denotes one of the ancient border stations established as early as the 10th century. On the other side of the check point at Otsu in Shiga prefecture lay the region of Kanto meaning “east of the tollgate.” Although the seat of political and economic power has shifted multiple times throughout Japan’s history, Kanto and Kansai have come to represent two distinct cultural and linguistic areas today. In a country where regionalism remains strong, the two stand as shorthand for an internal east-west divide roughly translated as Tokyo and Osaka—the two main economic powerhouses of the nation and the most populous metropolises of Japan.
The characterization of the two regions as much more than geographical entities began to develop in earnest during the Kamakura period (1185-1333) with the burgeoning of a samurai class that spread throughout the center of Honshu in a bid for supremacy. Warriors of the two most powerful clans—the Minamoto and the Taira—struggled and ultimately the Minanmoto gained ascendancy, a victory that precipitated the emperor with the Taira to flee back to western Japan. By 1192, the Minamoto clan’s victory at the Battle of Dan-no-Ura signaled the definitive rise of the Minamoto clan with Minamoto-no-Yoritomo at its head and Japan’s first shogun or Military Commander. The golden age of the Heian era with its nobles and courtly pastimes had begun to fade and a powerful new military orientation with the Kamakura shogunate stood in its stead. Although the capital remained in Kyoto many functions of the government were actually transferred to Kamakura in the Kanto region some 32 miles southwest of Tokyo.
The bifurcation of power divided between the emperor and the shogun and the association of each with distinct regions forms the basis of an enduring Kansai-Kanto rivalry. The symbolic and cultural power of the emperor came to be associated with the Kansai and the political and military power of the state embodied by the shogun with Kanto. Both the Kamakura shogunate and later the Tokugawa were both based in Kanto. But it was during the Tokugawa era that the distinctions between Kansai and Kanto developed with the features recognizable today. In 1603, by dint of his victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, Tokugawa Ieyasu managed to unify a country then composed of small warring states and to establish the seat of his government in Edo (now Tokyo). The next 265 years came to be known as the Edo period (1603-1868) a time of extraordinary economic and cultural development for Japan in which a vibrant merchant class arose alongside the samurai. However, to protect itself from divisive foreign influences, the country adopted a policy of isolation and closed itself to the world with virtually no exchanges. Self-sufficient in all its resources, Japan remained peaceful, productive, and stable during the Edo period. The shogun controlled about one fourth of the country, including Kansai.
A unique feature of the Tokugawa shogunate was the practice by which samurai, as part of their service to their feudal lord or daimyo, resided in Edo in alternating years and offered their services there. Huge retinues of samurai lived in this bustling city at any given time though life there was hugely expensive for them. In the early eighteenth century, Edo was the largest city in the world with an estimated population of 1 to 1.25 million. The traffic back and forth alone from home fief to Edo required a system of post-stations where the samurai could rest along their journey. Merchants set up shops, lodgings, and stores around the many post-stations along the routes. In addition to commuting samurai, travel boomed among the common people who sought spiritual refreshment through pilgrimages. The Ise shrine in Mie, Japan’s most revered Shinto complex, became a favorite destination for pilgrims.
During the Edo period Osaka developed into a great commercial center. With the construction of a canal, merchants could easily transport goods along the whole coast of the Sea of Japan. In addition, a series of kurayashiki, warehouses that served also as sales offices, were built there for various fiefs. Controlled by the shogunate, they gave special privileges to the wholesale dealers and brokers who managed them. The prototype of the Kansai merchant was Takatoshi Mitsui, son of a sake brewer from Mie. The Mitsui family grew to be the largest merchant house of the Tokugawa period and the richest family in Japan. In the late seventeenth century the Mitsuis became the officially chartered merchants for the Tokugawa shogunate.
They opened shops and a department store along a main street in Edo (that later became Mitsukoshi). They were among the first to advertise in Japan by giving away free umbrellas to shoppers in their stores. When it rained, the Mitsui logo could be seen all over the capital. They introduced methods of commerce by means of money when the use of money in trading was virtually unknown. They set up money changing shops in Osaka to convert taxes that were paid in rice into money and even handled the dangerous transfer of funds from Osaka to Edo.
In the mid-nineteenth century Japan ended its long self-imposed seclusion from the rest of the world by reopening its ports and negotiating treaties with the U.S. and certain European nations. As part of a series of reforms initiated by the new and modernizing Meiji government, the capital was transferred once again, but this time out of the Kansai region altogether, and to its present location in Tokyo. This relocation also symbolized the shift from a feudal to a modern society that had required significant revolutionary and visionary forces to topple the shogun, dismantle the powerful and entrenched feudal system, and restore the emperor as head of state. Until this time, the emperor and nobles had always resided in Kansai.
But now the Imperial Palace in Kyoto lay empty. In the 1870s the new government turned its attention to reorganizing the country from a multitude of fiefdoms into forty-seven newly configured administrative territories or prefectures.
Within the new order, Osaka maintained its prestige as a thriving city of commerce that had served as the major supplier of goods to the city of Edo. However, long after this period had passed, the association of samurai with Tokyo (Kanto) and merchants with Osaka (Kansai) became a standard cultural image. In fact, I had read about a typical greeting in Osaka that I was eager to hear: Mookkarimakka? (“Are you making money?”). Fortunately, no one ever greeted me with this salutation. It seems to have disappeared altogether now except perhaps when used as a joke as suggested by DC Palter and Kaoru Slotsve in their book Colloquial Kansai Japanese.
The use of different dialects continues to distinguish the two contrasting regions but with one enormous difference. Once the capital was established in Tokyo, the new government selected an uptown variant of Tokyo dialect as the language to be taught as standard “Japanese” in schools across the country. This is the same language foreigners study when they learn “Japanese” in their own schools and universities. Given the centralization of power today in Tokyo the use of this standard language by broadcasters on NHK national television, Japanese people everywhere have acquired fluency in this officially sanctioned version of Japanese. Nevertheless, people in Kansai are not only proud of their heritage but simply more comfortable using their own dialects in daily conversation.
To spend even a little time in Kyoto or Osaka, is to develop an ear for the cadence and unique vocabulary of Kansai-ben or western dialect that actually consist of many sub-dialects. The first thing that stands out is the ubiquitous sound of “wa” at the end of sentences. This word has no meaning in itself beyond adding emphasis to whatever the speaker is saying. In Kansai both men and women use it frequently. Tokyoites, on the other hand, use the same “wa” at the end of a sentence for emphasis though enunciating it more softly. But in this case, it is an exclusive feature of women’s speech.
As a rule, Kansai dialect is much more melodic because speakers tend to accentuate the first syllable of words while Kanto speech is generally flatter. Kansai natives also often repeat the same word twice as in the commonly heard: Kamahen, kamahen (“I don’t mind.”) as my landlady often said to me to convey empathy. Another striking difference is how the “s” sound in standard Japanese often becomes an “h” in Kansai. Hence, “Mr. Tanaka” or “Ms. Tanaka” is Tanaka-han in Kansai, and Tanaka-san in Tokyo. Verb endings are also different. Endings in –haru and negative -hen contrast with the –ru and -nai. Some vocabulary is simply different such as the word for “chicken meat”: kashiwa in Kansai and tori-niku in most other places. People in Kansai use okini to say “thank you” while arigatoo is the standard phrase in Japanese. Finally, to say “please” when asking for a favor— onegai shimasu (a phrase used
