For a handwritten rirekisho, the standard Japanese résumé form, the job site doda gives clear advice about mistakes: “Correction tape and correction fluid are absolutely not allowed. Rewrite it from the beginning.”
The career site of Mynavi agrees: “Basically, correcting a résumé is not acceptable. As a rule, rewrite it whenever possible.”
In 1834, at the age of 75, Katsushika Hokusai published Fugaku hyakkei (One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji). In its postscript, he wrote that at 73 he had begun to grasp the structure of birds, beasts, insects and fish, and how plants grow.
He went on: “So at 80 I will progress further, at 90 I will master their deeper meaning, at 100 I will perhaps be truly marvelous, and at 110 every dot and every line will seem alive.”
Shoshin wasuru bekarazu: do not forget the beginner’s mind. In his treatise Kakyō, the Noh master Zeami names three kinds.
Zehi no shoshin is the unpolished art of one’s early days, kept as a standard. Jiji no shoshin is the inexperience that belongs to each stage of a career. Rōgo no shoshin is the new beginning that old age brings.
In his first year at Hanamaki Higashi High School, Ōtani Shōhei made a goal-achievement sheet based on the Mandala Chart. At its center he wrote Dora ichi hachi kyūdan: to be the first-round draft pick of eight teams.
Around it he set the goals that would lead there, among them body building, control, breaking balls and mental strength. He also included un, luck, and ningensei, character.
In many Japanese schools, teachers improve their lessons together. A teacher plans a lesson with colleagues from the same grade or subject. The lesson is then taught as a kenkyū jugyō, a research lesson, while all the teachers of the school, or those of one grade or subject, watch.
Afterwards, the observers discuss it, in groups or all together. A paper from the National Institute for Educational Policy Research notes that this lesson study is voluntary training and demands a great deal of work.
In a study published in 2001, the psychologist Steven Heine and colleagues told Japanese participants that they had done well or poorly on a task. On a second task, those who had been told they failed persisted longer than those who had been told they succeeded.
The authors described this as a self-improving pattern.
Kūki o yomu (空気を読む): reading the air. The Daijisen dictionary defines it as inferring the situation from the atmosphere of a place, and especially judging what one should and should not do, and what others want and do not want.
In 2007, the abbreviation KY, for kūki yomenai, “cannot read the air,” was among the nominees for the year’s buzzword award, the Shingo Ryūkōgo Taishō.
In 2008, the game company G-mode began releasing Kūki yomi (Reading the Air), a game that diagnoses how well the player reads the air. Later versions appeared for the Nintendo Switch and the PlayStation 4. G-mode says that more than ten million people have played the series.
The official record that Japanese elementary and junior high schools keep for each pupil includes a section called kōdō no kiroku, the record of conduct. The reference form lists ten items.
Among them are omoiyari, kyōryoku (consideration and cooperation), kōsei, kōhei (fairness and impartiality) and kōkyōshin, kōtokushin (public spirit and public morality).
In the group discussions of Japanese job hunting, students sometimes meet a kurasshā, a crusher, who wrecks the discussion. A job guide for students notes that interviewers watch for cooperation and the ability to respond flexibly.
A career column on the site All About is blunter: “There are often students who try to push their own opinion through. Count on that student failing.” It adds that what the group discussion assesses is teamwork.