Moai (Japan)

Moai 🇯🇵
Location: Japan
Definition: Collecting saving scheme characterised by lifelasting social bonds
Keywords: Japan – East Asia – Scheme – Savings – Credit – Mutual help
Clusters: Solidarity – Market
Author: Abel Polese
Affiliation: Dublin City University, Ireland

By Abel Polese, Dublin City University, Ireland

Moai (模合) consists of two kanji, the first, 模, is used for words that relate to imitation and reproduction; the second, 合, is the one used for meeting or coming together. In a nutshell, it is the art of sharing a company over the course of a lifetime and support one another financially. There are several rotating saving and credit associations with very similar characteristics to the loteria Albanian scheme: a few people pay a common pool every month (or every agreed period) and the amount collected is then given, in turn, to the person(s) that needs them the most (Imami, Rama and Polese 2018).

In many respects, moai follows the same dynamic: a group of people commits to meet regularly to handle a small amount of money to a treasurer that collects it and gives the full amount to one of them who is in need. For instance, if twelve moai participants meet and each of them puts 10,000 yen into the pool, at the end of the evening there are 120,000 yen (1,000 euro) that can be given to someone (or two persons who share it, if both are in need). The next time the group meets, everyone will pay the same amount and someone else will get the whole amount for their urgent larger expenses. What makes moai unique is its conviviality but also the fact that commitment to the scheme can last more than half a century. Finally, moai is regulated and protected by law: banks have a special field in their forms for entering the amount of moai and "moai bookkeeping notebooks" are for sale at stationery shops (Shimokawa 2006, 144).

People who commit to moai do not merely come to give money to a common pool but embed this payment in a social occasion. Participants of a moai meet for the whole evening, often in an izakaya (a place between a pub and a restaurant where dishes and snacks are mostly served to accompany drinking) where only by the end of the evening they handle money to the treasurer. Meeting with friends for a few drinks is a practice that exists all over the world and it is also accepted that if you are tired or have another commitment you can just join next time. Going out for moai is different: here not only you agree to meet your friends, but you also honour your commitment to regularly contribute to a pool of money. Obviously, being seriously ill can be excused, but being absent for a less important reason is avoided because you do not want to give the impression that you are skipping the meeting to avoid paying your contribution. Besides, once you are meeting these people for ten, twenty, or more years, you want to keep the bonding.

Moai is then a lifelong association: members may start as early as in their school years and continue for several decades, with several moai lasting for more than 70 years. That creates not only a bond but also a remedy against loneliness, especially the one affecting elder people. Mental conditions caused by loneliness and isolation has been said to be as fatal as other biological diseases and moai can be a natural cure. As a result, the practice has intrigued people interested in its effects on mental and physical health (Morrow 2019, 2020). Featured in the National Geographic, New York Times and in the Blue Zones project, moai was presented as one of the possible reasons why people in Okinawa tend to live longer, in average, than in other places on earth.

Still, the practice is not unique to Okinawa and the diversity of terms used may be indicative of the fact that it is a practice used in different contexts and geographical settings. Similar schemes existed in Korea and Mainland Japan, where they are known as mujin (無尽) and was, after WWII, used as alternative financial institutions in other parts of the country (Urban Life Research Project 2009). Morrow (2020) reports of uses of moyai, muyai, and tanomoshi (頼母子) for moai that, nonetheless, remains the most common expression in Okinawa. This expression can occasionally be used to indicate an organisation “raising funds for new businesses, architecture, land purchases, going on to higher education, travel" (Ryukyu Government Cultural Property Protection Committee 1972, 382).

Mentions of moai date as early as the XVIII century in the Ryukyu Kingdom for the provision and joint production of labor, and foodstuffs such as agricultural products (Yoshio Watanabe et al. 2008, 502; Urban Life Research Project 2009, 94), but a significant increase occurred over the XX century. Although eliminated from public life, mujin-inspired practices were undusted after WWII, when the availability of initial capital risked jeopardising the development of local financial institutions. In mainland Japan moai-like associations were gradually phased out by the 2015 Mujin Industry Law (無尽業法).

In contrast, not only many Okinawa-based moai remained unaffected, but the institution also is regulated by the 1917 "Moai Management Rule" (模合取締規則) adopted for the Okinawa Prefecture. Following a different path from the rest of the country, control and regulation were preferred over repression and liquidation (Okinawa Encyclopaedia 1983, 648). This is what has also been referred to as “purchase of an informal practice” that can be considered an alternative to repression (Polese and Morris 2015). Another example of the practice remaining active is in the Yamanashi Prefecture, while mostly used for food establishments (Mynavi 2013).

Still, moai remains mostly practiced in the geographical area between Kagoshima and the Okinawa archipelago passing through the Amami islands. Given that access to credit in Japan has become much easier, its raison d’etre is not merely economic. As explained by Gudeman (2015), not all economic transactions are led by economic motives as some uses of money are embedded in societal needs. Similarly, Nelson (2001) sees moai as a sort of “moral economy” that continues to operate in a system of modern globalized capitalism. In many respects, this is crucial for understanding the relationship of the Japanese society towards moai, and in general, informality. Moai is not a practice that survives “in spite of the state” (Polese, Kovacs and Jancsics 2018) but a domesticated one that evolved from a mechanism replacing state functions when people needed support, to one supplementing the state in its capacity while creating space for socialisation. This social essence is possibly the reason why moai is still thriving, not as an economic phenomenon but as a social cohesion mechanism, with money being no longer the end but the means. It is a way to create social boundaries between people, a mechanism to put honour and trustworthiness in the spotlight and remain in touch with, creating space for socialisation and mutual spiritual support.

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