Stroke Order

Japanese children learn hitsujun, the order in which the strokes of a character are written. The Ministry of Education’s commentary on the curriculum for writing in the first two grades of elementary school asks pupils to write carefully, “following stroke order.” The standard taught in schools still goes back to a guide published by the Ministry of Education in 1958, the Hitsujun shidō no tebiki.

Writers on the subject point out that stroke order has no single, absolute norm, and that society has no one correct order. Schools still teach the order of the 1958 guide as the standard.

The Sound of a Closing Door

Honda paid attention to the sound of the closing door on its kei car, the N-ONE. In a statement quoted by the news site Norimono News, Honda recalls the saying ii kuruma wa doa no shimaru oto ga chigau, a good car has a different door-closing sound. It adds that the sound may also be a barometer of quality.

Another Honda statement in the same article says that even in a kei car, the sound of the door is one of the points that affect customer satisfaction, although it cannot be expressed in numbers.

Prevention Measures That Did Not Work

In 2016, a special investigation committee reported on improper fuel economy testing at Mitsubishi Motors. It considered that many points were in common with the causes and background of the company’s earlier recall cover-ups. After those cover-ups, the company had taken measures to prevent a repeat. They neither corrected nor prevented the new problem.

The committee wrote that the earlier prevention measures had been of no use at all in preventing the problem or finding it early. Because the case of 2004 had concerned the improper handling of quality information, the company’s awareness of the problem had stayed limited to quality information.

The Vocabulary of Surface Fixes

Kusai mono ni futa o suru (臭い物に蓋をする): to put a lid on what stinks. The magazine DIME explains the proverb as covering the source of a bad smell, instead of removing it, so that the smell does not escape. It means hiding what is inconvenient, so that it does not come to light.

Taishō ryōhō (対症療法): symptomatic treatment. In medicine, it treats the symptoms, not the cause of a disease. The Daijisen dictionary gives a second sense: handling a matter by responding to what appears on the surface, apart from a fundamental solution.

No Track Record, Lower Rank

In 2024, a government document on public procurement from startups, posted by the Cabinet Secretariat, described a problem. Companies are ranked for public tenders by a score. Setsuritsu mamonaku jisseki no nai sutātoappu wa tensū ga hikuku natte shimai, teii no ranku ni nariyasuku, kibo no ōkii nyūsatsu ni sanka ga seigen sarete shimau. “Newly founded startups with no track record get low scores, tend to be ranked low, and are restricted from large tenders.”

A document released in June 2024 on the website of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry added that a startup must bid at a lower price to beat the overall score of A- and B-ranked companies with a track record and capital.

To Learn and to Imitate

Manabu (学ぶ): to learn. The Digital Daijisen dictionary notes that it has the same origin as manebu (まねぶ), to imitate. The Nihon Kokugo Daijiten adds that which of the two came first is not known.

Momo kuri sannen kaki hachinen (桃栗三年柿八年): peaches and chestnuts take three years, persimmons eight. Everything takes its due time before it bears fruit.

Withered Technology

Kareta gijutsu no suihei shikō, lateral thinking with withered technology, is the phrase most associated with the Nintendo developer Yokoi Gunpei. The online encyclopedia Nico Nico Pedia explains kareta gijutsu as technology that has already spread widely and is fully mastered.

The same encyclopedia says that the Game & Watch was born when small LCD screens and semiconductors, overproduced during a sales war over electronic calculators, were put to use for play. A Japanese toy industry site tells the story the same way.

Special Zones for Structural Reform

In 2002, Japan created by law the kōzō kaikaku tokku, special zones for structural reform. The system is meant to put the original ideas of a region into practice. The government’s basic policy sets the next step as a principle: measures judged to have caused no particular problems are to be extended quickly to the whole country, zenkoku tenkai.

Maiko Stages

A young woman who wants to become a maiko in Kyoto first spends about a year as a shikomi, living in and training. Then comes minarai, learning by watching. At a designated teahouse, she is allowed to see what happens at the banquets. The day she becomes a maiko is called misedashi.

Around the fourth or fifth year as a maiko, after the age of twenty, she becomes a geiko. This step is called erikae, the changing of the collar.

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