan 'yonto  goraku', or 'four [hours of sleep] pass, five fail' and curtail night-time sleep, while everyone takes it for granted that students sleep not only on the train, but even in class. This public sleep is called inemuri (literally, to be present and asleep) and can be observed in many social situa-tions. I have become interested in how to explain the discrepancy between the demand for sacrificing nocturnal sleep and the tolerance of day-time napping.

If sleeping in bed or on a futon is considered a sign of laziness, then isn't sleeping during an event or at work even more so an expression of loafing on the job? What cultural and social sense does it make to demand that young people stay up until late at night to study when they fall asleep during the day? How does the observation of frequent inemuri fit with the image of the Japanese as diligent people? What does this say about values and practice of time, time use, and work ethics?

I start from the assumption that 'social coexistence would cease to be gratifying -or even bearable -if [humankind] could not regularly renounce their consciousness of it' (Schwartz, 1973: 19). Like every social organization, Japanese society exhibits structural features that both guarantee the regular performance of duties and ensure release from such performance. Sleep is probably the most regular release from pressures. People are released not only from external pressures such as social ties and demands, but also from the internal pressures of psychological forces. As reflected in the English saying 'to be dead to the world,' the sleeper is unavailable to society in the sense that he/she does not direct his/her consciousness to this society.

Parallel to temporary liberation from everyday duties, sleep is also a necessary preparation for these duties, at least in the mindset of modern western societies. Workers and students have not only the right to rest; they also have a responsibility to recuperate physically and mentally. The question of the extent to which rest and withdrawal from social life are necessary and desirable and the form in which this should occur is constantly being negotiated between various social powers and interest groups. One way of doing this is to set aside certain times for work, leisure, family, rest and sleep. According to Edward Hall (1983: 44-58; see also Tsuji and Yuasa in this volume) this is characteristic of 'monochronic', clock-oriented societies. There are also societies in which people tend to do several things at once and are more event oriented, coined 'polychronic' by Hall. Although it makes sense to differentiate between these two time structures theoretically, in reality, even in monochronic cultures, nobody is always and exclusively engaged in the activity at hand. There are ways to 'get away' within active social life as well, as I will explain later. However, polychronic cultures reveal more elaborate structures that allow work and rest simultaneously. I suggest that inemuri in the classroom can be understood as a 'subordinate involvement' (Goffman, 1963: 44), which is subjected to the rules concerning such involvements and allows recuperation during the performance of duties, thereby reinforcing rules of conduct.

After a short statistical and ethnographic description of high-school students' sleep patterns, I will elaborate on issues pertaining to education, work ethics and time. I will demonstrate that curtailing night-time sleep and tolerating inemuri are two sides of the same coin that reflect the Japanese notion of diligence and time consciousness. Being diligent is measured on a subjective scale by the efforts one makes. These efforts can be judged only indirectly in at least three ways: by the hours one works (especially at night), by the busyness one reveals, and by the exhaustion and consequent inemuri the nocturnal work session causes.

I started out conducting research on different aspects of sleep in Japan [START_REF] Steger | Zeit zum Schlafen? Kulturhistorische und sozialanthropologische Erkundungen japanischer Schlafgewohnheiten[END_REF] in the mid-1990s, two of the main methods being participant observation and narrative interviews, which helped me shape the topics and formulate research questions. I have returned to the field several times; the last round of interviews and group discussions on students' sleep culture was conducted in February 2006 in a technical high-school in Osaka, a high school in Uji (near Kyoto) and with a few high school teachers from Kyoto. In addition, I critically examined medical studies on sleeping behaviour as well as time-use surveys. Other sources include regulations, diaries, belle-lettres, media reports, and visual representations, although sleep is hardly the central topic of these sources.

High-school Students: Statistical and Ethnographic Description

According to time-use surveys conducted by the Public Broadcasting Corporation NHK, high-school students are the social group with the second least amount of sleep in Japan. (Although schooling is no longer mandatory after completion of middle school, nearly 97 per cent of the 16-to 18-year-olds attend high school.) They are only surpassed by the group of 40-to 49-year-old women who are most likely these students' mothers. On an average weekday in October 1995, 16-to 18-year-olds claim to spend merely 6:58 hours in bed (Mitsuya, 1996: 89-90). 1 Students preparing for the entrance exams for one of the highly competitive universities are urged to keep their sleep to a minimum. A great number of young people also attend one of the numerous juku (private classes), which offer help in mastering the exam material in smaller groups and direct preparation for the exams. When these young people return home, they still have to do their homework and memorizing. Not all children are, however, exposed to 'examination hell'. There are also many young people who have already given up the competition for a variety of reasons. High-school students who spend an aboveaverage amount of time learning and at lessons spend only 6:03 hours in bed and rest for 24 minutes during the day. The group of students who, apart from class, are not at all involved with studying, sleep on average one and a half hours more, namely 7:32 hours, and rest 15 minutes during the day (Mitsuya, 1996: 100-1). Statistically, there is clearly a relation between studying and sleep reduction. [START_REF] Shinkoda | Epidemiology: Sleep-Wake Habits of Schoolchildren According to Grade[END_REF] give a more recent and detailed picture of nocturnal sleep times by grade of students in the city of Shimonoseki in Kyushu (see Table 1): While -due to relatively uniform class-starting times -waking time in the morning does not significantly change throughout the school years, bedtime (and therefore sleep length) does. The mean sleep length decreases by almost three hours, from 9:31 to 6:45 hours. The difference in sleep length between weekdays and weekends increases. Standard deviations (SD) reflect an enormous diversity among high-school students' sleep patterns.

In terms of bedtime, for children and teenagers there is a remarkably casual attitude as compared to Europe and the USA, where children are taught to go to bed at a fixed time, even if they don't feel tired. Although at kindergarten and primary school an idea that children should go to bed at around 9 pm is present and in recent years experts and media have shown an increasing concern about children's sleep loss, a strict policy of putting children to bed at a certain time is not nearly so widespread and completely absent in the case of high-school students. Studying provides an important reason to allow children to stay up late or even to demand that they do so. Even though my interviewees and many authors claimed that they strongly believed in the notion of a healthy eight hours' nocturnal sleep, there is the overwhelmingly dominant opinion that the more hours spent studying, the better. They take it for granted that sleep has to be sacrificed for it. It certainly cannot be said that Japanese parents stand in the way of their children's success by keeping them from studying. For example, my interview partner, Mrs Yu zawa, a 50-year-old working-class woman from Kanazawa, stressed how much the children themselves are able to determine their own bed and study times. She gave the following answer to my question of when she sent her four children to bed: The youngest son, who slept with Mrs Yu zawa and her husband in the living room, would simply lie down in a corner and sleep when he was tired, while the father watched TV and the mother attended to household chores. Thus, in this way he learned (or rather, did not unlearn) to regard sleep as something that can be done in the presence of active waking others, or in a polychronic way.

In recent decades, however, it has become common for high-school students to fill their late evenings with more pleasant activities. Most have a room of their own, often with a TV-set, video or DVD player, games, and computer with internet access. Mobile phones and the internet give young people the opportunity to bypass their parents and call up friends at any time of the day and night (Ackermann, 2004: 72-4). Young people also go out at night. Twenty-four-hour convenience stores have become important meeting points for them. There are now more than 40,000 of these shops in Japan (Ko be [START_REF] Ko be Shinbun | Konbini: Chiiki Katsudo  no Kyoten Toshite Minaoso [END_REF]. They carry a variety of products and are considered safe. Many youths often spend hours in front of the magazine stands and read the latest comics and youth magazines while standing there (Ko be [START_REF] Ko be Shinbun | Konbini: Chiiki Katsudo  no Kyoten Toshite Minaoso [END_REF]Ayukawa, 2003: 159-60). With the spread of mobile phones, many parents now have the feeling that they can get in touch with their children at all times and have thus become more permissive (Ayukawa, 2003: 152-4).

A number of students take a job in order to have extra cash for entertainment. Whereas a typical student's job in earlier decades was to deliver newspapers in the morning before school, it is now quite common for them to take a part-time job in a convenience store or fast-food place. High-school students can only work until 10 pm. After this time, there are almost exclusively college students working. Miguel, an Argentinean exchange student at the University of Kyoto, told me that he worked several days a week at a fast-food restaurant until 3 am and afterwards went straight home and fell into bed. His colleagues, however, went to the game halls or one of the 24-hour bookstores after work. They would catch up on their sleep during class (Interview with Miguel, 19 June 1995), and only a few classes are scheduled in the morning. College students are known to have a lot of freedom, but high-school students have to get up and off to school early, even when they have cut down nocturnal sleep. It is during this time that the memorization of countless facts becomes increasingly more important and the time that young people spend in bed decreases drastically. 2 How do they cope?

