On Part-time Jobs
by Haruki Murakami
Translated by Christopher Allison
When I was a student, which was more than ten years ago now, the average hourly wage for part-time work was about the same as a cup of coffee in an average coffee shop. To make it plain, at the end of the 1960s it was about 150 yen. 「Hi-Lite」 cost 80 yen, and ic books were about 100 yen. Since I just bought records with the money I made w, I could buy one record for every day-and-a-half of labor.
Now, pared to a 300 yen cup of coffee, the standard wage for part time work is 500 yen. It looks as though the market price has ged a little. You buy two records with one days labor.
If you just look at the numbers, it seems like our standard of living has gotteer in those ten years. From a lifestyle point-of-view, though, I dont think things have really improved. In the old days, housewives didnt have to take part time jobs, and there was no loan-repayment hell.
Numbers are really plicated. You t always trust what the General Ating Office tells you. GNP is a total sham. If they plopped GNP down in the west entrance of Shinjuku Station a anyone who wao e up and touch it then I might have some faith in it. But short of that, I t trust anything with so little substance.
In this respect, I think Kenichiro Takemura (politico-eidit) and Kakuei Tanaka (former prime-minister) are amazing. Those guys, knowing fully that their figures were dubious, chose only to use hat said the situation was fine. If used only to that extent, well, just oebook will suffice.
Anyway, I still remember the records that I bought with the money from the part-time job of my school days, and how I listeo them devotedly. But it wasnt their number or their volume that really mattered; the important thing was their quality.