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Jiki-fu: A Japanese Aesthetics of Taste

enduring group and structure. Another positive outcome was the connections created among the Japanese themselves that took them beyond specific workplaces. Workshop Two was held the following July at ICU in Tokyo. Initial conflicts and a lack of commonality were resolved to some extent during the meetings; the Japanese focused on individuals while the Americans focused on organization building. A positive outcome was the emphasis on skill training and network building for Japanese participants. March 2006 was the last international workshop held in Tokyo. Representatives from 9 to 5 discussed experience with training sessions on harassment, work/family issues, and the like, and establishing a hotline to report problems. One positive outcome for the Japanese was the creation of A Working Women’s Educational Network (WWEN). The author’s additional visit one year later revealed important progress. Subsequently the Japanese groups launched an umbrella organization, the Action Center for Working Women (ACW2), which provides a clearing house for information related to working women, consultation for other female workers, and links to activist groups in additional nations, including Korea and the US. There were still problems in retaining membership and a high attrition rate. However, the Japanese unions secured a government grant which helped to alleviate the issues of resource penury, lessening the reliance on fee for services by those assisted and perhaps moving to some extent from the individual model of recruitment. This book makes an important contribution by detailing both the commonalities and differences between Japanese and American participants in working women’s organizations that sometimes produced major tensions. The author argues that the Japanese initially had an unrealistically rosy perspective on the role of women in the US labor force. Differences between the individual approach utilized in Japan and the more collective approach employed in the US are highlighted throughout. Nonetheless, there are several concerns that the book leaves unanswered. The final sections deal with 2007, but what has happened since in the years up to 2018, now 11 years? This is a serious omission and makes it impossible to evaluate the long-term impact of the project, while not altering the short-term gains ably documented. Also, the chronological format is sometimes didactic, though it does convey the requisite information related to the exchanges. Finally, it would be interesting to compare this exchange with others involving US and Japanese female participants as well as other transnational exchanges that seek to engage women workers. Having myself been involved in several exchanges with Japanese and other women internationally over time, one wonders about the legacy of such interchanges and their ultimate impact on those involved.