Using a survey of over 1000 middle-and high-school students from the prefectures of Fukushima and Okayama, [START_REF] Fukuda | Lifestyle and Environment: Routine Evening Naps and Night-time Sleep Patterns in Junior High and High School Students[END_REF] conclude that approximately 50 per cent take an afternoon nap at least once a week, whereby the tendency increases with age and there are a significant number of students who take a nap every day. More than 30 per cent take a nap after 5 pm, and a few much later, that is, after they come home from club activities or juku, which clearly shifts and shortens the night sleep phase. Another conclusion was the anticipated correlation between late afternoon sleep, late night sleep, and fatigue during the day. In a different survey carried out by doctors in the Akita prefecture [START_REF] Takemura | Lifestyle and Environment: Sleep Habits of Students Attending Elementary Schools, and Junior and Senior High Schools in Akita Prefecture[END_REF], approximately 20 per cent of the students said that they take an afternoon nap at least twice a week; and 43.5 per cent said that they sleep at least twice a week during class. A counterbalance for what are seen as inadequate sleeping times also occurs on weekends, when for girls in particular, night sleep is a solid 100 minutes longer per night than during the week (as a whole, girls sleep less than boys).

Mr Nagamatsu, a 48-year-old Tokyo ward official, explained to me how such a rhythm works:

For a time, our children woke up at night to study. After they came home from school, they went to sleep. Then they woke up again and studied and at about 3 am they went to bed. If they had an exam the following day, I told them, 'It is better to wake up early in the morning! You have to make use of the best time in the morning. If you get used to this rhythm, you will become night people and won't be able to concentrate in the morning. It would be better for you to stop now. Study during the day, no matter how tired you are and go to bed early in the evening. Then you are fully aware in the morning'. However, things were similar for me. I got home from school at 3 pm, then I slept. I would wake up again for dinner and stay awake until 4 or 5 am. Then I would sleep again until about 7 am. So I would sleep two or three hours and then go back to school. That is how my life was during my high-school days. During the day, well actually in the morning, I couldn't concentrate at all. I thought about it and realized that it is not the right way to go about it. It is better to sleep all at once. (Interview, 20 December 1994) Many others told me of similar rhythms and that their mothers would wake them up at night with tea and a snack so that they could study in peace. (Hence, their mothers were getting even less night-time sleep then they did.)

Although most contemporary studies attribute the rhythm of students that includes late afternoon naps and late night studying to the competitive school system today, it has to be pointed out that high-school students follow historical role models such as Meiji-time statesman , Fukuzawa Yukichi (Kiyooka, 1966: 79), and military doctor and novelist, Mori O gai (Muraishi and Yanagida, 1995: 31), who describe a similarly phased sleep in their (auto)biographies. Regardless of possible considerations of whether it makes sense, this rhythm seems to be a set sleeping pattern for students in general, and in particular for high-school students preparing for exams. Since everyone follows a similar rhythm, it is difficult for an individual to change or even seriously question it. This rhythm is maintained by many university students, despite a more leisurely lifestyle, but is rarely found among people who are working full time.

Beside late afternoon naps at home, there are still many other opportunities to compensate for short nocturnal sleep through inemuri. Most students nap during their sometimes long commutes to and from school or juku. They often sleep in class as well. Asked, 'Do you nap during a school lesson?' almost 80 per cent of the Shimonoseki students quoted in the study above in their last year of high school acknowledged that they slept in class at least sometimes, and more than 20 per cent did so frequently (Shinkoda et al., 2000: 288). Shimonoseki is a rather small town in Kyushu, and one can assume that the percentage of sleepers in cities such as Tokyo, Yokohama, and Osaka -where commutes are longer, competition is greater, the pace of life faster and night-life more seductive -is considerably higher (This assumption has been confirmed by long-term studies in Hiroshima, conducted by Hayashi Mitsuo et al. (personal communication, 26 February 2006)).

When I first conducted field research in the mid 1990s and asked teachers and parents about inemuri in class, none showed particular concern. In principle, sleep in class is not desirable, but it is overlooked, since everyone knows how exhausted students are. In recent years, however, some individuals are starting to pay attention to sleep. In summer 2005, Meizen High School in Kurume, Fukuoka Prefecture, introduced a 15-minute voluntary 'naptime' after lunch, during which all students are signalled by a Mozart tune to bend over their desk and sleep (Asahi Shinbun, 10 October 2005).

Students' Sleep Patterns and Purposes of Education

Why does it make sense for young people to reduce sleep during the night, if they are too tired to follow the lessons the next day? The short answer is that the school classroom is not the primary place of education.

One main purpose of (higher) education is to get a job at a major company, which in addition to providing a secure position and chance of advancement also offers a number of social and fringe benefits. These companies recruit their new employees only from elite universities. Admission to such universities, however, is limited almost exclusively to those who attended a good high school, which likewise requires attendance at a good middle school: the higher the level of education, the greater the competition. In short, Japan is an educationally credentialized society. Therefore, more than requiring specific knowledge, belonging to a certain institution is of crucial importance. Each transition is marked by entrance exams, which test an extensive range of factual knowledge. For instance, it is less important that students are able to communicate in English than that they pass the usually very difficult test on English grammar, comprehension and literature. Since the end of the 1990s, a generation marked by lower birthrates is coming of school age, thus admission competition has lessened somewhat and many people are complaining that the average level of knowledge has been lowered. Due to the economic problems and the decline of the life-long employment system, there are also more alternative ways to climb up the career ladder. At the same time, however, the very economic problems and increasing unemployment cause even greater pressure to perform.

The different types of schools vary widely in their styles of instruction. Increasingly, instruction develops from a holistic, child-centred playful learning in elementary school to an almost exclusive transfer of knowledge in high school. There, the teacher's most important task is to support students' attempts to cope with their textbooks. Entrance exams force the teachers to concentrate on the textbooks since these books -and only these books -contain the extremely extensive exam material. Additional knowledge, background information, and contexts are not of interest (Rohlen, 1983: 241-7). Moreover, their extensive teaching and care-taking load does not allow much time for preparation, so many teachers are happy to follow the textbook.

The demand for textbook-centred learning means that students could never memorize the massive amount of facts solely through the lessons at school. Aspiring students attend a juku, the private study institutions that prepare them for the exams, and study at home with the help of their school books. The term juku can refer to anything from huge institutions with classes of up to 60 students to tuition in small groups at the home of a teacher. Regardless of the size, classes at juku are usually engaging. Students like going there (Fukuzawa and LeTendre, 2001: 29-31). I have never been told of students napping there.

Many of these private schools are months ahead of the teaching plan in presenting the material. If students have already mastered the material, the lessons at school don't offer anything new, and, because the young people work late at night, they get sleepy in the rather monotonous lessons. Therefore, often the most industrious students are engaged in inemuri.

After an exhausting day at school and juku, a break is necessary before one begins homework and study, thus a nap seems appropriate, and so it gets late when they actually start attending to their assignments. A decisive advantage of working at night is the peace and quiet. Young people are better able to concentrate on their studies while everyone else is sleeping. (Of course, they could just as easily spend half the night watching TV, playing computer games, calling up friends or enjoying other forms of entertainment. Parents usually do not control adolescents.) Despite limited sleep at night, they must adjust to the existing time structures of school and other institutions and get up early in order to attend their lessons everyday. To ensure punctuality and a smooth transition from night-time withdrawal to school duties, most schools schedule certain activities before class-starting time: sports, morning call, quiet reading, and the like.

One reason for inemuri in class is also that 'it is already a known fact that school is boring', as informant, Matsubara Akira (ca. 40 years old; Interview, 16 September 1994), describes his experience. With this image in their heads, some students go to school with the intention of sleeping. Of course, there are regulations that allow students to miss a certain amount of their classes, but for Japanese study and work ethics alike, 'most important is 100 percent attendance' (White, 1993: 181). Nonetheless, there are differences among teachers and individual subjects. In Japanese and social studies, it is easiest to sleep. English and mathematics are less suitable because one is made to write. The subjects also differ with relation to inemuri depending on whether classes are relevant for exams or not. Also for youths who don't have to study for entry exams, a lesson that is meant to impart as much factual knowledge as possible is extremely boring. The result is that many of them fall asleep, even if they weren't up studying the night before. They would prepare themselves and get refreshed for afternoon activities with their friends.

