June 1, 2022

On 26 May 2022, Associate Professor Chris McMorran (NUS Japanese Studies) spoke about his new book, Ryokan: Mobilizing Hospitality in Rural Japan (University of Hawai’i Press, 2022), in an event organized by the FASS Research Division and Chaired by Assistant Professor Gabriele Koch (Yale-NUS). The book grew out of his participant observation research at ryokan (traditional Japanese inns) in Kurokawa Onsen, a hot springs resort in Kyushu in the south of Japan. A/P McMorran first visited in 1996 while on the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme, and returned in 2001, making a series of visits, and later visiting nearly every year since 2010, often with his students. He carried out the ethnographic fieldwork for the book from August 2006 to August 2007, where he worked from 7:30 AM to 9:30+ PM in the ryokan cleaning baths, washing dishes, sweeping paths, vacuuming tatami mats, picking up guests from the bus stop and carrying their luggage, and laying out guests’ bedding.

Ryokan focuses on the daily, seasonal, and generational work done in ryokan, examining what the work is, who the various workers and inn owners are, and what their roles mean to them. The first five chapters of the book look at ryokan owners and the remaining four chapters focus on their employees, the majority of whom are single older women. A/P McMorran also examines the challenges facing rural Japan, which include depopulation, made visible in this context by the shrinking number of ryokan over the past decades, as well as the gender and generational roles in the ryokan work environment. Overall the book presents an intriguing and novel perspective on work-life in a lesser studied and uniquely Japanese hospitality establishment.

Ryokan is currently available in hardcover and e-book editions, with a paperback edition slated for publication in January 2023.