We have a new employee named Ugi who is half-Korean, half-Japanese. During her interview last year, when I looked at these photographs, I felt that the source of her evident strength lies here.
A nuclear family is one in which you have a husband and wife, and their unmarried children. At least that’s how it’s defined. With Japan’s rapid economic growth after WWII, people flocked to major cities, resulting in the decline of large, three-generation families residing together, and the rise of nuclear families.
Our employee was raised in a family surrounded by a Korean mother, a Korean uncle, a Filipino aunt, a Korean aunt, and Korean grandparents. Therein lies an ethnic spirit that Japan has forgotten in this day and age. Perhaps her sense of honor, gratitude, passion, and love for life that I grasp in her photographs all derive from that.
There are an increasing number of children who have returned to their parents’ homes in recent years while it has been difficult to even provide for one’s own family owing to global financial crises, unemployment, delayed salary payments, soaring housing prices in many cities, and, of course, the pandemic. And this applies to the whole world, not just Japan. It’s a natural human instinct tied to the preservation of life to draw close to one’s family for support–it’s inevitable, really.
I believe the charm that her photos exude is tied to an identity of Asians–no, of humankind–that we just can’t afford to forget.