hankyoreh

By Jeong Nam-ku, Tokyo correspondent

He is a 26-year-old university student living in Tokyo. He has never traveled further southwest than Mie Prefecture on Honshu, Japan’s main island. He has never been overseas, and doesn’t even have a passport. He doesn’t have a driver’s license, either. He doesn’t bother making big plans for the future. He thinks it‘s enough just to live within his means.

“Satori generation?” he repeats. “The way you explain it, I guess that sounds a lot like me.”

The student nods his head after hearing a reporter from the Asahi Shimbun describe the term to him. “Satori” is a Japanese word that means “awakening” or “enlightenment.” “Satori Generation” is a new term that refers to a generation of people who rationally acknowledge and adjust to the reality they live in. It has been used to describe Japanese young people today. Only the first syllable distinguishes it from the “Yutori Generation,” a label that covers the same age group. (“Yutori” is a Japanese word that means “room to maneuver.”)

The Yutori Generation (roughly those born between 1987 and 1996) is the age group that received the so-called “yutori” education, which began in 2003. This was the generation for which the amount of material studied at school was greatly reduced in an effort to encourage creativity. It includes those who were born in or after the mid-1980s, who are now in their teens and mid-twenties. In Japan, the term connotes a generation of people known for their low academic achievement. Yutori education came to an end in 2010.

The Satori Generation on the other hand is a group of clever people who took charge of their own studies and who take a pragmatic approach to planning their future. The word was coined by a user on an online message board in 2010 during a discussion of the book “Young People with No Desires,” written by former Nihon Keizai Shimbun reporter Taku Yamaoka.

Here are some of the characteristics of the Satori Generation as identified by the Asahi Shimbun: “They aren’t interested in cars or luxury goods. They don’t try to earn more money than they need. They don’t spend money on pachinko or other kinds of gambling. They don’t get very excited about traveling overseas. They want to stay where they were born and raised. They are hesitant to have romantic relationships. They are more interested in outcome than process. They generally get their information online, but they also really like reading.”

The Satori Generation is the product of a time when a sustained depression means that many young people can’t find good jobs, and that consequently there is little in point in expecting much from dreams or goals, explains sociologist Noritoshi Furuichi. “It is only natural for people to start acting rationally when they have no money,” Furuichi says. “This generation has no choice but to hesitate before taking action.”

Some observers perceive a lack of drive in the Satori Generation. Members of the generation are often reluctant to seek promotions in the workplace, believing that a promotion to a position of responsibility will bring nothing but more hard work. Companies are nervously watching the passive spending patterns of this exceptionally frugal generation, the Asahi Shimbun reported.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]