Group Membership Archives - understand-culture

Press Clubs

Japanese ministries and other public offices house kisha kurabu, press clubs. The encyclopedia Imidas calls them a system specific to Japan: voluntary organizations of reporters based in government offices. It notes criticism of their exclusiveness, their closed nature and their sense of privilege, and reports that the European Union called for their abolition.

In 2002, the Japan Newspaper Association revised its view of the clubs. It dropped their old description as social bodies and called them open organizations.

Membership-Type Employment

Membāshippu-gata koyō, membership-type employment, is a term used by the labor scholar Hamaguchi Keiichirō, who set it against job-type employment. A journal of the Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training describes the membership type: employees are hired without a fixed job or workplace, and the company decides their job and workplace as needed, under its authority over personnel.

Elders of Sumo

In professional sumo, a foreign-born wrestler must acquire Japanese nationality to become a stablemaster. Only wrestlers with Japanese nationality have the right to become an elder, toshiyori.

Stables are also limited in their foreign-born members. Since a revision of the rule in 2010, each stable may have only one wrestler of foreign birth.

Botchan

In Natsume Sōseki’s novel Botchan, published in 1906 in the magazine Hototogisu, the narrator was born and raised in Tokyo. He takes a post at a middle school in a country town in Shikoku. His pupils write Tenpura sensei, Mr. Tempura, on the blackboard to make fun of him.

School Cliques

Gakubatsu (学閥): a school clique. The dictionary defines it as an exclusive group formed by people from the same school or the same academic school.

In the spring 2023 examination for career-track national civil servants, the University of Tokyo had more successful candidates than any other university, 193. That was 24 fewer than the year before.

Ten Generations in Kyoto

A popular saying holds that a person must live in Kyoto for ten generations to count as a Kyoto person. An essay in the journal of the Japan Society of Plasma Science and Fusion Research repeats it: “It is commonly said, Kyoto ten generations. Unless one has lived in Kyoto for ten generations, one is apparently not a Kyoto person.”

Outsiders, Young People and Fools

Yosomono, wakamono, bakamono: outsiders, young people and fools. The phrase is used in Japanese regional revitalization. At a regional development seminar on February 2, 2011, reported by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the speaker said that the presence of outsiders, young people and fools is indispensable.

A 2014 column in the Ryūkyū Shimpō says that outsiders and young people are said to be the ones who break through a stalled situation.

The Vocabulary of Belonging

Soto (外): outside. The Daijisen dictionary also defines it as people or places other than those concerned, an outsider, another person. One of its examples is kimitsu ga soto ni moreru, a secret leaks outside.

Miuchi (身内): followers of the same boss. Also, members of the same organization. A dictionary example: miuchi no fushōji o inpei suru, to cover up a scandal among one’s own.

Haenuki (生え抜き): born and bred. An HR glossary explains a haenuki employee as one hired as a new graduate, not a mid-career hire or an employee on loan from elsewhere.

Name-Taking

In traditional arts such as music and dance, a student who has learned a certain level of skill may receive a professional name from the head of the school, the iemoto. This is called natori, taking a name.

The Nipponica encyclopedia says that the iemoto gives the disciple some characters of the school’s name. As a rule, the iemoto receives a substantial sum and issues a certificate and a name plate. A natori may then take disciples and teach them as the iemoto’s representative.