Informal Closeness Archives - understand-culture

Fishing Buddies

In the film Tsuribaka nisshi (Free and Easy), released by Shochiku in 1988, Hamasaki Densuke is a salaryman obsessed with fishing. He is transferred to the head office in Tokyo, and in a cafeteria he meets Suzuki Ichinosuke, the president of his company. Neither knows who the other is.

When they go fishing, Hama-chan, a rank-and-file employee played by Nishida Toshiyuki, is the master. Su-san, the president, played by Mikuni Rentarō, is his pupil. The magazine Serai suggests that the appeal of the series probably lies in this reversal of rank in private life. It ran to 22 films, from 1988 to 2009.

SL Square in Shinbashi

When Japanese television wants to interview salarymen, it usually goes to the SL Square at the Hibiya exit of Shinbashi Station. The transport news site Traffic News explains why. Slightly drunk after work, the salarymen interviewed there tend to say what they really think, including their everyday complaints. The site suggests that this makes the square ideal for program makers.

Teahouse Politics

Machiai seiji (待合政治): teahouse politics. The Heibonsha World Encyclopedia notes that politicians and political merchants used machiai, teahouses for entertaining, so much that the term was coined.

In an interview with President Online, Oharu, the 84-year-old owner of a bar in Akasaka, recalled that in the Shōwa era Akasaka was a town of ryōtei, exclusive restaurants. Each faction of the Liberal Democratic Party had its fixed ryōtei. The Tanaka faction went to Chiyoshin, the Nakasone faction to Nasu. Of these ryōtei, she said: Zenbu naku narimashita. “They are all gone.”

Smoking Room Talk

Tabakomyunikēshon: tobacco communication, the talk among smokers at work. In 2015, Mynavi News asked 500 readers whether it could be done away with. 50.2 percent said yes and 49.8 percent said no.

One reader, a 31-year-old man, said: Kantan na uchiawase wa tabako-beya de yattemasu ne. “We hold simple meetings in the smoking room.” A 30-year-old woman said that work moved forward on the basis of conversations and information shared there.

Waigaya

Honda describes waigaya as a culture of its own. People discuss dreams or what their work should be, nenrei ya shokui ni torawarezu, without regard to age or position. The name imitates the sound of a noisy discussion.

Honda adds that waigaya is not a place for compromise and adjustment in order to reach agreement. It is a place to clash opinions in earnest, honki de honne de, and create new value.

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.

The Ichiriki Teahouse

In Act 7 of the play Kanadehon Chūshingura, first staged in Osaka in 1748, Ōboshi Yuranosuke spends day after day in revelry at the Ichiriki teahouse in Gion. The act is called Bōsui no dan, the scene of feigned drunkenness.

Everyone around him, enemy and ally, tries to learn his true intention. His enemies suspect that his drinking hides a plan of revenge, and they lay traps to expose it. Yuranosuke has prepared for their tricks and defeats them.

The Vocabulary of Front and Back

Kuromaku (黒幕): black curtain. In kabuki, a black cotton curtain that hides the stage between scenes or serves as a background. In everyday use, a person who stays out of view and directs or plots behind the scenes.

Tatemae (建て前): in building, raising the main frame of a house, its posts, beams and ridge, on the foundation. The same word is used for the public stance, in the pair tatemae to honne, public stance and true feelings.

Hara o waru (腹を割る): to split the belly. To tell one’s true feelings without hiding anything.

Public Stance and True Feelings

Tatemae (建前): the principle one officially stands by. The outward view. A dictionary gives the example Ano hito wa tatemae to honne ga mattaku chigau, that person’s public stance and true feelings are completely different.

Honne (本音): one’s true thoughts or feelings, as opposed to what one says in public for the sake of harmony.

Deru kui wa utareru (出る杭は打たれる): the stake that sticks out gets hammered. A person who stands out or oversteps tends to be resented and criticized by others.

Party Without Rank

A bureikō is a banquet held without regard to rank or etiquette. The most famous one in Japanese history was held by Emperor Go-Daigo in the Kamakura period. He used it to gather people of different ranks and plot in secret. One guest told his wife, and the plot leaked.

The same source notes that, in practice, rank does not disappear at a bureikō. Communication at company drinking parties has its own coined word, nominication, from nomu (to drink). It first appeared in the media in the 1980s.