A rakugo storyteller’s career passes through the ranks of zenza, futatsume and shin’uchi. One guide to rakugo says that the zenza stage usually lasts four or five years. Another says that the step from futatsume to shin’uchi takes about ten years.
The first guide puts the whole path from entering the profession to becoming shin’uchi at ten to fifteen years, depending on talent and effort.
Since April 1989, newly appointed teachers at national and public schools in Japan have gone through shoninsha kenshū, initial training. The law requires the training to last one year from the date of hiring.
For each new teacher, a shidō kyōin, a guiding teacher, is appointed from among the vice principal, the teachers and the lecturers of the same school.
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.”
The Japanese state designates important intangible cultural properties and certifies the individuals who hold them. These holders are commonly called ningen kokuhō, Living National Treasures. The state pays each of them a special grant of two million yen a year.
Senpai (先輩): a person who entered the same school or workplace earlier. Also a person above oneself in age, position or experience.
Kōhai (後輩): the opposite of senpai.
Tameguchi (ため口): a younger person speaking to an older person as an equal.
In October 2004, Suzuki Ichirō broke the major league record for hits in one season. Afterwards he said: Chicchai koto o kasaneru koto ga, tondemonai tokoro ni tadoritsuku tada hitotsu no michi nan da na to, ima, kanjite imasu. “Now I feel that piling up small things is the only way to reach an extraordinary place.”
Sources give his words in slightly different forms.
On December 2, 2019, the grand prize of Japan’s annual New Words and Buzzwords Awards went to ONE TEAM. It was the slogan of the national rugby team at the Rugby World Cup 2019 in Japan, coached by Jamie Joseph.
Under captain Michael Leitch, the squad of 31 players included 15 players from seven other countries. The team won all four of its pool matches and reached the knockout stage for the first time.
Many Japanese school grounds have a statue of a boy who carries firewood on his back and reads a book as he walks. He is Ninomiya Kinjirō, later known as Ninomiya Sontoku.
The first such statue at a school was put up in 1924 in Toyohashi. In the 1930s and 1940s, schools across the country followed. Many statues were taken for their metal during the Second World War.
Otsukaresama (お疲れ様): an expression that acknowledges another person’s effort. At work, it is also said to a colleague who leaves before others. It can be said to colleagues and to superiors.
Isshōkenmei (一生懸命): with all one’s might. It grew out of the older isshokenmei (一所懸命), which described a medieval warrior who staked his life on a single landholding.
A verse attributed to the tea master Sen no Rikyū reads: Kiku sahō mamori tsukushite yaburu tomo hanaruru tote mo moto o wasuru na. Keep the rules and forms completely. Even when breaking them, even when leaving them, do not forget the root.
The verse is linked to shuhari, the stages of learning a traditional art. Shu is holding to the basics. Ha is adapting them. Ri is developing one’s own way.