The rather tedious lecturing style at high schools and universities is mandated not only by the fact-laden exam material, but also by the class size of often more than 40 pupils per class and by the small classrooms in middle and high schools. Even if teachers want to actively include all of the students or have them work out the material in groups, it is difficult for them to do so. They can ask only short, knowledge-based questions to determine whether the students have learned anything at all (Rohlen, 1983: 241-70). Many teachers are therefore glad if some of the students are sleeping so that they can work more intensely with those who are interested. In any case, all teachers I asked preferred students who are sleeping to those who are fooling around. Unruly students are disruptive for the entire class. Students are responsible for whether or not they benefit from the lessons; if they are sleeping, they are not disturbing anyone. Therefore, most teachers do not wake students. Moreover, they 'know' that the evening juku and nocturnal learning, especially for the diligent youths, often results in exhaustion. Inemuri is therefore not only widely ignored, but students are afforded sympathy because they are dead tired.

What must be emphasized again is that most people consider this type of rhythm entirely normal: 'We don't regard inemuri as being impolite towards the teacher who makes an effort to explain things to us, but just sleep, if we feel like it. Our sleep is unconnected to the teacher', is the view one college student referred to me (Yamatsuta Saneyuki; Interview, 2 February 2006). Mrs Hideya, a then 60-year-old housewife from Tokyo, provides an excellent summary in our interview:

We [Japanese] don't take sleep seriously enough. Therefore, we become tired during the day. For this, everyone has learned a sophisticated way to sleep and does this [she supports her forehead on her hand and thereby hides her face under her arm]. At lectures at the university, it is also the same. At Japanese universities, especially at private universities, there are sometimes 500 students. There, no one really notices if someone in the back is sleeping. Some say, yes, they become tired if they listen to a lecture by this teacher or that one and that's why they sleep [laughs]. There are a lot of students who sleep during lectures, I also slept quite often . . . well, in language classes one realizes that it isn't possible to sleep. But if someone simply gives a lecture, you can sleep. Sleeping all the time, well, that has become somewhat characteristic, everyone accepts it. It isn't seen as anything bad. Instead, people say, 'I feel sorry for that person, he must come from far away', or 'He has certainly worked until late into the night'. (Interview, 12 January 1994) Young people are able to employ this explanatory model cleverly. A woman born in 1962 from Kyoto prefecture explained to me that in middle and high school she always pretended to sleep during class when she was not prepared or had not done the homework. As a result, her teachers did not call on her (Ijiri Yu ka;Interview, 17 October 1995). Students, teachers, and parents alike do not usually perceive inemuri as sleep in the sense of mental absence from instruction, and therefore do not treat it as a problem. Since this justification for inemuri is generally accepted, it also applies for the most part, when the teachers know (basically) that it is not studying alone that causes exhaustion.

School as a Place of Emotional Attachment

Even though a considerable number of young people feel stressed by their schedules, the required performance and the social relationships at school -and some develop symptoms of school refusal (ko to kyohi) and social withdrawal (hikikomori; see Kaneko in this volume) -most of them actually like going to school. Most of their leisure and social activities are related to school. Practically all students attend so-called clubs, where they perform sports, do gardening or play music under the guidance of their school teachers. These clubs meet several times a week, including during weekends and school holidays. Schools also organize big sports and cultural events that involve a lot of preparation by groups of students. Therefore, the emotional attachment to schoolmates is very strong. Rebecca Fukuzawa and Gerald LeTendre (2001: 47) found in their study of middle schoolers that the majority of the young people had no friends outside of their school, except for some who had friends at juku. More than half of them said that the main purpose for attending classes is meeting their friends. Students from the two high schools, I interviewed in February 2006 confirmed these results. The ones who come to school to meet their friends are likely to nap during classes, their teachers told me.

To put it differently, attending school is not only an obligation and the most secure way to a career, it also provides students with their most important and supporting social environment. The extensive time spent at school minimizes opportunities for developing social bonds and emotional attachment outside. This leads to strong emotional dependence on the social environment of the school. Questioning major assumptions of education and refusing to answer its demands, are possible only at great personal costs, such as by becoming hikikomori. The internet offers new opportunities for getting in contact with friends, and it is probably not surprising that people who stay in their room the whole day do communicate with the outside world through the internet. However, as students told me, they mostly correspond with their friends from school.

Becoming a Mature Adult: Notions of Time

Teachers, parents and students alike consider education through organized activities, clubs and daily reports often more important than knowledge-based instruction (LeTendre, 1996: 276-82). When their children go to kindergarten and elementary schools, mothers are required to report morning and evening routines in a notebook on a daily basis. When children are able to write, they have to fill in these reports themselves. Reports of everyday routines are even required during summer vacations. By this, the teacher can make sure that the child's nutrition is appropriate, that they have a regular schedule and a good deal of outdoor play. Teachers exercise a certain degree of control over how time is spent outside school including sleeping times. These reports make children and their mothers actively aware of approved ways in which time outside the institution should be spent. The aim is that children will know this by themselves once they are in high school and do not need teachers' supervision anymore to internalize appropriate behaviour.

In an article titled 'Strategies for summer discipline that facilitate the independence of children,' published 1987 in the popular NHK monthly Okasan benkyo shitsu (Mother's Study Room), Yoshimura Takeshi stresses how important it is for a child to become independent. Independence means here 'the aptitude to internalize certain habits of self-maintenance that are expected of students in the school environment . . . [or] the development of patterns, skills, and attitudes that enable the child to adapt to and be successful at the labors of school (and later, work)' (Allison, 1996(Allison, /2000: 109-10): 109-10). Acquiring a more regular schedule and knowing what to do at what time is part of learning to become an independent, reliable and mature adult.

The use of the word 'discipline', or 'shitsuke' in Japanese child-rearing books is very common. It is considered necessary to 'raise a human heart' (McVeigh, 2004: 106). Children are trained to empathize with others and be considerate of their feelings. Shitsuke is not necessarily imposed by punishment, but often by positive incentives and encouragement. Small children should be taught desirable behaviour by means of 'fun' routines and rewards, such as getting a new toy after cleaning the room, or packaging nutritious food in cute little lunch boxes, all activities which demand more effort from the mother (always the mother, not the father) than the child (Allison, 1996(Allison, /2000: 110-11): 110-11).

Japanese educators in and out of school consider character building or discipline to be an utterly crucial component of every type of learning. As university students are well able to understand, self-control and self-management are important characteristics of adults, and related to this is emotional coping, being mature, and being able to take responsibility for their actions. It is the teacher's job to offer guidance, by showing children correct behaviour, thoughts, ways, and social rules (McVeigh, 2004: 102-3, 106).

Nevertheless, 'schooling in Japan involves a surprising amount of suffering' (Kerr, 2001: 289). According to Thomas [START_REF] Rohlen | Building Character[END_REF], 'the fundamental logic is that, in order to grow mentally, to mature and be strong in character, one must overcome one hardship or another' (p. 62). Therefore, poring over one's books for hours, making an effort regardless of success, fighting through (ganbaru), reducing sleep and getting up early in the morning despite being tired, have a value measured beyond the exclusive consumption and reproduction of knowledge.

One of the means used to overcome inclinations of laziness and punctuality through early rising routines is radio calisthenics. Since 1928, NHK radio has broadcast a 10-minute programme every day at 6:30 am. Primary-school children have to attend every morning during their summer holidays. Thus, they actually wake up earlier than during school days [START_REF] Linter | Mina de Issho ni Ichi[END_REF]; today, the programme runs throughout the year and is especially popular with older people).

After the end of mandatory schooling in high school, such daily reports and calisthenics are the exception. High-school students are already considered able to suppress self-indulgence on their own. They are supposed to know how to get up early despite exhaustion or sleepiness and be on time for school. Thus their bed times are no longer the subject of control. On the contrary, by attending school and juku and spending many hours memorizing vast amounts of data, they learn that perseverance and suffering help them to reach their goals; in their case, the entrance to the desired university. They need only a little help to know that hardship, fighting through and overcoming their sleepiness while studying are important ways in which they can embody the work ethic and become a mature and independent person.

The word ganbaru (fighting through, giving as much as one can) offers an important hint on the ideas embodied by the work ethic, time use and the essence of diligence. Ganbaru refers to a subjective notion of time. Rather than the objective quality of an achievement, the effort one puts into this achievement plays the major role. (This is not to say that ranking of performance is not appreciated.) Since talents are distributed unequally, this understanding of diligence has a comforting aspect for people who do not achieve things as easily. There are several ways in which outside observers judge these subjective efforts. First, one can look at the amount of time spent on a certain task, especially during the night, when working means to sacrifice sleep. Second, one can judge a person's commitment by how busily and intensively one works. And third, the extent of exhaustion caused by the effort can also be an indicator of diligence.

A demand for studying into the night, echoes notions of learning we find throughout Confucian and Buddhist writing, which both emphasize text-related learning. The Do jikyo , for instance, a text book used in schools for commoners during the Edo-period (1603Edo-period ( -1867)), contains many sayings that children had to write down hundreds of times and memorize. A few lines having to do with sleep are:

• Mornings, get up early and wash your hands; • Evenings, go to bed late and wash your feet;

• Study literature eagerly during day and night; • Drilling into the thigh prevents sleep (Kurokawa, 1977: 11).

