Neighborhood Tokyo

Filmmaker: Hajima Skela

Anthropologist: Theodore C. Bestor

The film follows the American anthropologist Teddy Bestor as he moves around the neighborhood in Tokyo that he calls Miyamoto-cho. (To preserve their privacy, Bestor has used pseudonyms for both the neighborhood and the individual people). Bestor and his wife lived and did research in the neighborhood for two year (1979-1981), and he has often returned.

Even thought the neighborhood is in the middle of Tokyo, it has something of the structure of a village but without the antiquity of rural villages. It has its own clear boundaries. It has various neighborhood organizations. It has a Shinto shrine, which people use especially for weddings, as well as a Buddhist temple, which people use especially for funerals. The people of the neighborhood are much concerned about tradition, but not in the sense of any actually ancient traditions of the neighborhood itself. Rather, they are engaged in what Bastor calls traditionalism, a conscious manipulation and creation of tradition. (Heider, 1997:42)

Setup questions:

1. In how many different ways does Bestor become a participant observer in the life of the neighborhood?

2. Does the daughter of the bookstore owner surprise you at all?

3. How did Mr. Ando come to own the kimono factory?

4. Is Bestor really doing fieldwork, or is he just wandering around?

5. In his book, Bestor said that he was looking for a totally ordinary middle-class Tokyo neighborhood. Do you think he found it?

6. In addition to speaking Japanese, how does Bestor communicate through his bodily movements? When Bestor and Mrs. Ando bow to each other, how do they adjust their bows?

7. What differences can you spot between the Shinto shrine and the Buddhist temple?

8. Bestor talks of the old-fashioned quality of human relations. Do you see evidence of this in the film?

9. List the similarities and difference between fieldwork among the Yanomamo and fieldwork in h Miyamoto-cho. Which would you prefer to do and why?