The Gosei , five reflections, are questions for self-examination from the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy in Etajima. The first reads: Shisei ni motoru nakarishi ka . Have I not gone against utmost sincerity? The others ask whether one has been ashamed of one’s words and deeds, lacked spirit, regretted one’s effort, or been lazy.
The questions were devised by the academy’s superintendent, Matsushita Hajime. The tradition passed on to the Maritime Self-Defense Force.
Dobuita senkyo (どぶ板選挙): gutter-board elections. A dobuita is a board laid over a street drain. A Japanese dictionary defines the phrase as a figure for patient, direct campaigning, going to voters house by house to ask for their support.
The business site Tōyō Keizai Online wrote that the so-called dobuita election is still the standard election strategy. Candidates call out their names in street speeches and from campaign cars, and stand in front of stations and in shopping streets, smiling at passers-by.
Sanko no rei (三顧の礼): the courtesy of three visits. A person of higher rank goes to a person of lower rank again and again, shows every courtesy and asks for something. The phrase comes from the Records of the Three Kingdoms. Liu Bei visited Zhuge Liang three times to bring him into his service.
A Japanese example sentence: Kanojo wa, shachō ga sanko no rei de tōsha ni mukaeireta jinzai da . She is someone our president brought into the company with the courtesy of three visits.
Toyama’s medicine sellers leave a box of household medicines with a family. A salesperson visits every six months to a year and collects payment only for the medicines that were used. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes this as the traditional Toyama method, sen’yō kōri , use first and profit after.
The seller keeps a kakebachō , a customer ledger. A magazine of JR West calls it detailed data for managing customers. The magazine Waraku writes that the sellers won the trust and confidence of their customers.
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?”
Nenshi mawari is the first greeting visit of the new year to business partners. A business etiquette guide advises finishing the rounds by January 15, the Little New Year. Visitors often bring towels, a box of sweets, or coffee or tea. The gift brought on this visit is called onenga.
An accounting guide notes that some companies hand out towels at the start of the year to clients they have long dealt with. It also mentions New Year hand towels and calendars.
Kōgen reishoku sukunashi jin (巧言令色、鮮し仁): clever words and a pleasing face are seldom found with true virtue. The saying comes from the Analects of Confucius.
In Japanese, kōgen reishoku means to decorate one’s words and put on an agreeable face, without meaning it, in order to flatter others.
The teacher Yoshida Shōin lived by a line from Mencius: Shisei ni shite ugokazaru mono wa, imada kore arazaru nari. There has never been anyone who was not moved by utmost sincerity.
When he was interrogated by the shogunate in Edo, he believed in this teaching and kept trying to persuade the senior councillors. He was sentenced to death.