The final line refers to the Chinese politician, Su Qin, who pierced his leg in order to stay awake at night and thus double his time for studying. He became a role model for students (Richter, 2001: 133-4). Confucian and Buddhists texts regard sleep as something unrelated to physical necessities. Like sex, sleep is treated as a desire or urge which can -and must -largely be controlled by will and effort. Two rationalizations can be found. First, less time for sleep brings more time for waking activities, especially studying, and second, the practice of getting the feelings, desire or drive under control is considered an important ethical training. It is important to note that pre-modern texts do not make any relation between sleep and performance.

Studying was generally considered a task for which burning expensive oil and shortening one's sleep were justified or even promoted. Wasting oil for mere amusement was severely reprimanded. If today's students enjoy themselves in the night, they are certainly not in line with these Confucian demands. However, starting in the 1970s and supported by the government's leisure development policy, consuming and enjoying oneself has become a kind of duty in contemporary Japan. Thus, as long as work is not being neglected for it, the increasing appreciation of leisure activities is no contradiction to the notion of ganbaru. It is rather an extension of its reasoning. A student who is busy with work and play is considered sociable and becomes popular, whereas nobody is interested in meeting someone who is readily available at any time. Many researchers and foreigners have observed that Japanese employees have to appear to be busy and do things fast, whether they are actually busy or not and whether or not they do things efficiently (Levine, 1997: 169-73). A person who appears to be always busy is considered morally superior, since this is a sign of her or his good work and reliability.

As I have already stated, a clear sign of hard work is that the person is exhausted and becomes vulnerable to the 'attacks by the sleep demon', as it is called. People are aware that even the most diligent students are only human, and being human means that they need sleep. Seen from the point of view of biology and medicine, sleep is a requirement, not a vice. (Even in pre-modern times, medical texts co-existed with Buddhist and Confucian texts that had an entirely different view on sleep. They emphasized sleep as something that should be taken in harmony with nature.) It is only natural that exhausted students cannot help but fall asleep when they are sitting in class, listening to monotonous lectures. Sleeping at school is thus practically evidence of latenight studying: a very subtle way of showing off one's commitment and diligence. As long as no active contribution to the class is required, teachers and parents do not only overlook the napping, but even take it for granted (and so do students). As I will explain in the next chapter, people can live with this seeming contradiction between attitudes towards nocturnal sleep and inemuri, because they don't consider inemuri to be sleep. Socially speaking, inemuri is a different phenomenon. Moreover, it is possible to describe inemuri as something sociologically distinct from other forms of sleep.

Sociology of Inemuri

Inemuri is composed of the Chinese characters for i(ru), to be present, and nemuri, sleep (in the physiological sense). That is to say that inemuri does not imply a certain body posture, duration or particular amplitude of the brainwaves. Its main characteristic is that the sleeper is present in a situation that is meant for something other than sleep. In that way, inemuri is a sociologically distinct form of sleep and has to be differentiated not only from night-time sleep, but also from siesta or napping on a sofa.

In order to further understand inemuri, I find it helpful to borrow from Erving Goffman's (1963: 36-8) concept of 'involvement within a situation': 'Involvement refers to the capacity of an individual to give, or withhold from giving, his concerted attention to some activity at hand' (p. 43). This attention is subjective. Outside observers -people present in the same situation as well as the researcher -judge the involvement based on linguistic expression and body idioms. By 'body idioms', what is meant are the appearance and forms of expression of non-verbal communication. No one can avoid giving information to outside persons about themselves and their involvements through their clothing, hairstyle, facial expression, posture and gestures. Goffman differentiates between dominant and subordinate involvements (among others). This distinction helps us to comprehend inemuri in class and to see more clearly the relevant rules. As Goffman states, 'a dominating involvement is one whose claims upon an individual the social occasion obliges him to be ready to recognize; a subordinate involvement is one he is allowed to sustain only to the degree, and during the time, that his attention is patently not required by the involvement that dominates him' (p. 44). Thus, sitting in the classroom in uniform (or whatever dresscode), listening to the teacher, making notes and answering questions, and so on, all belong to the dominant involvement during class. Chatting with one's neighbour in class, sending him/her an SMS or email, drawing comics in a notebook or day-dreaming would be typical subordinate involvements in classes in other countries as well. Although students are not actively listening to what the teacher says, teachers are aware that nobody can pay attention constantly and they are quite willing to overlook this disengagement. Formally, one has to fulfill the duties of attending the session or lecture, but informally there are a number of ways to cope.

I suggest that in the case of Japan, inemuri during class, at a lecture, a meeting or a party, can be seen as a subordinate involvement. Inemuri is thus a polychronic form of sleep. Subordinate involvements can be found even in societies where monochronism is highly appreciated, although sleep is usually not accepted as one of them. In polychronic cultures, their existence is more widely acknowledged.

The rules for the acceptance and evaluation of inemuri are ambiguous. Rules regarding subordinate involments are hardly explicit and also subject to change.

Even for those raised within a certain culture they are sometimes difficult to obey. The power of interpretation is a question of social hierarchies. In any case, inemuri must stop as soon as the dominant involvement demands active contribution (Goffman, 1963: 43-79).

One of the main rules of involvement is that the body idioms remain the ones appropriate to the situation at hand: nobody changes into pijamas, and one should take care not to snore and not fall underneath the table. Students still exercise a certain amount of control over their body posture, and will be ready to come back to listening and even answering their teacher's question whenever necessary.

In the meantime, some older professors complain about the bad manners of 'today's young people', as not all students still make the effort to sleep furtively behind a hand. They are obvious about it and lie down with their upper bodies on the desk (Sato  Akira; Interview, 19 February 2001). Inemuri has become openly acknowledged as part of classroom teaching. The mother of one highschool student in Osaka explained in the Asahi [START_REF] Ko be Shinbun | Konbini: Chiiki Katsudo  no Kyoten Toshite Minaoso [END_REF] how she found out why her daughter brought a thick sweater to school, even in summer. Folded together and put on the table, it served her well as a pillow. Mrs Takeda from Kyoto reports on the latest trend in early November 2002 as follows: 'for about a year now, it has become common that students -already from the third or fourth class of elementary school -take small hand towels from home, fold them neatly, and then put their heads down on them to sleep'. In her days, one still hid behind a book in order to sleep. But, meanwhile, good manners dictate that one takes a towel and folds it neatly (Interview, 5 November 2002).

Notes

Numerous people have helped to shape my ideas on sleep and time. I am deeply indebted to all my Japanese informants who willingly offered their experience and insights into their daily lives and sleep habits. The students of my seminar on time in daily life in Japan at the University of Vienna discussed issues pertaining to our topic in an inspiring way. I am also obliged to Lodewijk Brunt, Sabine Frühstück and Lynn Hoffman for valuable comments on this article. Steger, 2004: 113-23, 183-98). 2. According to American medical studies, most adolescents need around nine hours of sleep each night and sleep need does not change across adolescence (from ages 10 to 17). [START_REF] Jenni | Homeostatic Sleep Regulation in Adolescents[END_REF]Jenni et al. ( : 1295) ) demonstrate that the 'build-up of homeostatic sleep pressure was slower in mature adolescents compared with prepubertal or early pubertal children'. They conclude that although older adolescents don't feel as sleepy in the evening and thus are more likely to delay their bedtime, they still do need the same amount of sleep.

1.

  For the NHK time-use surveys, people from 10 years onwards are asked to write every 15 minutes into a diary what they are doing for two consecutive days. Figures do not express physiological sleep. Compared to western Europe and northern America, sleep times in Japan are short (for more detail on the methodology and results on sleep in NHK and other time-use surveys, see

TABLE 1 Night-time sleep patterns of high-school students

 1

					waking	sleep	sleep
			bedtime	time	length	length
				(h:m)	(h:m)	(h:m)	(h:m)
			weekdays	weekdays	weekdays	weekends
		(n)	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD
	Primary school
	First year	(14) 21:12 57 6:43	26	9:31	57 10:43 60
	Second	(21) 21:05 45 6:49	22	9:32	61 10:34 41
	Third	(25) 21:16 24 6:46	25	9:30	23 10:29 74
	Fourth	(28) 21:33 50 6:46	20	9:14	39 10:19 136
	Fifth	(41) 21:39 40 6:48	17	9:10	45 10:20 93
	Sixth	(41) 22:06 38 6:49	16	8:43	38 10:12 102
	Junior high school
	Seventh	(64) 22:44 49 6:51	26	8:07	50	9:43 113
	Eighth	(62) 23:06 52 6:55	18	7:49	55	8:47 117
	Ninth	(34) 23:42 76 7:00	28	7:20	66	9:11 120
	High school
	Tenth	(73) 23:41 52 6:48	31	7:07	57	9:30 169
	Eleventh	(46) 23:56 55 6:41	37	6:46	64	9:13 186
	Twelfth	(63) 24:07 79 6:52	29	6:46	76	9:17 142
	Source: Shinkoda et al. (2000: 288)
	Note: Means (M) and Standard Deviations (SD) of sleep variables according to grade of students in
	Shimonoseki, Kyushu. In the survey, parents (550 day-time workers from 19 randomly selected
	companies) were asked to let their offsprings aged 6 to 18 fill out two surveys, 512 students (53%)
	responded.

