手締め Tejime

At the end of the nomikai in my last post, the evening was brought to a close with an activity called tejime. The Japanese encyclopedia describes tejime as a celebratory rhythmic clapping of hands that is done to mark the successful closing of an event.

I first came to Japan in 2003. I’ve spent a lot of time visiting and I studied in Tokyo for a year and a half. However, it wasn’t until I started doing business in Japan last year when I encountered the tejime. You can imagine my bafflement as everyone around me commenced the ritual. Take a look:

This example shows the tejime closing the end of a festival in Japan. It can happen after various events such as weddings, business parties and of course, company nights out.

I was confused though. The tejime seemed to have several different forms and different names. This is Japan; there must be rules for these things. So I asked my colleagues and even they weren’t too sure. We found this site though, which cleared things up.

The tejime usually starts with a small speech, where the leader thanks everyone for coming and says the appropriate words. He is then supposed to say the following:

「それでは皆さん、お手を拝借」

Everyone, please ready your hands.

He then says, “Yoh~ !”, which you can see in the video, and everyone claps a certain rhythm. There are a few of these rhythms though.

We’ll start with 三本締め(“Sanbonjime”). This is what you saw in the video above. The rhythm is like this:

and those two bars are repeated three times.

The next is 一本締め(“Ipponjime”). For those of you who can’t read Japanese, you may still notice that the only difference is that 三 has turned into 一. Sure enough, instead of doing the above rhythm three times, you only do it once.

Some of you who live in Japan may be thinking, “Hang on, I’ve done this before, and we did one where we only clap once”. It’s name is 一丁締め(“Iccho-jime”). However, in the Kanto region, which includes Tokyo, it is also called Ipponjime. This leads to some confusion for people like the author of the website I linked to. He has been left on his own when everyone else claps once and he continues the rhythm. In order to avoid the confusion, it can also be called Kanto Ipponjime. Here it is:

The pattern of Ipponjime is 3, 3, 3, 1. The set of threes add up to 9. The number nine has the following character: 九. If you add one more pen stroke (or clap), you get 丸, which is the character for a circle. Therefore, clapping ten times like this is supposed to form a circle and complete the harmony.

九 ⇒ 丸

How do you tell which pattern is appropriate? My colleagues didn’t know the answer to this. The website states that Ipponjime is the standard and this means that everyone is thankful and pays their respects. Doing this three times for Sanbonjime simply means that these feelings are tripled! Sanbonjime is therefore used on those extra special occasions where people want to celebrate the most. The Iccho-jime is perhaps the most frequent in Tokyo and is the least formal.

Incidentally, for those studying Japanese, the “Yoh~” that you always here before the clapping was originally 祝おう, meaning “Let us celebrate”.

I really like this little ritual and it’s easy to see it’s appeal. It’s comforting to know that the event is officially over and there’s no milling around with people saying, “OK, I’ll take off now”, and people leaving in dribs and drabs.

Doh is for DONUTS!

During my time at my present employer, I have of course been drinking with my colleagues on quite a few occasions. It’s always fun and we have a laugh. Last Tuesday was different...

With the arrival of the hot weather in Japan, the office has gone into “cool biz” mode. The temperature gauge has been turned up and the ties are off. The Summer is also the time for an event called 暑気払い(“shokibarai”). This phrase literally means “to beat the heat away” and it’s an opportunity to let out all of the pent up heat and the stress of work. Tuesday was the first time that I had participated in such an event.

Just like any other nomikai, the first thing to do is to assign a person to the role of kanji (幹事). The kanji must organize everything and co-ordinate the entire event. It’s a real pain and naturally the job usually rotates between the more junior members, of which I am one. For this reason, I was surprised when my boss took the responsibility.

The first thing the kanji must do is establish the date for the event. This usually works by passing a calendar round the office. Each person takes their hanko and stamps all of the dates that they are unavailable. The calendar is passed to the highest ranking person first and it works its way down.

