Introduction

Kanikōsen 蟹工船, (The Crab Cannery Ship) has recently received much attention in the Japanese and foreign press for being one of the least expected publishing successes of 2008. Written in 1929 by Kobayashi Takiji 小林多喜二 at the height of Japan’s proletarian literature movement, the book tells the story of the eponymous cannery ship and its workers of northern Japan: their desperation, their wretched prospects, their exploitation at the hands of the bosses and the ruling class … and, eventually, what they do about it. Kobayashi later joined the Communist party and was tortured to death by the police in 1933, but the unpolished urgency and populism of his work has kept it in the canon — a cult classic subject to periodic revivals.

The first revival, of sorts, was in 1953 — the year after the Occupation ended — with the release of the film adaptation. Technically, the postwar boom had begun by this time; in practice, very little of it had trickled down to the general populace. The Red Purge of recent years had made it clear that Japan and U.S. leaders would not tolerate anybody trying to rewire the system. There was frustration and dissatisfaction in the air, and the release of Kanikōsen capitalized (!) on that.

But we know how things eventually worked out: Japanese industry and government working together managed to get enough citizens employed on agreeable terms that most of the previous dissatisfaction evaporated. Postwar Japan’s economic success was so great that the country came to be seen as a serious threat to the U.S. itself.

Then the bubble popped. Corporations restructured, cutting costs by relying more on contract employees (契約社員) or dispatch workers (派遣社員) and less on the seishain (正社員) — “true company members” — who had come to expect lifetime employment and other inconvenient things. Young people entering the workforce are faced with the choice of either taking these less desirable temporary jobs, sacrificing much of their personal life to compete for the few coveted seishain spots — or just not working at all. And so today you have an under-30 underclass which feels exploited and locked out of “real” adult society.

Working the register at 7-11 or answering phones in a Shinjuku high-rise may not be back-breaking labor, but the problems of “freeter” life are real: few opportunities to build a real career, patronizing and insulting treatment from people on the traditional career path, working the exact same job as the seishain but only receiving 40% pay and no chance to bounce to the management track, and growing uncertainty about whether they’ll be able to receive social security if and when they retire — despite the contributions deducted from their paycheck every month. This is the background against which the Japanese Communist Party is enjoying increasing interest from under-30s and the background against which Kanikōsen is enjoying its latest revival as a metaphor for modern Japan. People are responding once again to its vivid worldview: an undeserving but firmly entrenched ruling class who live luxuriously and hypocritically, an exploited working class kept hidden below decks, and tales of ill-specified external threats, used by the former to keep the latter in line.

Chapter 1

“Oi! We’re off t’Hell!”

The two fishermen leaned over the deck’s guardrail, craning like snails stretching out of their shells to view the ocean-hugging town of Hakodate. One of them spat out a cigarette he had smoked down close to his fingers. The cigarette tumbled and whirled as though clowning as it scraped its way down the tall side of the ship. The fisherman’s entire body stank of booze.

Broad-floating steamboats with bellies like fat red drums; boats still being loaded up, tilted precariously to one side as though someone were pulling at their sleeve; buoys like thick yellow chimneys and great bells; launches weaving between one boat and the next nimble as fleas; the chill murmur of the waves, bobbing with soot and chunks of bread and rotten fruit, like some unique fabric… Above the waves, smoke streamed before the wind, bringing the thick smell of coal. Every so often a winch’s rattle would carry across the water to echo nearby.

This was the Hakkōmaru, a crab cannery ship, and directly before it a sailboat with peeling paint was letting out an anchor chain from the a hole in the bow like a bull’s nostril. Two foreigners smoking wide-bowled matelot pipes could be seen running back and forth between the same two places like clockwork dolls. A Russian boat, no doubt. A surveillance craft assigned to Japan’s crab cannery fleet.

“I ain’t got a mon to my name,” said the fisherman. “Shit. Here.”

So saying, he moved his body closer to the other man’s. Then he grabbed the second man’s hand and brought it to his hips. He touched it to the pockets of the corduroy pants he wore under his hanten jacket. There seemed to be a small box in there.

