SSRI Open Lecture:

What does it take to produce one of Japan’s most relaxing spaces: the ryokan? In this talk, I share the behind-the-scenes work required to keep a ryokan running smoothly, from the everyday tasks of cleaning, serving, and making guests feel at home, to the generational work of producing and training a suitable heir who can carry on the family business. Amid the decline of many of Japan’s rural communities, the hot springs village resort of Kurokawa Onsen is a rare, bright spot. Its two dozen traditional inns, or ryokan, draw hundreds of thousands of tourists a year eager to admire its landscape, experience its hospitality, and soak in its hot springs. As a result, these ryokan have enticed village youth to return home to take over successful family businesses and revive the community. In this talk I share excerpts from my forthcoming book, which is based on nearly two decades of research in and around Kurokawa, including a year spent welcoming guests, carrying luggage, scrubbing baths, cleaning rooms, washing dishes, and talking with co-workers and owners about their jobs, relationships, concerns, and aspirations. I will share how Kurokawa’s ryokan mobilize hospitality to create a rural escape in contemporary Japan. I will highlight the strictly gendered work found in the ryokan by distinguishing the generational work of ryokan owners from the daily embodied work of their employees. I share the realities of ryokan work—celebrated, messy, ignored, exploitative, and liberating—and introduce the people who keep inns running by making guests feel at home.

Chris McMorran is Associate Professor of Japanese Studies at the National University of Singapore. He is a cultural geographer of contemporary Japan who researches the geographies of home across scale, from the body to the nation. He is author of Ryokan: Mobilizing Hospitality in Rural Japan and co-editor of Teaching Japanese Popular Culture. He also has published research on tourism, disasters, gendered labor, area studies, field-based learning, and popular culture. He grew up in a small town in Iowa but has lived outside the U.S. for much of his adult life, including Japan and Singapore, which he calls home.