After that, the kanji sent the following email, which gave me an indication that this was not the usual nomikai:

営業部暑気払いの開催日が６月３０日（火）に決まりましたので、 取り急ぎご連絡申し上げます。 お店は丸の内界隈のお店を予定しておりますが、追ってご連絡いた します。 当日は１人１芸を、＿＿＿さんのみ２芸（１芸では足らぬとの弁）をよろしくお願いします。

This to quickly inform you that the date for the marketing department’s shokibarai has been set to the 30th of June (Tuesday). We are planning on choosing a venue in the marunouchi area. I would like to request that each participant prepares one performance, with the exception of Mr. ___ who must prepare two (the consensus was that 1 was insufficient).

“Performance? What the *$#?”, I thought to myself. This was the first time that such a request had been made.

Next, came the following email:

営業部の皆様 暑い季節を目前に控え、鬱陶しい梅雨空を吹き飛ばすべく、営業部・懇親会を開催することになりました。 皆様ひとり残らず、奮ってご参加くださいますよう、宜しくお願い申し上げます。 日時：６月３０日（火） １９時スタート 場所：パセオ・銀座店（カラオケ居酒屋） http://www.pasela-ginza.com/ 個室、カラオケ機器、ダーツ ゲーム付です。（ダーツはワンゲーム１００円の課金） なお、飲み放題２時間限定（！）、でありますので、遅刻などなきよう、この日ばか りは仕事を割り切って、１８時３０分頃に、みんなで揃って、こっそり退社と致したく、ご協力宜しくお願いいたします。 幹事・＿＿＿

With the Summer heat near at hand, in order to drive away the overcast and rainy skies, we are holding a party for the whole marketing department. I would like to invite everyone, without exception, for active participation in the event. Day/Time: June 30 (Tue) 19:00 Start Place: Paseo, Ginza (Karaoke Izakaya) http://www.pasela-ginza.com/ It’s a private room, with a karaoke machine and darts. (A darts game costs 100 yen). We also have an all-you-can-drink deal for 2 hours(!) so lets all finish our work on time and be sure that we’re not late. It would be very much appreciated if we could meet at 6:30 and quietly exit the office.

Sure enough, on the day, we had the unusual pleasure of everyone finishing on time and we quietly met on the first floor of the building as instructed. The karaoke room was quite large and the seats were arranged in a U shape, with a flatscreen TV and karaoke machine at the other end. Our deputy director, who likes to drink, had been looking forward to this event for quite a while and it was reportedly his idea to go for karaoke. As soon as the first round arrived, he enthusiastically stood up and kicked the evening off with a speech and a hearty “Kampai!”.

We then spent two and a half hours singing and drinking a lot. We were also served a course meal, which was very good, but lacking in quantity. Obviously everyone got fairly hammered and after Japanese pop, came some Enka singing from the older participants. Once one person was finished singing, the deputy director that I mentioned earlier started a trend where the singer’s name was chanted, and people clapped in time as the individual was forced to down his/her drink. I’ve been drinking several times with my department and this was the first time that this had happened.

One peculiarity of going out in Japan is that there are some people who can’t drink. When I say “can’t drink”, I don’t mean that these people can drink less than other people, I mean that they literally can’t drink. There is one guy in our marketing department who never drinks a drop. He says that if he has one beer, it will take him out of the game for the rest of the evening. He is a legend in the office for being a really funny guy and he’s also reasonably bulky (in a good way!). You would expect him to be able to drink substantial amounts. He spent the evening drinking ginger ales and cokes and acquitted himself admirably with a few renditions of Japanese pop songs where he was hilarious in each.

Things progressed to the next level, where a new song was introduced. It goes something like this: (to the tune of “Do Re Mi” from a Sound of Music)

ドーはドーナツのドー♪ レーはレモンのレー♪ ミーはみんなのミー♪ ファーはファイトのファー♪ ソは青い空ー♪ ….

Doh is for DONUTS! Reh is for Rehmon! Mi is for Minna! Fa is for Faito! So is the so from Aozora!

