Video above: Clip from “Japan: A Story Of Love & Hate” on BBC 4 [Broadcast: 30 March 2009]
On the recommendation of my friends Julian and Yoko, I tuned into BBC 4′s series on Hidden Japan and watched “Japan: A Story of Love & Hate” (available to watch online in the UK until 06 April). It was a surprisingly moving story of 56 year old Naoki, who used to live in luxury but now is almost wholly supported by his 29 year old girlfriend – Yoshie who has to do three jobs to support them both.
For all three jobs, which included working as a hostess in a bar paid to flatter and entertain the male married clients, she earnt the princely sum of £11,000 in total whilst he could only got £4,000 from his part-time Post Office job. And the cost of living there isn’t that far removed from that of London.
It was an eye-opening look at the daily struggle of a working poor couple in Japan. Whilst I knew that all nations have their working poor underclass (check out Anthony Suau’s winning image) I just somehow never associated that with Japan, the second richest nation on earth, and it’s fresh sushi, infalliable etiquette, and advanced technologically wizardry.
For me, the power of the documentary came from Naoki being uncharacteristically open and frank with the documentary maker for a native in a country that prides the indirectness and subtlety of converation. And it was heart-wrenching watching the overwhelming stress and tiredness of both of them just to make ends meet but yet they still loved each other enough in their unique way to somehow stay together. Not your usual typical love story.
I had only intended to watch it for a bit and get back to finishing off processing the images from Saturday’s shoot but it was such a good story that I ended up following it to the end. So if you are in the UK, it’s worth an hour of your time to see.
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