Mtoshi Yamada, 43, a Japanese construction executive, has big plans for the next 10 years. He wants to pass six certifying exams in such diverse fields as health and real estate, read 480 books and buy some land to build a home. After that, he intends to bicycle around the world, go to art school and volunteer his services to a government-sponsored Peace Corps for the elderly. In fact, Yamada's schedule is chock full until 2018, when he plans to buy a grave. All this meticulous planning is his way of relaxing: once a self- described workaholic, Yamada was forced by tuberculosis to slow down. "I used to give 100% of myself to my job," he says. "Now I aim for 60%."
Like Yamada, many Japanese are belatedly discovering the joys -- and difficulties -- of relaxing. They still work among the longest hours in the industrialized world -- an average of 65 days a year more than Germans, and 25 more than Americans -- and take an average of only 8.2 days of paid vacation per year, but corporations as well as the state are urging them to take more time off. "The government doesn't want people to burn out," says Hidehiko Sekizawa, executive director of the Hakuhodo Institute of Life and Living, a Tokyo think tank.
A nation of workaholics, however, has found that taking it easy is no easy task. It requires practice, effort and, like most things in Japan, plenty of organization. At Mazda Motors, employees last spring were busy working out - their holiday plans. In an effort to get them to take time off, Mazda holds an annual "Dream Vacation Contest." Participants describe their ideal getaway, and the winners have their dreams come true at company expense. Last year's winner was Ryuzo Yamaguchi, a training manager, who wanted to enter an international ballroom-dance contest in Britain. With a $3,500 subsidy from Mazda, Yamaguchi and his wife waltzed and tangoed at London's Royal Albert Hall. A year later, he proudly displays his name emblazoned on a copy of the contest's program, but is still not fully reconciled to the idea of extended vacations. "Two weeks off was a long time," he says.
For some workaholic Japanese, ignoring vacations is no longer an option. Jusco, a supermarket chain, has ordered a mandatory month-long annual holiday for workers at middle-management level and above. Hitoshi Murakami, 36, a Nagoya store manager, spent his enforced leisure time hiking around his local prefecture, visiting his 90-year-old grandmother in Osaka, and for the first time since joining the company 14 years ago, taking a trip with his wife and her family, to the seaside town of Toba. Murakami also attended the Japanese equivalent of a PTA meeting, his first ever, and discovered that his eight- year-old son, often scolded at home for being absentminded, was seen by his teachers as a conscientious, responsible student. Until last April, Murakami had never taken more than five summer days off each year. Says he: "I never made any plans, so I never felt the need."