Time & Society copyright © 2006 SAGE (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi) VOL. 15 No. 2/3 (2006), pp. 197-214 0961-463X DOI: 10.1177/0961463X06066952 www.sagepublications.com

TIME & SOCIETY 15(2/3)

STEGER: JAPANESE TIME AND DILIGENCE


Sachiko Kaneko

Japan's 'Socially Withdrawn Youths' and Time Constraints in Japanese Society Management and conceptualization of time in a support group for 'hikikomori'

Keywords: ethnography, Japanese youth, narrative, social withdrawal, time constraints

This article discusses how time is conceptualized among hikikomori, or Japan's so called 'socially withdrawn youth', through the narratives of hikikomori keikensha (those who experienced hikikomori) and also examines time and space management in hikikomori support context based on ethnographic data. Hikikomori is an act of retreat from time and space constraints in society. Hikikomori support groups provide a place for them to be without feeling such time constraints, but this is not considered sufficient to get hikikomori back into society. Hikikomori, which challenges the usual coordinates of time and space, may be understood as a kind of reaction to time pressures and role performances in Japanese society.

Introduction

Hikikomori, which literally means 'withdrawal', generally refers to those who stay at home for a long period without taking part in any social activities, such as attending school, working, or socializing with friends. It refers to the condition of withdrawal as well as to the person/people experiencing the condition (Shiokura, 2000: 205). The common feature of hikikomori is said to be in the lack of interaction with other people and problems with communicating with others (Shiokura, 2002: 23). Hikikomori has been considered a social problem in Japan since the late 1990s. The leading figure in the hikikomori debates, psychiatrist Saito  Tamaki (1998), coined the term hikikomori. Hikikomori came to be known to the public as a social problem after mass media coverage of three crimes allegedly committed by hikikomori in early 2000 (Saito , 2002: 37). [START_REF] Saito | Hikikomori Mondai wo Ho chi Suruto, Kondo wa "Hikikomori Otona" ga Gekizo  suru' (If the Hikikomori Issue Is Left Unattended, There Will Be a Rapid Increase of 'Hikikomori Adults[END_REF]Saito  ( : 680, 2002: 28) : 28) estimates that there are one million hikikomori in Japan, which accounts for roughly one per cent of the Japanese population. This has led to the emergence of what is sometimes called the 'hikikomori industry', which involves over 100 support groups dealing with the afflicted youth and their struggling families (see [START_REF] Moriguchi | Hikikomori Shien Gaido (Hikikomori Support Guide)[END_REF].

It has been generally believed that hikikomori is unique to contemporary Japanese society (Saito , 2000: 124-33), due to its particular characteristics. These characteristics include issues related to late capitalism, such as educational background society (Kondo , 1999b: 84-5;Aizawa, 2001: 113-4), extended youthhood due to increasing years spent in education (Kondo , 1999a: 51), technological advances in relation to individualization (Hashizume, 2001: 8;Kuramoto, 2001: 83), and nuclearization of the Japanese family (see Lock, 1988: 53). They also include what are seen as uniquely Japanese social values, such as the emphasis on dependency/indulgence (amae) (Saito , 2001: 124-33) and collectivism (Machizawa, 2003: 38-9) in Japanese social relationships. The cultural emphasis on dependency in the Japanese family, in addition to the affluence of the Japanese families, partly account for the tendency for youth to live with their parents even after finishing schooling.

The Japanese government (Ko sei ro do sho , 2003) defines hikikomori as follows:

1. He/she continues not to take part in society and is withdrawn at home for six months and over; 2. It is distinguished from a mental disease, such as schizophrenia.

Note that not taking part in society includes 'not attending school' and 'not working'.

Here, the length of the hikikomori period is defined as six months and over, but among those labelled or self-labelled as hikikomori, the length of the hikikomori period ranges from a few months up to decades (Naruse, 2003: 147). As the above definition shows, hikikomori is not a label for a mental disease, but is simply a term for a condition (Saito , 2002: 68). Hikikomori occurs among teenagers up to the age of 35 (Ko sei ro do sho , 2003), but when it occurs among those under the age of 18, it is usually categorized as 'futo ko ' (school refusal), as over 95 per cent of Japanese children attend schooling until the age of 18 [START_REF] Monbu Kagakusho | Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports[END_REF]. Hikikomori has been said to be a 'middle-class phenomenon' and since most Japanese see themselves as middle class, the rhetoric used in mass media coverage is often that hikikomori may be a potential problem for most families across Japan (Shiokura, 2000: 239-40). During the hikikomori period, until the hikikomori finds ways to support himself/herself economically, the parents usually provide housing and food for him/her (see Saito , 2002: 53). There is often stigma attached to not only hikikomori but also to their families, which is considered as one of the causes for prolonged hikikomori period (Saito , 1998: 101). The governmental survey (Ko sei ro do sho , 2003) shows that it is usually the parents who seek help with their children. Being at a loss about how they can encourage their children to venture out into society, they visit psychiatrists, psychologists, local health centres, or self-help groups for families of hikikomori. Based on findings from field research in hikikomori support groups and literature on hikikomori and on time conceptions, this article discusses how time is managed and conceptualized in the context of supporting youths who have experienced withdrawal from society, or hikikomori keikensha.

I conducted field research from July 2003 to July 2004 with a number of support groups for hikikomori keikensha around the Tokyo area. The field research mainly involved participant observation at the support groups, including Group A, which will be discussed in detail in this article, though I also conducted structured interviews with those engaged in the 'hikikomori industry'. This study also builds on literature on hikikomori, including popular and academic literature, online resources, and mass media reports.

I will first outline the perception of time revealed in narratives of hikikomori keikensha. Although the problem of hikikomori is generally associated with communication with others, there are numerous hikikomori keikensha who are willing to communicate their own experiences. Narratives written by hikikomori keikensha about their pasts appear on many websites or in books on hikikomori (see [START_REF] Shiokura | Hikikomori[END_REF][START_REF] Ueyama | Hikikomori datta Boku kara (From Me, Who Was Hikikomori[END_REF][START_REF] Moroboshi | Hikikomori Sekirarara (Naked Hikikomori)[END_REF][START_REF] Nhk | NHK Hikikomori Jo ho [END_REF]. Many hikikomori keikensha are willing to talk about their past experiences at hikikomori-related meetings, to audiences of mostly hikikomori supporters, parents of hikikomori, and fellow hikikomori keikensha, or to send their articles to websites on hikikomori or magazines. 1 Furthermore, some hikikomori keikensha are happy to communicate their experiences through the mass media, such as on TV programmes or to be included in newspaper articles. The narratives in such works or presentations generally follow a set pattern, going through the life course in chronological order. By being hikikomori, they not only withdraw from the social space but also free themselves from the pressure of punctuality and of speed and efficiency. In their recovery process from hikikomori and becoming an active member of society, it is necessary for them to find their place in the social sphere and to learn to cope with the gap between their pace and the socially expected punctuality.

Next, the focus is shifted to the hikikomori support groups. These provide spaces with few restrictions of time by comparison with 'real' society, so that hikikomori keikensha are not pressured. At the same time, during the process of recovery, hikikomori keikensha may also be expected to internalize punctuality and socially defined values of time through various programmes. The latter part of this article will discuss the arrangements of time in hikikomori support groups and the dilemmas involved in these arrangements.

Studies by Nishimoto (1997: 237-59) and Shimada (1995: 251-60) demonstrate how industrialization in Japan from the late 19th century has led to emphasis being put on unified and standardized notions of time consciousness, efficiency and punctuality in Japan. Nishimoto (1999: 119-40), in another study, further notes Japan's accelerating pace (see also Illich, 1977: 50;Nowotny, 1994: 9) in the post-war period, and how the just-in-time system implemented by Toyota, a globally successful automobile company, which puts workers in all positions to a high level of time coordination and labour intensification by structured under-staffing and overtime work, has put the whole Japanese nation under pressure of time. Hikikomori, in this respect, brings attention to youths who cannot accommodate such pressures of time and efficiency in contemporary Japanese society. Through investigation of the assumptions behind the management of time in support groups for the marginalized hikikomori, this study aims to highlight how values of time are socially defined in mainstream contemporary Japan.

