The Rise of Supermarket and its Relationship with the Change of Folk Culture at the Postbellum High Economic Growth Period in Japan

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1.The Rise of Supermarket and the Struggle and Eventual Fall of Traditional Downtown AreaSince the second half of 1950's, supermarkets with their headquarters in Tokyo and Osaka have come down to the Shikoku area, and taken away most of the customers of the traditional downtown stores. According to the research data on Nakamura city, Kochi, for instance, it was found that downtown stores had first cooperated to fight back and open a supermarket of their own management but, as it turned out, they were destined to fade away under the power of nationwide supermarket chain. This is the case with other local-small towns, too.2.Supermarkets and the Change of Folk CultureIn those days, people used to think metro-headquartered supermarkets' merchandise to be "urban" and local store goods "rural," and they preferred to purchase "urban" ones. Inscribed in supermarkets' merchandise, thus, "urbanity" encroached and settled into every corner of the Shikoku area.People got familiar with "urbanity," especially the one inscribed in children's snack foods. "Urbanity" seeped gradually into the rural life through various life-style calendrical rituals, such as children's birthday, seasonal festivals, and others. Moreover, mothers came to be "urbanized" in choosing their children's foods and clothes.To take it all together, it follows that the postbellum formation of consumption society set out from children's life-style change, and went on to affect their mothers' and then fathers' way of living. In the course of this process, traditional folk culture underwent a fundamental transformation. This is highly suggestive when we consider our contemporary high-consumption culture.