JAPANESE CRAFT TOURISM - LIBERATING THE CRANE WIFE

Snuggled in the Japan Alps, near scenic Lake Suwa, a small enterprise survives by hosting residential weaving vacations for women. Many Japanese women find it difficult to travel just for pleasure, but ''education'' and ''tradition'' cloak travel in cultural legitimacy. This paper explores the ironies involved in this leisure pursuit. The mills in this historic center of Japan's silk industry once exploited the labor of young rural women from poor families. Today, predominately affluent urban housewives pay money to study weaving, often as an excuse to travel. The women's own interpretations of their travel-weaving activities reveal how these constitute one form of agency enacted against hegemonic gender constructions in Japanese society.