Patterns of Narratives of Hikikomori Keikensha

A pattern can be found in many narratives of hikikomori keikensha. The narrative may be divided into three parts: the period before becoming hikikomori, the period during which they were hikikomori, and the recovery period (see [START_REF] Shiokura | Hikikomori[END_REF][START_REF] Tanabe | Watashi ga Hikikomotta Riyu  (The Reasons Why I Became Hikikomori)[END_REF][START_REF] Ueyama | Hikikomori datta Boku kara (From Me, Who Was Hikikomori[END_REF][START_REF] Moroboshi | Hikikomori Sekirarara (Naked Hikikomori)[END_REF][START_REF] Nhk | NHK Hikikomori Jo ho [END_REF] for examples of narratives; see Kawakita, 2005: 261-8 for a sociological study using the pattern). Here, I will illustrate the pattern by using the case of Mr Suzuki (pseudonym). Mr Suzuki is a hikikomori keikensha who has talked about his experiences on many occasions and was in his mid-30s at the time of my interview with him in January 2005.

The period before becoming hikikomori

From when I was in the third or fourth year of primary school, I have had struggles in life (ikizurasa) and could not trust anybody, not even my parents. My parents always fought against each other, and I could not accept my parents as they were. My mother always complained to me about my father, who had a short temper. Often, after dinner, I would listen to my mother's complaints, and when doing so, I saw myself as playing the 'supporter' role for my mother. But one day, when I suggested to my mother that she should divorce my father, I was completely betrayed by her reply: 'That could be the best solution, but in that case, I will leave you with your father. I won't take you with me -I will take your sister'. I had thought that my mother and my sister never got along well, so I could not believe that she would leave me behind. My parents never got divorced, so this did not become reality. But still, what my mother said became a traumatic experience, and flashed back into my mind time and again in later life. I thought I had always hated my father, but it was after my father passed away that I became hikikomori. This happened when I was in my late twenties. I had never wanted to become an adult, because I could not respect my parents. This was why I went to university, so that I could delay becoming an adult for as long as possible. After I finished university, I had no choice but to start a full-time job. This was at a time when there were no such things as furı ta . 2 When I started working, I felt as if my life was over, and that I was going to hell. I escaped from such feelings by intoxicating myself with alcohol. As I thought that the environment was to blame, rather than myself, I kept on changing jobs, in a continuous, but unsuccessful search for my place of belonging (ibasho). After continuing this for a few years, I could no longer find anything to blame, and after my 'virtual enemy' -my father -died, I completely lost vitality and became hikikomori.

The experiences of hikikomori keikensha vary, and the time in which the person started shutting himself/herself from society also depends on the individual cases. Thus, the period before becoming hikikomori ranges from childhood up to their 30s. When hikikomori keikensha talk about the period before becoming hikikomori, they usually talk about the experiences as children/youths, in relation to the family background and kindergarten/school (see [START_REF] Tanabe | Watashi ga Hikikomotta Riyu  (The Reasons Why I Became Hikikomori)[END_REF][START_REF] Moroboshi | Hikikomori Sekirarara (Naked Hikikomori)[END_REF]. This part of the narrative usually provides reasoning and explanations for becoming hikikomori. In the case of Mr Suzuki, he talks about his family background and how a traumatic experience in childhood resulted in struggles in his later life. Some hikikomori keikensha talk of the pressure for conformity in the educational system and society as a whole, which encourages efficiency. This is symbolized in a comment which appeared in a newspaper article: a youth, with 10 years of hikikomori experience, explained, 'I felt as if I was a car driving down a highway at maximum speed. We were expected to "speed up" all the time, both at school and at work' (Hokkaido  Shinbun, 7 August 2005).

Another aspect of the narratives of hikikomori of the period before becoming hikikomori related to conceptions of time is regarding how they make references to past incidents in their life. When hikikomori keikensha talk of certain incidents, they refer to which year of education they were in, rather than by referring to the year of age (see [START_REF] Tanabe | Watashi ga Hikikomotta Riyu  (The Reasons Why I Became Hikikomori)[END_REF]. For example, one hikikomori keikensha commented, 'I started to be bullied soon after I entered junior high school' (Tanabe, 2000: 71). In Mr Suzuki's case, he became hikikomori after finishing higher education, but studies (Saito , 1998: 39;Ko sei ro do sho , 2003) show that most hikikomori start withdrawal while in education, which also partly accounts for why there are frequent references made to the year of education in hikikomori keikensha's narratives. Such references to time imply how much the progressive stages in education mean to the person's understanding of his/her life cycle.

The period in which they were hikikomori Mr Suzuki's story continues:

When I was hikikomori, I had plenty of time to think about why I became hikikomori. First I spent almost 24 hours in bed, and only went out of bed when I had meals. I did not even take a bath. When I was in the worst condition, I went into the kitchen after my mother went to bed, and had the meal by myself. I lost touch with most friends, though there were a few friends who regularly tried to reach me. The more I failed to respond to them, the more I lost touch with the outside world. But I needed to continue this lifestyle for a while to recharge myself with the energy I had lost through almost 30 years of life. After a year of hikikomori, and recharging myself, I could go out and start working. But after a year, my energy ran out, and I became a hikikomori again. Life during the second hikikomori period was much the same as the first, and I gradually regained my energy.

Although the term hikikomori is literally a condition in which the person shuts himself/herself in his/her house and never goes out, the experiences of those who see themselves hikikomori keikensha vary in great degree, ranging from total withdrawal in his/her room to going out almost every day though not having friends or jobs. The length of withdrawal also ranges from a few months with intervals to decades. More importantly, as Kuramoto (2001: 61-2) suggests, it is usually difficult to single out one event which triggered the withdrawal. Mr Suzuki avoids clarifying one event which led to his withdrawal. Saito  (1998: 92-108) also points out that the longer the withdrawal period becomes, the more challenging it becomes for the person to venture out of it.

Besides, when hikikomori keikensha talk about their experiences during the period in which they were hikikomori, the period as a whole is seen as 'a single phase in life' (Yoshimoto, 2002: 21). Many talk about sleeping all day, not taking baths/showers, playing computer games, reading books, including manga (comics), to escape from the social space, and from realities and anxieties of social life (see Tanabe, 2000: 116, 204-5). They are not constrained by rules of punctuality, as they have no appointments with others, nor are they expected to be in social spheres. One of the features of the hikikomori experiences is said to be a reversed day-and-night shift, where the person stays up all night when society is 'in rest' and falls asleep as the morning starts (see [START_REF] Nhk | NHK Hikikomori Jo ho [END_REF]. Saito  (1998: 46) suggests that the reversed day-and-night shift occurred among 81 per cent of the hikikomori cases according to his survey done in 1989, and surveys done by Ko sei ro do sho  (2003) and Sakai et al. (2004: 168-79) also reveal the prevalence of reversed day-and-night shift behaviour among hikikomori. As in the case of Mr Suzuki, some talk of having meals at different times of the day from their family, on their own, both to avoid contact with other socially active members of the family and to free themselves from the time constraints of having meals at a fixed time of day (see Tanabe, 2000: 116).

Hikikomori, by definition, refers to retreat from social responsibilities. Thus, as Kawakita (2005: 265-6) suggests from his analysis of life stories of hikikomori keikensha, during the hikikomori period, the person is not expected to fulfil social roles. Such withdrawal from society, in short, is retreat from the social time constraints, and because of the lack of any social events which mark different stages during the period, the withdrawal period as a whole is seen as a single phase in life.

The recovery period

Mr Suzuki continues his narrative:

With the start of a new year, and after finding places for counselling and self-help groups on the internet, I was able to get out of the second hikikomori period. It was in January that I heard of a psychiatrist at a local health centre, and started seeing the psychiatrist who I now see regularly for counselling. I learned about Group A [see the following section] from the psychiatrist -this group happens to be close to where I live. Since then, I have been going to Group A on a regular basis.

The recovery process from hikikomori is usually painstaking, and becomes a huge challenge for the hikikomori. Some find their place in hikikomori support groups and make the participation in such groups a step towards 'real' society, while others find their way out without any contact with the 'hikikomori industry'. Ueyama Kazuki (2001: 89-95), for example, writes in his life story, that he took a step forward towards recovery through getting to know a person to talk to on the internet. For some, occasional visits of once or twice a month to psychiatrists or counsellors, or attending self-help groups, become the first steps of contact with 'real society'. What triggers such visits varies, but as in the case of Mr Suzuki, the time of year plays a part for some hikikomori. At the start of a new year, either in January or in April, when the new fiscal and academic year starts in Japan, some feel that they have to make their move.

