San'Ya Blues
Subtitle: Laboring Life in Contemporary Tokyo
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: January 1997
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 262
ISBN-13: 9780801432477
Subjects: Leisure; Work & labour; Working class; Social Stratification; Sociology Of Work And Leisure; Sociology; Tokyo; History: World; Social conditions; Asia - Japan; Minority Studies - General; Day laborers; Japan; San'ya (Tokyo, Japan)
First sentence: San'ya is the largest of several Tokyo yoseba, or gathering places for casual laborers who get work off the street.
Description: Over the years, Edward Fowler, an American academic, became a familiar presence in San'ya, a run-down neighborhood in northeastern Tokyo. Working as a day laborer himself, Fowler kept a diary of his experiences. The resulting oral histories, juxtaposed with Fowler's narrative and diary entries, bring to life a community on the margins of contemporary Japan.