Endangered Species : Traditional Japanese Industries Struggle to Survive

Far from the high-tech dazzle of an economic superpower, the people in this small seaside village still labor by hand and worry that their livelihoods may become obsolete.

One of the most prominent local industries--glove making--is struggling to survive amid a labor shortage, the yen’s appreciation and brisk competition from China, the Philippines and other countries with low-cost labor.

“Everyone is wondering, ‘What shall we do?’ ” lamented Kenji Tanaka, special assistant to the president of Urushihara Co., a local glove maker. “No one knows what the future will bring.”

Shirotori is in Kagawa, the smallest prefecture on the smallest of four main islands of Japan, and its quandary exemplifies the quiet struggles of Japan’s far-flung provinces.

They are places that technological advancement and rapid industrial growth have in varying degrees bypassed. “Most foreigners think of Japan as a high-tech country, but in the provinces there are still a lot of labor-intensive industries,” said Yoshihisa Goto, a planning specialist with the Ministry of International Trade and Industry.

The provinces are not taking their fate passively: From the glove makers here on Shikoku Island to central Honshu’s textile firms, from Hokkaido’s fish processors to the shipping suppliers of Kyushu, the provinces are aiming to revamp and revitalize.

Prodded by mounting cries for help, parliament passed a special law in 1992 establishing a 10-year program to help resuscitate local industry through subsidies, low-interest loans, tax breaks and other financial schemes.

The government has also renewed a program to help save traditional industries, crafts that create such culturally unique items as lacquerware, pottery, dolls and wooden sandals. The program, first begun in 1974 and renewed in 1992, grants subsidies to train young successors to the master artisans and to develop new products--using traditional techniques for modern-day goods, for instance.

But the challenges facing local and traditional industries are formidable. Few young people want to succeed the aging artisans, who labor by hand in small mom-and-pop operations. In the lacquerware industry, for instance, an onslaught of cheap products from China and South Korea is underselling Japanese goods.

And the increasing Westernization of lifestyles here has shrunk the demand for traditional items, industry officials say. Many young consumers would prefer to buy Tiffany crystal than Japan’s famous Wajima lacquerware. The exquisite pieces featuring glossy black surfaces painted with gilded cranes and other traditional scenes command as much as $950 for a single sake cup. But younger consumers nowadays view the lacquer designs as outdated, industry officials lament.

Overall, manufacturing output in Japan’s traditional industries has declined from $5.3 billion in 1983 to $4.7 billion in 1992. The number of workers has dropped from 290,000 in 1979 to 210,000 in 1992. And as young people of the province are drawn to the bright lights of Tokyo and Osaka, the percentage of workers aged 30 and younger has declined from 28.7% in 1973 to just 10.3% in 1992, according to MITI figures.

“It’s a serious situation,” said Ryosuke Chiba of MITI’s traditional industries division. “Whether Japan likes it or not, cheap imports are coming in. There is nothing we can do but develop new products.”

In the provinces themselves, however, that is far easier said than done. Take, for instance, Japan’s lacquerware industry.

Aizu-Wakamatsu, a town nestled in a resort area of mountains and lakes 115 miles north of Tokyo, has long been known as one of Japan’s chief lacquerware centers. The craft came to the region more than 100 years ago when the reigning feudal lord sent for a Kyoto artisan to develop it locally.

The painstaking process involves several steps, from mixing the pitch-black lacquer brew to shaping the wooden bowl or tray, to applying the lacquer and then painting it with delicate designs. Most craftspeople specialize in just one of the steps.

But these days, Chamber of Commerce chief Yoshihiro Ichinose and lacquerware association head Tsutae Baba see their proud heritage about to disappear.

The recession of the last few years has pushed sales down by 20%. Already, the association has lost 16 of its members to bankruptcy. The average age of craftspeople is 60. Although the association is sponsoring a successor’s training school with 12 students, that is hardly adequate to replace the imminent wave of retirees, Baba said.

“Working conditions in the lacquerware industry don’t suit today’s young people,” he fretted. “Who wants to work until the middle of the night in a small, dark room? Young people want to work in big companies.”

To make matters worse, the area is reeling from the impact of cheap Chinese lacquer, whose wholesale price is one-fourth that of the Japanese products. Aizu-Wakamatsu is more vulnerable to the competition than its rival to the south, Wajima, which has carved out a high-priced niche for itself.

Wajima lacquer is viewed as more art than utilitarian, with an elegant workmanship that the Chinese cannot yet match. But Aizu-Wakamatsu made a fateful decision in the 1960s to downgrade its product, after the supply of cheap raw lacquer from China was cut off in a diplomatic row. Now, more than 90% of its product uses a plastic base instead of the traditional wood; on many items, a synthetic coating instead of authentic lacquer is used.

The decision was smart at the time, as lacquered soup bowls, trays and boxes were moving into mass use for the first time. Exports began to boom. But now the low-end items can be duplicated by Japan’s Asian rivals.

Already, most Japanese lacquerware artisans use half-completed products from Korea and China and apply the all-important finishings themselves. What concerns officials here is the growing number of finished products entering the market--and the discernible improvement in quality.

“Lacquerware is becoming a product of developing countries,” Haruo Fukunishi, the industry association president, said with a sigh.

But suggest that the region should give up the craft, or seek to benefit from China’s competitive advantage by importing more, and the response is sharp:

“Our intention is to preserve and protect the tradition of Aizu-Wakamatsu,” Baba said. “If Aizu-Wakamatsu became known only as a place that sells Chinese lacquer, our name and meaning would disappear.”

Solutions, however, are elusive. The industry petitioned the central government for an import ban on Chinese products but was rejected. Now, there is talk of designing new products, but few ideas have surfaced: lacquered nameplates or telephone cards, the use of lacquer in construction, such as doors or interior accents.

Over in Shirotori, glove making executives and officials are less bound to preserve a culture and tradition. They mainly want to preserve jobs and long-established knitting and sewing techniques that have made the town the glove making capital of Japan.

As a result, rather than fight China and other Asian nations, they are working with them.

The Swany Corp. first moved to China in 1984 and now has four companies making gloves near the Shanghai area. President Etsuo Miyoshi’s company was one of the first in Shikoku to go abroad, setting up Korean factories as early as 1972, when labor rates in Japan started to rise.

“In the past 20 years, we’ve moved from exporting gloves to importing them, and 90% is from China,” he said. “That’s a very big change.”

Other prominent glove makers, such as Kazuyoshi Urushihara, plan to automate more of their production, investing heavily in robotics to combat both the labor shortage and rising labor costs. Just as young people balk at becoming traditional artisans, they also shun manual labor.

But such options are out of reach for most of Shikoku’s 170 glove makers, said Eiichi Nagata, director of the Kagawa office of the Japan External Trade Organization.

“Overseas production, mechanization with robots and other measures require huge capital, and these companies can’t afford to do it so easily,” Nagata said.

“If I were mayor,” said Urushihara, who doubles as chairman of the Japan Glove Industries Assn., “I’d forget about the glove industry. It does not have a bright future.”

In Aizu-Wakamatsu, some say the same thing about their craft.

Yasuo Ogura of Misawaya Manufacturing Co., a lacquerware wholesaler hard-pressed by dwindling sales, defective Chinese goods and the declining appeal of the craft itself, had a quick answer when asked what he intended to do: “Go bankrupt.”

But the artisans aren’t ready to call it quits. Kenji Ushima, 53, one of the finest craftsmen in Wajima, says: “Our ancestors have handed down something new all the time, so we in Wajima will think of something.”