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.
In 2008, the manner posters of Tokyo Metro used the phrase pattern “Do it at ___.” The poster for April read Ie de yarō, “Do it at home.” Its subject was how passengers sit on the seats of a train.
In 2010, Tokyo Metro announced the next posters under the title “From ‘Do it at home’ to ‘Do it again.'”
Every year, Keidanren, the Japan Business Federation, asks its member companies what they value most when they hire new graduates. In the survey published in December 2017, komyunikēshon nōryoku, communication skill, came first. Keidanren called it the fifteenth year in a row, although its report a year earlier had counted thirteen years.
Natsume Sōseki’s novel Kusamakura (Grass Pillow) appeared in September 1906 in the magazine Shin Shōsetsu. It opens: Chi ni hatarakeba kado ga tatsu. Jō ni sao saseba nagasareru. Ikiji o tōseba kyūkutsu da. Tokaku ni hito no yo wa suminikui.
“Work by reason, and corners stick out. Pole along on feeling, and the current sweeps one away. Insist on one’s own will, and life grows cramped. In any case, the world of people is hard to live in.”