Candid Access Archives - understand-culture

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.

A Meeting Without Papers

In 2014, the magazine President reported a rule of Toyoda Akio, then president of Toyota. Participants in his Tuesday morning meeting were not allowed to bring materials. He said: Sorera o mitomeru to, jizen ni nemawashi o shite, shiryō o buka ni tsukuraseru koto ni naru tame, jikan ga muda ni nari, nakanaka honne ga tsutawarinikui. “If we allow them, people do nemawashi in advance and have subordinates make materials. Time is wasted, and true opinions are hard to get across.”

Not Speaking Their Minds

In January 2024, Persol Research and Consulting surveyed full-time employees aged 20 to 64 online. As reported by the news site TECH+, 41.6 percent said that they did not speak their true feelings at all in one-on-one meetings with their supervisor. In team meetings, the figure was 43.0 percent.

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.

Off the Record

On the evening of February 3, 2023, Arai Masayoshi, a secretary to Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, spoke to reporters off the record. He said he would not even want to see same-sex couples, and that if same-sex marriage were allowed, some people would abandon Japan. The Mainichi Shimbun reported the remarks under his name. Kishida dismissed him the next day.

In July 2011, the minister for reconstruction, Matsumoto Ryū, berated the governor of Miyagi in front of cameras. Then he told the reporters: Kaitara, mō sono sha wa owari dakara. If you write this, that company is finished. A local broadcaster aired the scene, and he resigned on July 5.

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.