Cafe Culture and its Effects

Since 1876, coffee has been enjoyed in Japan. However, it tended to be enjoyed in small family owned restaurants known as kissaten[i]rather than the more Western cafes most would think. For my final project, I decided to look at the history and influence of cafes on the greater Japanese culture.  In this essay, I look at the images of art, photography, and advertisements to further understand the effects the early café culture had on Japan. Beginning in the early 20^th century, cafes were at the forefront of social and political changes in Japan, which still affect society in Japan today.

            The first café in Japan was the Café Printemps located in the Tokyo neighborhood of Ginza in 1911. This café was French inspired and attracted the intellectual elite such as writers, politicians, and artists to taste its wares. The Café Printemps also added to the burgeoning new occupations for young women in Japan. They employed waitresses to serve the customers. After a few years, the Café Lion appeared in Ginza. The Café Lion offered three floors for its customer’s pleasure. The first floor offered a bar with alcoholic beverages, the second with a dining room serviced with geisha, and the third with a Renaissance theme. This café was more popular among the common people rather than the intellectual elite of the city. The Café Lion capitalized on the use of waitresses in their establishment.[i]

In this photo, waitresses from the Café Printemps are shown around a bar. They are still dressed in traditional Japanese clothes with aprons on top. These women who were pioneers of their time were still very Japanese in style and origin. The contrast and combination of a French inspired café and the traditional dressed staff create an interesting image. The picture also shows how tastes were changing with the political culture. The café was opened in the last year of the Meiji era, a time for rapid changes in Japan. These women who would later be known as Taisho girls were beginning to find more occupations outside of the home. Waitresses soon gained their own moniker used to describe the occupation and the type of girl who work the job known as jokyu. The photo shows the early uniforms for the waitresses in the earlier days of cafés. The uniforms are very plain and yet possess elegance. Both of the waitresses have a similar hairstyle, however the only difference between them is the smile on the woman on the left’s face. The woman on the left’s face seems to show an optimism that the other woman is lacking with her frown. The photos give a small glimpse into the world of the early cafés in Japan.

In the year 1922, Ginza had gained about 20 cafes, and  cafes were slowly moving throughout Tokyo. [i]The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 destroyed most of Tokyo. In the aftermath of the disaster, new cafes and entertainment centers rose in Tokyo. Ginza became known as popular place to go since the presence of cafes and newly created department stores. Shinjuku, Kanda, Asakusa, and Shibuya all gained cafes in greater numbers after the earthquake. Since more cafes were being opened, more jobs for waitresses began to appear. In 1925, the number of waitresses in Tokyo reached the number: 7,319, while in Osaka the amount reached 4,230. [i]
In Tokyo, certain areas were known for having waitresses of a certain caliber.  Also, along with serving beverages and snacks in the cafés, these women also offered sexual services to their customers. An advertisement for the Café Europe, a woman is depicted looking at a cake. However, in the picture, the shadows seem to show a slightly different scene. The shadow looks like a man with the shadow of a woman looking at him and getting closer as if they are going to kiss. This advertisement shows the two things that could have procured at these cafés. In general, these women were gaining new stature in Japanese society. They began to have disposable income to spend on the new modern products such as Western style clothes, make-up, and music. These women began to be known as modern girl or modan garu in Japanese, which was later, shortened to moga.

The first picture shows the new styles that were being accepted by the moga. The new hairstyles mainly the bob became the main hairstyle of these women. They also began to smoke and drink alcohol in the many cafes and clubs that sprung up around the major cities. Also the use of Western or Western inspired make-up became more popular among women. These women began to choose their own romantic partners instead of having their families choose their suitors. The new clothing styles that were popular among these women strayed from the traditional kimono and they began to wear Western clothing.

In this photograph, three young women are walking down a street together. They are each wearing Western style clothing rather than traditional Japanese. Instead of wearing the constricting kimono these women changed in to loose fitting skirt and pants. These women cast off the beliefs that society set for them, by wearing loose fitting clothing and extending their freedom. In the second photograph, there are two images of the moga. On the left, tow women are standing together looking at a store window. The camaraderie shown in this photograph presents an image of close bond similar to sisterhood. On the right of the photograph, three women are shown walking down a street.  The two on the outside are wearing Western clothing, while the woman in the middle is wearing a kimono. The women on the outside are shown with smiles while the woman in the kimono is shown with a frown. The frowning traditional woman became a motif in early modern art in Japan showing the progress that came with modernism and only the unfortunate memories tied to traditional clothing. The moga were changing the perception of Japanese women through their style choices.

            Since the moga evolved from the café girls, they soon became a cultural phenomenon and were portrayed in many mediums. They were shown in shown in magazine and books. The most influential of the books about moga is Naomi written by Tanizaki Jun’ichiro.

The novel explores the relationship between salary man Jojo and the teenage café waitress Naomi. Jojo meets Naomi when she is fifteen and working in café as waitress, he slowly begins to groom her to be a perfect Western girl. Eventually she overpowers him and gains the control in the relationship. Tanizaki creates the image that Western ideal may have corrupted Naomi into dominating Jojo rather than him keeping the control in the relationship.  (Amazon/Other)

Moga as a cultural phenomenon changed the way art was created. The style of art deco made its way to Japan just as the moga were beginning to emerge in society. This new style of art capitalized on the new looks of modernism to create an interesting visual. The new fonts and layout that came with art deco were widely used in the magazines of the day. The artists of the day began to change their style to showcase the intersection of Japanese subject matter and Western style.

