Sepp Linhart is Professor of Japanese Studies and Sabine Frühstück is Assistant Professor of Japanese Studies at the Institute for Japanese Studies at the University of Vienna.

"This book opens up an important and very understudied field and does so in ways that are often in themselves somewhat entertaining, as befits its subject matter. It also provides a good guide to the literature in both Japanese and English." — John Clammer, Sophia University, Tokyo"The Culture of Japan as Seen through Its Leisure provides a wealth of information about a wide variety of leisure pursuits in Japan, typically grounded in their historical development, and at times relates these pursuits to Japanese society more generally." — Joy Hendry, Oxford Brookes University

• Preface 1. Introduction: The Japanese at Play: A Little-Known Dimension of Japan Sepp LinhartPart One: Everyday Activities as Leisure 2. Respite from Everyday Life: Kôtô-ku (Tokyo) in Recollections Peter Ackermann3. How Cooking Became a Hobby: Changes in Attitude Toward Cooking in Early Twentieth-Century Japan Katarzyna Cwiertka4. Then Science Took Over: Sex, Leisure, and Medicine at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Sabine FrühstückPart Two: Sports 5. Budô : Invented Tradition in the Martial Arts Inoue Shun6. Blood and Guts in Japanese Professional Baseball William W. Kelly7. Contemporary Japanese Athletics: Window on the Cultural Roots of Nationalism-Internationalism T. J. Pempel8. Golf, Organization, and "Body Projects": Japanese Business Executives in Singapore Eyal Ben-AriPart Three: Travel and Nature 9. Pilgrimage in the Edo Period: Forerunner of Modern Domestic Tourism? The Example of the Pilgrimage to Mount Tateyama Susanne Formanek10. Work and Play in the Japanese Countryside Nelson H. H. Graburn11. Cherry Blossoms and Their Viewing: A Window onto Japanese Culture Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney12. Leisure Parks in Japan Angelika Hamilton-OehrlPart Four: Theater and Music 13. From Pleasure to Leisure: Attempts at Decommercialization of Japanese Popular Theater Annegret Bergmann14. Takarazuka and Kobayashi Ichizô's Idea of Kokumingeki Roland Domenig15. The Politics and Pursuit of Leisure in Wartime Japan Jennifer Robertson16. The Disappearance of the Jazu-Kissa : Some Considerations about Japanese "Jazz-Cafés" and Jazz-Listeners Eckhart DerschmidtPart Five: Playing Games and Gambling 17. From Kendô to Jan-ken : The Deterioration of a Game from Exoticism into Ordinariness Sepp Linhart18. Gambling and Changing Japanese Attitudes Toward It Nagashima Nobuhiro19. Time, Space, and Money: Cultural Dimensions of the Pachinko Game Wolfram ManzenreiterNotes on Contributors Index