The second man looked wordlessly at the first man’s face.

The first man giggled. “Cards,” he said.

On the boat deck, the captain was looking like a shogun, smoking a cigarette as he wandered about. When he exhaled, the smoke bent at an acute angle just past his nose before breaking up and drifting away. Sailors dragging their wood-soled straw sandals on the deck carried food buckets busily in and out of the forward cabins. Preparations were complete, and the ship was ready to leave.
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Izumi Kyōka (泉鏡花) (1873-1939) was an author and playwright whose career began in the final years of the Meiji era. He was heavily influenced by supernatural and grotesque themes from Edo-period literature and folklore. Izumi’s atmospheric and allusive technique — though not, in most cases, his humor — remains a strong influence on modern Japanese horror. This story “Night Fishing” 「夜釣」dates from 1911.

This is a story I heard from the wife of Daikatsu the Carpenter.

Daikatsu ran a crew in Ushigome-Tsukudo-Mae, and a man named Iwaji — who was married with two children — used to drop in and out, making himself mildly useful. Iwaji drank, he spent, he brawled. He had nothing you could call a hobby, except one thing: he had always loved to fish.

And he had talent to match. They say that eel-fishing is too hard for amateurs, but casting for eel was his specialty. He would step out for an evening and come back with so many eels that it was like he had been digging for earthworms in a marsh.

Nor was it rare for him to toss some eels in through Daikatsu’s kitchen door: “Boss, three twenty-six ouncers.”

His wife, though young, worried about their afterlife, and so Iwa-san’s destruction of living creatures made her terribly unhappy.

It was late November. An unseasonably muggy wind had blown all evening. Humid clouds swelled overhead. People too near a brazier were damp with sweat, wishing they could remove their coats. And now the sun was setting. Iwa-san left work and wound through the alleys of the Gyōgan temple grounds to the longhouse where he lived with his family. But once he got there, he seemed agitated by something and in a great hurry. Without even making his usual visit to the bath-house, he wolfed down his rice and tea, said that he was going to visit a friend, and left the house.

While he was gone, the wind grew ever fiercer. The doors and shoji screens rattled. The dark mouths of the shutters yawned and slammed. The skies, despite all this, were clear, stars still and twinkling even as the gale grew wild. Gray clouds like piles of cotton swelled into view from time to time, shedding a few drops of rain. But just when it seemed about to pour, the wind would grow wild and blow the skies clear.

The night wore on, and before long it had become a merciless pitch-black.
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The following story was originally published as 「シルクハット」in the April 1928 issue of magazine Mystery Fan「探偵趣味」.

Nakamura and I had both received a ten-yen pay raise.

I sold Nakamura my worn-out old derby for ten more yen, added five yen to that, and bought a top hat.

I had long dreamed of wearing a top hat, just once, before I grew old. I desperately wanted to know what it was like to place that luxurious presence atop my head.

Using a small velvet cushion, I stroked and stroked the nap of the hat. In the milliner’s mirror, amid the gay electric lights, the hat seemed made for me.

As for Nakamura, he stuffed his old black felt hat into his bag and put on my derby instead. It made him look like Mussolini.

After leaving the milliner’s, we went to the harbor, as usual, to a public hotel on the beach, to buy women. Payday was the only day of the month we allowed ourselves the treat of spending our meagre salaries on the company of women.

The top hat set the women at the hotel astir, as I had expected. Mine stared, eyes wide, apparently more flustered than impressed. Since the previous month, she had grown so pale and thin that I almost didn’t recognize her. I had heard that her health was poor; apparently it had deteriorated further.

As she danced with me, she grew short of breath and eventually began to tremble. When I noticed this, I stopped dancing at once and pulled her onto my lap.

"You seemed to be having some difficulty," I offered.

"I’m all right now… but I may not have long to live," she replied. Her voice was raspy.

Nakamura was with his usual girl. She was plump, with her hair cut in a boyish style. They had drunk several German beers and were now dancing a dubious Argentine tango. Her brow was fierce and villainous-looking, but Nakamura said that was exactly what he liked about her.

Before we went into the bedrooms, we paid separately.

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