Rehmon = Lemon, Minna = Everyone, Faito = Fight, Aozora = Blue sky

Before singing the song, the victim had several drinks lined up in front of him, with the next drink being of a smaller quantity than the previous. This made the line up look like a xylophone. Everyone sang “Doh is for DONUTS!” and the person had to down the first drink. Then everyone sings “Reh is for Remon!” and the second drink is consumed etc.

I managed to avoid that one but the non-drinker in our group wasn’t as fortunate. Instead of beers, he got a ginger ale, a coke, a bowl of salad and a mango mouse pudding.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

My signature is atrocious. Anyone who takes a moment to look at my hasty scribble will surely snicker at the childlike mess of pen strokes that are somehow supposed to suffice as evidence of my identity. I’ve tried to improve it and to craft something a little more… distinctive. Something with a bit more aesthetic appeal than the scrawl I produce. But to no avail. Even Japanese people scoff.

Luckily, in Japan, in the land where the writing is complex, where the characters are beautiful and where calligraphy is an art form, a signature is not necessary. Instead, the Japanese use a seal to stamp official documents. This seal is called an “inkan” or a “hanko”. There are many different kinds but they are all stamps that print a name in red ink on a white background.

When I started working here, I didn’t have a seal and my colleagues decided to give me one as a gift. It’s an absolutely essential piece of office equipment and I use it many times every day to stamp internal documents. For seals used in the office, Japanese people have their surname engraved in a circular seal that is about a centimeter in diameter. Japanese surnames almost always have two characters, sometimes one and rarely three. Western people have several choices when creating their own seal.

1. Write your name in katakana and put this in the seal. Katakana is a phonetic syllabary that is used to spell out the pronunciation of foreign words. Foreigners almost always write their names in katakana. In converting to katakana, Japanese syllables must be chosen so as to approximate the original pronunciation as closely as possible. If you choose katakana for your hanko, you will probably only be able to squeeze in 3 characters on two lines. My name is アンドリュー, which is 6 characters and just fits. It is pronounced, “an-doh-ryew”.
2. Choose kanji for your name and put this in the seal. Kanji are characters imported from China that have meaning and can have multiple pronunciations in Japanese. For example 川 is river and 木 is tree. 木 can be pronounced “ki” or “moku”. Since there are various characters for a given pronunciation, foreigners have many choices when attaching kanji to their names. My friends attached the following kanji to my name: 安藤龍. Approximate meanings are 安: tranquil, 藤: wisteria tree, 龍: dragon.
3. Write your name normally in the alphabet and put this in the seal. I was told that you can have up to two lines with up to 6 characters on each line. My surname and first name both have six characters. Perfect.

I went for option 3 and this incurred a surprising amount of fascination from my colleagues. They had never seen a seal with English characters before. Here it is:

If you choose option 1 or 2 then you’ll also have to choose a font and style. To illustrate the choice available, I found some samples where the name 徳川 (Tokugawa) is used. Tokugawa Ieyasu is a famous character from Japanese history.

篆書体	太枠篆書体	吉相体	古印体	隷書体
ていしょたい	ふとわくてんしょ	きっそうたい	こいんたい	れいしょたい

If you’re like me, you’ll find some of these hard to identify with the original characters. In the office, some of my colleagues use seals with styles that are difficult to read. Documents are passed round and once you’ve read the document, you're supposed to stamp it. When I started out, it was difficult for me to tell who had read the document and who hadn’t. I therefore couldn’t work out who to pass it on to. I’m used to it now but it was a challenge. I’ll do another post in the future on how this document stamping exercise works.

Most people will have several seals. One or two for the office, one to keep at home by the door to sign for deliveries, one official version which you use for important documents and maybe more. Your official seal will be used for things like renting an apartment, buying a vehicle or getting married. The official seal is called a “jitsu-in” and these are closely regulated by law. The size, shape, design and font are all specified to be within certain limits. There is also a “ginko-in”, which is the seal used for opening a bank account.

Carving seals is an old profession in Japan and most people go to a specialist to get their jitsu-in and ginko-in. If you have a common name, then you can buy a seal to put by the door from your local miscellaneous goods store:

These days, seals can also be ordered online but a specialist will be able to design something unique to you. This provides security, especially important with the bank seal. It’s important to keep your official seal in a safe place since it is proof of your identity. It’s easy to forge a signature but it’s easier to stamp a seal if you’ve got it to hand. In my company, the important seals are kept in a safe.