Most self-help groups hold meetings once or twice a month, though there may be informal events at other times (see [START_REF] Moriguchi | Hikikomori Shien Gaido (Hikikomori Support Guide)[END_REF]. It is apparent from many narratives of hikikomori keikensha that such occasional contacts with society require a huge amount of energy, and that they get so exhausted that they would often spend the next few days, or even weeks, just taking a rest at home. It is common for hikikomori keikensha to fail to appear for appointments, as they do not have enough energy to venture out of the house on the day. In their process of recovery, hikikomori keikensha often increase their frequency of contact with society, by making friends at support groups or finding other places to go out, but many have ups and downs: it is common for members to stop going to support groups for a few months without notice and coming back again.

Having contact with society in the form of meeting people is not considered full recovery by both the hikikomori keikensha and those engaged in hikikomori support. For the relatively younger group of hikikomori, who are teenagers or in their early 20s, getting back into education becomes a more practical goal, whereas for the older group, gaining employment and becoming economically independent becomes the goal. 'Social participation', for them, is full reintegration into society, which is fulfilling their social roles in society as students or as full-time workers, often referred to as 'shakaijin', which literally means 'social person', whichever is appropriate for their age group. Gaining employment particularly becomes a struggle for most hikikomori, who lack previous social experiences in a society where age limit applies for new recruits.

Overall, the recovery process for hikikomori keikensha, which involves increasing contact with society as well as achieving social participation, is not without difficulties.

Management and Conceptualization of Time in Hikikomori Support Context

Because of the difficulties involved in the recovery process of hikikomori keikensha, there is demand and room for the burgeoning support groups to play their part in assisting with the process. The hikikomori support groups provide spaces with few restrictions of time and space compared to 'real' society so that hikikomori keikensha are not pressured, as in the case of Group A.

Group A is a hikikomori support group located in Tokyo. I conducted participant observation about three to five days a week, and up to seven days a week on some occasions, from July 2003 to July 2004. The information provided here is from this period, and does not reflect changes that have taken place in Group A afterwards.

Mr Takeda (pseudonym), the leader of Group A, is an easygoing person in his late 50s. He used to be an editor for an educational magazine, and from this involvement with educational issues, he set up this group for support of hikikomori. This group moved to the present location in eastern Tokyo in 2001, when a preparatory school network for university entrance qualifications offered Mr Takeda to let Group A use the site free of charge, which was no longer going to be in use because of the closure of the school.

The building where Group A meets has four floors and has a few rooms. The two top floors are used as the storage space of the school network, so are not available to members of the group. On the ground floor is the entrance area, where members change from their shoes into slippers. There is a large room, which functions as the main room for members to socialize. In the room is a large table for members to sit around and chat, as well as a sofa, which is sometimes used by members who want to take a nap, a small tea room, and personal computers. Further down from the large room are two smaller rooms: one is Mr Takeda's office, and the other is a small room, which is often used as a place where members can chat in quiet, small groups, or to take a nap. On the first floor are two large rooms and a small room. One large room is a PC room, where members who do not necessarily want to socialize with others may sit in front of the PCs to maintain solitude and tranquillity. All the computers on the ground floor and the first floor have internet connection, through which members are able to connect to larger society without face-to-face interaction. The other large room is often used for events with many participants, but it also has a TV, video, and TV game equipment, which members are free to make use of. The small room is used as a counselling room, though when there are no counselling sessions, members are free to make use of it. The existence of a few rooms and flexibility of the use of the rooms allows members to be alone when they want to, or avoid being in the same room as those who they cannot get along with, and members are free to move around. Some members choose to stay in rooms where events are not held, for example, to escape from the stress of being in a group of people. Even members sharing one room/space do not necessarily have to join in the same conversations: members may read, take a nap, sit quietly, or listen to music and so on, when others are chatting. The space at the group, therefore, is not strictly defined, as its functions depend on how members choose to make use of it. Such flexible space arrangements are possible, as the members are not expected to perform roles in designated spaces, as in the case of most institutions in society, in particular, in schools and workplaces.

As Mr Takeda wants to make the group as accessible as possible, membership is basically free of charge. 3 Mr Takeda's income is therefore not based on membership fees, but on his publications on hikikomori and related issues. From his personal income and some donations, he pays the maintenance costs of Group A. Other than Mr Takeda, there are roughly six counsellors who come on different days of the week to hold counselling sessions with hikikomori keikensha members or their families. The counselling sessions are free for the first session with any of the counsellors, but from the second session, a fee of 1000 yen (7 euros) is charged per session. For sessions with families, a fee of 3000 yen (20 euros) is charged for every session. While some counsellors concentrate on having sessions, others rarely have sessions with members or families and enjoy chatting and taking part in events with members on a voluntary basis.

Membership to Group A is fluid, as Mr Takeda has the policy of welcoming anyone who call themselves hikikomori. Anybody can show up at Group A, though on his/her first visit, he/she signs up as a member with a membership application form. Most members find out about Group A through media reports and books or at local health centres, and decide to come to the group by themselves. Mr Takeda suggests that it takes time for hikikomori to actually pay a visit, after contemplating it for the first time. It is not rare to find new members who come to the group for the first time, one or two years after they made their initial enquiries on the telephone, saying that they called about the group 'recently'. The average age of the members is late 20s, and there are more male members than female members. Some members find it difficult to make friends, while others may succeed in making friends, but find Group A so comfortable that they have not been able to step out of the Group A community and gain confidence to interact with non-hikikomori people outside and take steps to find jobs. There exists no system to 'push out' the members of the group into 'real society', and long-time members would have been coming to the group for three to five years.

Group A is open from 10:00 to around 22:00 every day, though officially, it is closed at 18:00. There are usually very few people in the morning, due to the late hours hikikomori tend to keep, and most come in the afternoon, while others may pop in during the evening. Every day, roughly 10 to 20 members come to the group, and the number decreases on the day after an event at the group, as most members get exhausted after an event. Often, the members are not conscious about the day of the week, as one member said to me, Mr Takeda, and others in one conversation, 'Holidays do not mean much to us. We hikikomori are like having 1000 consecutive holidays'. Nevertheless, there are differences of the average number of members depending on the day of the week. Originally, members used to meet only on Wednesdays, so it is common to find a large number of members on Wednesdays. The most popular counsellor at the group also comes every Wednesday, and her presence also partly accounts for the larger number of participants. The following day, on Thursdays, not many members apparently have the energy or find reasons for coming to the group. Monday is thought to be a day when members take a 'day off': it is easier for members to go out into town and enjoy themselves during daytime on weekends, rather than on weekdays when people their age are normally off to work, as they do not have to care about how passers-by may see them. In other words, during the weekends, it is not difficult for members to find places to go to other than the group. Thus, although the members are not particularly aware of the day of the week, in reality, there are differences in the turn-up rate at the group.

The time of year also affects the attendance and atmosphere of the group. In January, at the start of a new calendar year, and in April, at the start of the new academic year, there are fewer members, and as one member said, many members are 'in bad condition' (cho shi ga warui) around January. With more members in worse condition than usual, the group as a whole loses its vitality around the time. This is in sharp contrast to the lively atmosphere found in November or December, when many events, including a Halloween Party, walking excursions, and the Christmas Party -which all attract many participantsare held. As seen in the case of Mr Suzuki's recovery process from hikikomori, the start of a year is a time for people to feel that they have to move on. This, however, could also become a pressure on hikikomori and make them feel depressed that they cannot move on. At the New Year in January, in particular, there is another pressure put on hikikomori from their relatives, with Japanese spending time with their extended family. One hikikomori keikensha said to me that he prefers to hide himself from such occasions, as he himself knows too well that he has nothing to say about what he has done during the past year and that his current state is a shame for his family.

Related to this, the weather is seen as influencing the attendance rate of members. There tend to be less members on rainy days, and often, the members as well as the staff members say, 'There are few members today because of the rain' on such days. One explanation for this phenomenon may be that, as Tanaka-Matsumi and Marsella (1976: 379-96) demonstrate, the Japanese tend to associate feelings of depression with rain, clouds, and the dark.

The nature of Group A is, as Mr Takeda calls it, 'freespace', where members are encouraged to drop by at anytime they like, and spend time as they like at their own pace. It is also a self-help group, as much of what is done is left to members themselves, and provides a place to stay for members who do not feel comfortable at home or in 'real society'.

Mr Takeda normally does not organize events at the group, except for seasonal events such as cherry blossom viewing (hanami) in early spring. Some members and counsellors organize events -camping, tennis, films, 'hikikomorirelated forums', going out for drinks, fireworks festival, Halloween party, Christmas party and so on -for members to join in. These events allow members to experience things that they may have missed out on during their hikikomori years, but which most youths would be likely to experience. Whereas full-time workers tend to have such events on Friday evenings or on weekends when they do not have to work, the day of the week does not matter for the hikikomori members. They can turn up whatever the day of the week, and most events at this group are held on weekdays.

