Generations in Touch: Linking the Old and Young in a Tokyo Neighborhood(The Anthropology of Contemporary Issues)

A dilemma long faced by western societies—how to bring the generations together—is also of growing concern in the east. In Japan, where, until recently, the extended family often lived under the same roof, social programs designed to facilitate interaction between old and young have proliferated. Leng Leng Thang offers an in-depth view of one of those programs, an unusual social welfare institution called Kotoen. Kotoen is a pioneering facility for multigenerational living, providing both daycare for preschoolers and a home for elderly residents. With its twin mottoes of fureai (being in touch) and daikazoku (large extended family), it has been the subject of widespread media attention and has served as a model for other institutions. Yet Kotoen has never before been studied seriously. Under its director's inspiring leadership, Kotoen looks unusually promising, but Thang is wary of simplistic conclusions. Her interviews, research, and work as a volunteer at Kotoen reveal the complaints common among some elderly residents toward their surroundings in old age institutions as well as the painful persistence of the traditional family ideal. Yet far from calling the experiment a failure, Thang challenges accepted wisdom and so-called common sense to reveal the advantages and limitations of the relationships fostered between Kotoen's "grandchildren" and "grandparents." The lessons learned from Kotoen illuminate the urgency of re-engaging the generations in an aging society and provide direction for improving the quality of life for all.

About the Author :
Leng Leng Thang is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Japanese Studies at the National University of Singapore. She is the coeditor of Old Challenges, New Strategies?: Women, Work, and Family in Contemporary Asia.

Review :
"The global ageing of society and the future patterns of intergenerational relations between young and old, are of great significance if we are to develop a more socially inclusive and integrated society. Generations in Touch provides an excellent and empirically rich eastern perspective on these issues, furthering our knowledge and understanding of the benefits to be gained from developing ... a deliberate social policy of linking older and younger people in appropriate settings. Leng Leng Thang has written a readable, thoughtful and critically stimulating ethnography that examines the 'reengagement' of older and younger people in the context of an intergenerational social welfare institution... This book is extremely well timed and should be of significant interest to policy makers, practitioners and academics alike."-Stephen W. Ellis, Manchester Metropolitan University. Ageing and Society,Vol. 21, Part 5, September 2001 "Leng Leng Thang's portrait of an age-integrated home for the elderly with an attached nursery school offers both an ironic view of the paradoxes of aging and a potential at least for comfort, if not dignity... Thang's work is a very strong contribution to Japanese studies, cross-cultural gerontology, and anthropology of modern institutions. It reads well and might act as a text in a college or graduate-school course in these fields... Thang's work presents a balanced view, however hopeful she obviously is that such an establishment might provide a good alternative to family care."-Merry I. White, Boston University, The Journal of Asian Studies 63:2, May 2004 "In her excellent, almost flawless ethnography, Leng Leng Thang examines Kotoen as a possible answer to the urgent problems surrounding aging in Japan and the world over. Never tempted by simplistic or myopic conclusions, Thang has written a field-intensive, empirically solid book. Nothing seems to escape her perceptive eye and ear."-Takie S. Lebra, University of Hawaii "In Generations in Touch, Leng Leng Thang carefully elucidates how the cultural ideal of a large multigenerational household unites with the contemporary emphasis on positive personal encounters to provide a template for fostering reengagement among elders and positive attitudes toward aging among children. Set effectively within the larger context of changing family structure in contemporary Japan, the book engages the question of whether intergenerational togetherness can be socially engineered in an institutional setting. Generations in Touch is a rich and timely contribution to the ethnographic literature on aging and family in Japan."-Maria D. Vesperi, New College of the University of South Florida