Japan’s Tobacco and Salt Museum

THERE’S NO TELLING what a government will come up with if you give them enough of someone else’s money.

A case in point is Japan Tobacco, 50% of whose stock is held by the government, with the other 50% traded on the Japanese stock exchanges. JT’s origins date back to Japan’s tobacco monopoly introduced in the 16th century. They were organized as a company in 1898 and also given a monopoly on salt. The company became the Japan Tobacco and Salt Public Corporation in 1949 and were partially privatized in 1985.

They’re still a cash cow today. The percentage of smoking adults in Japan is the fourth highest in the world, behind South Korea, China, and Russia. JT manufactures foreign brands for sale in Japan through licensing agreements and controls 80% of the market. They have diversified their business operations, and in Japan they own the Burger King franchise, control sales of Pillsbury products, and have pharmaceutical interests. They are the world’s third largest tobacco company, having bought RJ Reynolds’ international operations in 1999.

What does the company do with all their cash? One thing they did was open the Japan Tobacco and Salt Museum in Tokyo, which has an English-language website. Let’s not go into the popular hysteria that would ensue if such a facility were open to the public in a Western country. Instead, let’s just use the website to go inside for a tour.

Their homepage announces:

“the Museum is a many-sided institution that specializes in the collection and study of materials relating to tobacco and salt. The quality and interest level of its exhibitions and other events make it a favorite with the public.”

There is learned commentary on the role of tobacco and salt in human culture. The first floor exhibit shows the spread of tobacco from South America to the rest of the world. There is a display of tobacco implements and “cigarette packets and cartons from many lands” on the mezzanine. Second floor exhibits focus on tobacco in Japan. A website photo shows some youngsters watching a video in the computer booth and video library. (I hope it’s about salt and not tobacco.) The third floor is devoted to salt. Dioramas show salt technology in ancient and modern Japan. It also has a section named, “A Media Adventure: Salt in Today’s World”. And there’s more!

The museum has a collection of about 1,700 ukiyo-e woodblock prints portraying tobacco and salt use during the Edo period. They also regularly offer special exhibits, and the one running right now features chirimen silk crepe handcrafts. The illustration here is a poster for Tengu brand cigarettes dating from about 1900. It’s not easy to briefly describe tengu, but they were demons with long noses, and you can see one in the left of the poster. Obviously, suggestive product advertising has been around for a long time.

The museum has an active exhibition schedule: coming up next week is a presentation of Japanese genre pictures. There’s no explanation of what that means, but the one example on the website shows a woman smoking what looks like a long, thin kiseru pipe (good for one hit of tobacco at a time). Past exhibits have featured matchbox and cigar label collections and 20th century tobacco posters. Special shows during summer vacation take kids on a trip to Dr. Salt’s Adventure Island.

Persistent poking into the nooks and crannies of the site will pay off with some surprising discoveries. Here’s a photo of two guys snorting tobacco in the Amazon basin. There’s also a brief explanation of salt mining in Mali.

I’m intrigued by this site in spite of myself. I don’t use tobacco at all and use very little salt. My political philosophy is such that I don’t think the government should be involved in any commercial enterprises, much less spending the public’s money on projects promoting harmful substances.

Yet I’d love to go, and I’m sure I’d enjoy the place. Those ukiyo-e prints and cultural exhibits alone seem fascinating. There’s also an innocent sincerity evident in the creation and operation of the entire enterprise (at least as seen from the website) that is a distinctively Japanese trait. I admire the way the Japanese are able to present things like this, without a trace of irony or pretension. It’s one of the reasons I’ve stayed so long in the country.

Start looking around and you’ll see what I mean.

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