Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro built what came to be called the Ron-Yasu kankei, the Ron-Yasu relationship, with President Ronald Reagan. In 1983, he invited Reagan to his villa, the Hinode Sansō in Okutama, and held a summit meeting there.
Golf at Burning Tree
In June 1957, Prime Minister Kishi Nobusuke played golf with President Eisenhower at the Burning Tree club in Bethesda. On January 19, 2020, the sixtieth anniversary of the signing of the security treaty, his grandson, Prime Minister Abe Shinzō, spoke of “the friendship that Eisenhower and Kishi cultivated at Burning Tree.”
In the same speech, Abe said that Kishi was the first Japanese prime minister to play golf with an American president. He added that he himself had played golf with President Trump four times, and that the scores were to be kept a state secret.
The Vocabulary of Connection
En (縁): the meeting and joining of people, a tie between them. The Nihon Kokugo Daijiten also glosses it as enko, a personal connection.
Tōku no shinrui yori chikaku no tanin (遠くの親類より近くの他人): better a stranger nearby than a relative far away. In a time of need, the person to rely on is not the relative who lives far away but the neighbor.
Hadaka no tsukiai (裸のつきあい): naked association. A dictionary gives it as an example of hadaka, naked, in the sense of hiding nothing.
Company Trips
In 2014, the Sanrō Research Institute surveyed 2,000 member companies, and 122 gave valid answers. 29.1 percent said they had revived company events. Among the companies holding leisure and recreation events, the most common was the company trip, shain ryokō, held by 46.0 percent.
Employees are less sure. In a December 2024 survey by the company Selva, 300 office workers in their twenties to fifties were asked about company events. 47 percent were against them and 23 percent in favor. About half said they did not want to take part in company trips or sports days.
How Is Your Wife’s Illness?
Tanaka Kakuei was known for remembering people. A Bunshun article says that he remembered not only faces and names, but also family matters that he had heard about once. To a young official, the article says, he would call out: Yō, ○○-kun, okusan no byōki wa dō da. “Hey there, how is your wife’s illness?”
Visiting Alumni
In job hunting, Japanese students may visit OB and OG, “old boys” and “old girls,” graduates of their university who work at a company they hope to join. In a Mynavi survey of students graduating in March 2026, carried out in May 2025, 26.8 percent had made such a visit. Among male science students, the figure was 33.6 percent.
Drinking with the Boss
Two surveys point in different directions on whether young Japanese employees still want to drink with their colleagues and bosses. In a December 2025 survey of 360 company employees, 66.5 percent of those in their twenties said that they wanted to join such nomikai, drinking parties, or would join when needed.
In a survey of Generation Z by SHIBUYA109 lab., cited by the NLI Research Institute, 66.7 percent said that they were not fond of company drinking parties that include bosses. The report does not give the year of that survey.
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.