Japan - understand-culture

Seven Samurai

In Kurosawa Akira’s film Shichinin no samurai (Seven Samurai), released by Toho on April 26, 1954, farmers hire samurai to defend their village against bandits. At first, the frightened villagers stay in their houses and do not come out.

Then Kikuchiyo, who has joined the seven, beats the village’s wooden alarm board. Thinking the bandits have come, the villagers rush out of their houses and beg the samurai for help. Kikuchiyo also brings out armor and swords that the villagers had taken by hunting down fleeing samurai.

Ikumen Project

On June 17, 2010, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare launched the Ikumen Project. Its aim was to build momentum in society so that working men could take a more active part in raising their children and take childcare leave.

The ministry defined an ikumen as a man who enjoys raising children and grows himself through it.

The Vocabulary of Familiarity

Narenareshii (馴れ馴れしい): very familiar. The Daijisen dictionary also gives a second sense: rude, too unrestrained.

Shitashiki naka ni mo reigi ari (親しき仲にも礼儀あり): even between close friends, there is courtesy. However close the relationship, some courtesy must still be kept.

Sensei’s Testament

In Natsume Sōseki’s novel Kokoro, the narrator tells Sensei that he wants to learn from Sensei’s past. Sensei presses him: Anata wa hontō ni majime nan desu ka. “Are you really serious?” His past, he says, has taught him to doubt people, and he doubts the narrator too. But before he dies, he wants to trust another person, even just one.

He then agrees to tell the narrator his whole past. In his testament, he gives the reason: the narrator was serious and wanted a living lesson from life itself. Sensei writes that he is now breaking open his own heart to pour its blood on the narrator’s face.

The Vocabulary of Discretion

Kuchi ga katai (口が堅い): the mouth is hard. Not telling others what should not be told. The Daijisen dictionary gives the example kuchi ga katai otoko da kara shin’yō dekiru, he keeps things to himself, so he can be trusted.

Kuchi ga karui (口が軽い): the mouth is light. Talkative, and saying even what should not be said.

Ofureko (オフレコ): off the record. In a press conference or interview, an agreement not to record or publish certain remarks.

Time Day

June 10 is Toki no kinenbi, Time Day. The Tokyo Astronomical Observatory and the Seikatsu Kaizen Dōmeikai, a league for improving daily life linked to the Ministry of Education, established it in 1920.

The date comes from the Nihon Shoki. It records that in 671 Emperor Tenji first announced the hours with a water clock, the rōkoku, and with bells and drums. Converted to the solar calendar, that day is June 10. According to one account, the day was created to call on people to keep time strictly and to make daily life more rational.

The Birth of Tardiness

In the late Edo and early Meiji periods, Western visitors to Japan often complained that the Japanese were careless about time. A Dutch naval engineer in Japan at the end of the shogunate was one of them.

The 2001 essay collection Chikoku no tanjō (The Birth of Tardiness) studies how this changed. Most of its essays discuss systems introduced in the Meiji period. A co-organizer of the research writes that time discipline took hold fast in modern institutions such as railways, factories and schools, but spread to the rest of life only after World War II.

Within about 150 years, the old complaint had turned into its opposite.

The School Gate

On July 6, 1990, at Kobe Takatsuka High School, a public school in Hyōgo Prefecture, a male teacher closed the iron school gate at the 8:30 chime as part of lateness control. A first-year girl arriving at that moment was caught by the gate, which weighed about 230 kilograms. She died.

The teacher was dismissed. A court convicted him of professional negligence resulting in death and gave him a suspended sentence.

Delivered on New Year’s Day

Japan Post delivers New Year cards, nengajō, on January 1. For the 2026 New Year, it asked people to post them by Thursday, December 25, 2025, if they wanted the cards to arrive on ganjitsu, New Year’s Day.

The Vocabulary of Set Times

Teikoku (定刻): the set time. The Daijisen dictionary defines it as a decided, fixed time, and gives the example basu wa teikoku ni hassha suru, the bus leaves at the set time.

Nōki (納期): the time for delivering goods or paying taxes, and its deadline. The dictionary’s example is nōki ga semaru, the delivery date is drawing near.