Mr Takeda distributes a monthly calendar which summarizes the events and meetings held at Group A. Ambiguity is maintained here, as the time is usually not specified in the calendar. Punctuality is required for meeting up for outing events, but members will not be punished for failing to appear at the meeting point even if they had said that they would join in the event. Once, a member did not appear for an outing event, but other members were not frustrated with this, and said sympathetically, 'maybe he does not feel well today'. In addition, I found that many events are organized after the calendar is distributed, sometimes spontaneously planned on the day, and it is common to find meetings or events being cancelled because no one came. There used to be a number of meetings held in the group, such as 'thirties group' for those in their 30s, but most of them had stopped because attendance of members was very unstable.

In terms of job opportunities, it is up to the member if he/she uses the opportunity to gain job experience and some income. Years ago, Mr Takeda tied up with locals, got members to register for job experience, and tried to send members to a few local companies, shops, and farmers. But this ended in failure, with very few members actually trying out the job. Recently, Mr Takeda has started to think that job opportunities should be provided within the group itself. There is a variety of job opportunities offered currently at the group. First, there is delivery of local community papers, which is organized three times a month. There are also duties at the tea room, which mainly serves members themselves, and at the bookshop, which is open to the public. Members also help out at parents' meetings, which are held once a month. Some active members may work as 'visiting supporters', and pay visits to families with hikikomori and help other hikikomori get connected to society. Members with IT skills make documents and write on websites using PC software for Mr Takeda. Just a few times a year, over 20 members gather to pack envelopes and send off brochures. The nature of the employment support at the group is to give members the jobs and let them do them at their own pace, without pressure of time/speed, and not as part of a training programme. Mr Takeda is of the idea that it is generally mentally too challenging for members to work in 'real society' -seeing so many of the members quitting their part-time job soon after starting one -and he wants to broaden the opportunities for members to work within the stress-free environment here in the group. Work involving more than a few members usually starts at 10:00 am and finishes around 5:00 or 6:00 pm but members are not forced to come at 10:00 and can leave when they want to. After finishing work, most of which is paid for by the hour, members are expected to submit the time that they started and finished on the day, with the exception of delivery and IT-related work which is paid for the output. Mr Takeda does not particularly scold the members who turn up later than they had stated. Even if the members are not doing the tasks efficiently, he does not ask them to do the tasks quickly, and he does not point the finger over every mistake the members may make. Very few members manage to earn more than 10,000 yen (70 euros) per month, and the pay is far from enough to achieve economic independence.

Discussion of Issues in Group A

As examined in the previous section, Group A arranges its time in a flexible manner, enabling members to do as they like without being anxious about time and space constraints in 'real' society. Within the 'hikikomori industry' as a whole, some groups have similarly flexible time arrangements. For example, Ogino (2004: 120-33) discusses the flexible time and space arrangements and other features of a dormitory-style hikikomori support group, which he calls FSW, and analyses the assumptions behind such arrangements by using the concept of 'managing categorization', which he describes as a tendency to be vague about categories that indicate their social status accompanied by certain roles (Ogino, 2004: 120). Ogino finds that the spaces in the group are not framed, and that there are only loose schedules in FSW, and that these features show that there are few role categories at FSW (pp. 126-7). Mr Takeda of Group A thinks that the pressures of punctuality and efficiency in Japanese society are excessive, and that hikikomori keikensha need to be protected from such pressures by finding shelter in groups such as his.

On the other hand, there are other groups which have stricter time arrangements, as in the case of Youth Support Centre (YSC) in Tokyo. The first goal for new members of YSC is to 'acquire the basics of everyday life', which includes doing certain things at certain time of day (NHK, 2003-5). After working in a factory within the site from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm and getting used to regular modes of life, members at YSC experience working for another factory, then at other workplaces (NHK, 2003-5). It is considered at such organizations with stricter time arrangements that, in the process of recovery, hikikomori keikensha are expected to internalize punctuality and socially defined values of time, in which people are expected to work from morning to late afternoon, so that they may find employment and become a socially active member. There are other groups which focus on employment support, and such groups may offer training programmes for members to gain practice in business manners and gain work experiences under strict rules. Group B (see Naruse, 2003: 200), for example, is an organization whose primary goal is to put hikikomori members back into education or employment, depending on the age. In contrast to Group A, where there is little effort to push members out into 'real society', Group B states that the members are to 'graduate from' the group in two years (Yomiuri Shinbun, 20 February 2003), and should not continue to hold membership beyond the two years. The leader of Group B, Naruse (2003: 186-90), writes that one of the hurdles which hikikomori keikensha have to overcome is punctuality. She suggests that they should learn not to be late for appointments, and that in fact, some members need some training to acquire punctuality (p. 190).

In sum, there is a variety of ways of time management at hikikomori support groups. The hikikomori industry as a whole has not agreed to what extent it should allow hikikomori keikensha to free themselves from time constraints in 'real society' and how much it should help them to internalise socially expected conceptions of time and performance of roles.

Conclusion

This article has discussed how time is conceptualized among hikikomori through the narratives of hikikomori keikensha and also examined time and space management in the hikikomori support context based on ethnographic data. Hikikomori is an act of retreat from time and space constraints in society, and once a person becomes hikikomori, it is difficult for them to adjust themselves to the pressures of time and fulfilling roles. Hikikomori support groups like Group A provide a place for members to be without feeling such time constraints, but there are also groups which help hikikomori learn to cope with time constraints so that they may eventually become active members of society.

In this sense, hikikomori symbolizes how members of ('real') Japanese society live under pressures of time and role performance in the social sphere. As mentioned earlier, Japan is known to have adopted the western time system, which led to production of a unified time consciousness, in its industrialization processes in the late 19th century, moving on radically from the ideas of time following the rhythms of nature (see Shimada, 1995: 251-60;Nishimoto, 1997: 237-59). Hikikomori, in this respect, brings attention to youths who cannot accommodate such pressure of time and efficiency in contemporary Japanese society. Furthermore, as Mr Suzuki's narrative reveals, hikikomori may also be seen as an act of rejection of maturity, as sufferers cannot cope with the social expectations as mature adults. Hikikomori may therefore be considered a reaction to temporal pressures in relation to both everyday life and biographical time. It may be said that the existence of hikikomori threatens the Japanese temporal framework -based on punctuality, deep refusal of wasting time, accelerated rhythms and so on -or more broadly, the mainstream social norms in Japanese society. Since the investigations in this article are limited to the 'hikikomori industry', examinations of how hikikomori keikensha experience and cope with the pressures of time in 'real-society' settings, at schools or at workplaces, will be beneficial for further research.

Notes

The doctoral research project on which this article is based was supported by the Swire Centenary and Cathay Pacific Scholarship. I would like to express my gratitude to Dr Brigitte Steger for organizing this project and for giving me helpful and insightful comments. Japanese names are written in the order used in East Asia, namely, the surname first followed by the given name.

1. NHK 2005) had a website as part of their hikikomori support campaign from spring 2002 until spring 2005, which was an attempt to integrate internet contents with TV programmes. On the website were BBS boards for hikikomori/hikikomori keikensha to write about themselves, their expectations, their struggles, as well as web clinics and reports of hikikomori support organizations across Japan. Examples of hikikomori-related magazines are IRIS, edited by hikikomori keikensha members of Tokyo Shu re, an organization which holds meetings for hikikomori keikensha; and HikiCom'i, a magazine which mainly encourages correspondence among hikikomori readers. 2. 'Furı ta ' is a Japanese expression for people between the age of 15 and 34 who lack full-time employment or are unemployed, excluding housewives and students. They may also be described as underemployed or freelance workers. The word 'furı ta ' was first used around 1987 or 1988 and is based on an amalgamation of the English word free and either the German word, arbeiter (worker), or the English word 'time'. It is said that the use was coined by the Japanese part-time job magazine From A. [START_REF] Kosugi | Furı ta  toiu Ikikata (Life as a Furı ta )[END_REF] 1-3). 3. From February 2004, Mr Takeda started to charge 500 yen per month, regardless of how many times the member pays a visit, so as to have a better grasp of membership and to get members to buy insurance in case there are injuries or accidents at the group. But Mr Takeda's easygoing-ness has allowed most members to get away with paying the 500 yen monthly fees.

Time & Society copyright © 2006 SAGE (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi) VOL. 15 No. 2/3 (2006), pp. 233-249 0961-463X DOI: 10.1177/0961463X06067034 www.sagepublications.com

TIME & SOCIETY 15(2/3)