This kimono is covered with many smaller mock magazine covers and advertisements. The combination of the traditional Japanese kimono and art deco design shows how modernism and classic style collided. The close up of the kimono shows one of the images that are on the kimono.

The image is a woman who is drawn in an art deco style. The image looks like a magazine cover who illustrates how important magazine were becoming to society. The kimono is also decorated with sheet music and covers of magazine and sheet music books. The collision of new music, especially jazz, modernism, and moga changed traditional arts. Paintings changed as well with Japanese painters depicting the new changes that they saw around them.

This painting features a woman wearing a kimono while lounging in a Western seat. The painting differs from traditional Japanese paintings because of perspective and style. The style is almost completely Western, while the subject manner is an early modern Japanese woman. The combination of Japanese and Western elements found its heart with the moga the modernism that Japan was experiencing.

The moga soon began to be sexualized by men instead of being seen as women who were liberating themselves. The combination of a freer existence based off of Western culture, the choice of romantic partners, and possibly the sale of erotic services in cafés led to this.

In this picture that was featured on the cover of a songbook, we see a young woman putting on make-up. She is styled with the usual moga looks: bobbed hair, western clothing, and make-up. However, instead of looking powerful like the other photographs, she looks more innocent. The way she is positioned with her head looking back gives a look of demure sexuality. The use of the mirror and the make-up give the image a sense of surprise as if someone approached her when she was dressing. Also, the way her slip’s strap has fallen adds to this sexuality. This picture gives the impression of the moga have a coy sexuality about them rather than seeming empowered to choose their own rights. Many songs were written about the moga and how men began to see them as sexual objects rather than early feminists.

Watasha yoru saku sakaba no hanayo

Akai kuchi beni kinsha no tamoto

Neon raito de ukarete odori
Samete samishii namidabana

Watasha kanashii sakaba no hana yo

Yoru wa otome yo hiruma wa haha yo

Mukashi kakushita namida no tamoto

 Fukete omoi wa tsuyu ja nai

[I am a flower in the bar that blooms at night

With red lipstick and silk kimono sleeves.
I dance merrily under the neon light.

When sober, it's a lonely flower of tears.

I am a sad flower in the bar
A young girl by night and a mother by day.
In the past, I hid my tearful sleeves.
When the night wears on, it’s not the dew that makes them heavy. 

(Jokyu no Uta, Song of the Waitress)[i]

This song illustrates the way these modern women especially waitresses were being sexualize by the men that they were serving in the cafes. The song creates the image of a young woman who shrugs her responsibilities as a mother and begins to go out at night and dance. The woman in the song laments that she used to cry about the state of her life, but she stills does because she cannot stay in the life she wants. The woman also believes that she can only be herself at night when she dances and drinks in the clubs and the bars of the city. The image of the mother turned moga at night possibly is an image that many would find attractive. The belief that women should be good mothers was still ingrained the cultural psyche, while the new emergence of the moga brought the new modern image of a sexually liberated woman to the consciousness. Eventually the end of Taisho era led to the beginning of the Showa era, which began to focus the national attention on militarism. The ideal of the good mother quickly became the main ideal and women were highly pressured to become good wives and mothers and raise strong Japanese children. The cafés stayed open, but the freedom that women experienced was gone.

            Café culture has changed since the earlier days in the Taisho era, and now there are many varieties of cafés. The most influential and popular has the maid and butler cafes. In the maid cafés, men are waited on by women typically dresses in French maid inspired uniforms, while being addressed as ‘master’. These cafes offer the same foods and beverages but they are more expensive because of the atmosphere and are staffed by women in uniforms. 

The maid cafés plays in to both sexual and non-sexual fantasies created by their customers.  The sense of control coupled with the demeanor of the waitresses contributes to the possible fantasy of having control over someone or something. These women may also instill a sense of companionship in their customer that they may not find elsewhere. The maids also help create and sustain the images of video games, manga, and anime that may drive their customers to visit the cafes. The brother to the maid café is the butler café, which mostly appealed to women.  

The butler café plays into the ideals of being served by men, when it typically the other way around. In many cafés, the customers may be addressed as ‘princess’ and treated better than they do on a daily basis. Also, in some butler cafés, the employees may be hired from aboard to give the impression of a foreign prince coming to save or pamper them.[i]Both of these cafes are contemporary establishments that provide an area for others to share their fantasies.

            When I began this project I thought it was going to strictly about the early cafés in Japan, but it opened me up to many problems and progress that came with modernism. Café culture started a short-lived yet influential revolution among the youth in Japan. The modern girls began to find ways to fulfill their lives other than being a mother. The choice to work and the ability to choose romantic partners were revolutionary. They took advantage of the more liberal political atmosphere to show the government that women needed equal rights to men. The cafe culture was more than just pretty girls serving people, it began a new lifestyle for many Japanese women, while changing the way people understand themselves and the people in their country. The contemporary cafes follow in the footsteps laid before them whether they are regular cafes or maid cafe, they all gained from the original cafes. Cafes created a revolution that was needed for the women and Japan, in general, to understand the needs of the modern world. 

[1] Wikipedia, Kissaten

[1] Being Modern in Japan: Culture and Society from the 1910s to the 1930s, editors: Elise Tipton and John Clark, University of Hawaii Press, Pg.  120 -121

[1] Being Modern in Japan Pg. 122

[1] Being Modern in Japan, Pg. 122

[1] Being Modern in Japan, Pg. 133 


[1] http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hhBQ7ji0pVP194qcI36ojROut10Q