Are Spiders and Octopuses Lucky in China?

After Singapore, we flew to Hong Kong and stayed there for a couple of days. There’s something about Hong Kong that I really like. It’s hard to put my finger on exactly what it is but it definitely has a character that I find appealing. San Francisco, Kyoto and Edinburgh are all the same.

I’m not the only one that likes Hong Kong. Paul Krugman was there at the same time, and he talks about how futuristic the place looks because the city has grown vertically rather than horizontally. (Incidentally, it appears he followed me back to Japan too. Paul, if you’re looking for advice on the economy and want to get in touch, just leave a comment below) Unlike Japan, Hong Kong is blessed with an absence of earthquakes, which allows for the construction of closely packed skyscrapers. With the dense greenery cloaking the Kowloon mountains behind, it makes for an incredible sight. (Click for full screen)

The majority of our meetings were in the loftier section of one of the skyscrapers and we had plenty of opportunities to admire the view. One of our clients joked that he has the best economic indicator right outside his window. He just monitors the number of tankers and haulers making their way in out of the bay and assesses the economic health of the region. One thing I did notice is that there are is no 4^th floor in any of the skyscrapers. There’s no 24^th floor either. I think that probably extends to 34, 44 and the rest. In both China and Japan, the number 4 is unlucky. The concept of “luck” is a western one and perhaps “unlucky” is a poor description. The reason for the negative association in both countries is that the number has the same pronunciation as the word for death. The character for 4 is 四. The character for death is 死. In Japanese, both words are pronounced し (shi). In order to avoid the association, the Japanese even go so far as to provide an alternative pronunciation for the number 4. You can also pronounce it よん (“yon”). The practice of excluding the 4^th floor in a building is similar to that of excluding the 13^th row in an aircraft. I’ve always wondered if anyone on the 5^th floor gets upset. After all, if you’re on the 5^th floor, you’re actually on the 4^th floor and to add insult to injury, you’re being lied to.

On the opposite side of the fence, it turns out that two wrongs do make a right because when you double 4, you get 8, which is a very lucky number in both Japan and China. When I was in Hong Kong, I noticed that the number 8 appeared in a lot of advertisements, prices, signs etc. A quick search on Wikipedia, reveals the following trivia:

A telephone number with all digits being eights was sold for USD$270,723 in Chengdu, China.
A man in Hangzhou offered to sell his license plate reading A88888 for RMB 1.12 million (roughly $164,000 USD).

And I’m sure you will remember:

The opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Beijing began on 8/8/08 at 8 seconds and 8 minutes past 8 pm (local time)

Interestingly, the reason for the positive association with the number 8 is different in Japan and China. My friend from Hong Kong tells me, and Wikipedia confirms, that the Chinese pronunciation for 8 is similar to the pronunciation for “prosperity” and “fortune”. In Japan, the shape of the character used to represent the number is more important. The Japanese say 末広がり, which means to “broaden towards the end” and can be used to describe increasing prosperity as time goes on. The character broadens towards the bottom and represents this idea.

I wonder if things associated with the number 8, like octopuses or arachnids, inherit the association of good fortune?

Solution

If you like puzzles and you haven’t seen my post on Singapore where I shared a puzzle that some clients gave me, please take a look and read no further!

For those of you who have already been thinking about it, here’s the solution:

There are 30 coins in front of the blind man. 18 have heads facing up, 12 have tails facing up. His aim is to separate the coins into two groups such that there is an equal number of coins with heads facing up in both groups.

The blind man takes 18 of the coins and puts them in a group to his left. He takes the remaining 12 and puts them in a group to his right. He doesn’t flip any coins over yet. The trouble is that he doesn’t know how many coins on the left have heads facing up. It could be all 18, it could be 12, and it could be a minimum of 6. What he does know is that the heads that don’t go to the left pile, must be in the right pile. So if there are 18 heads on the left, there are zero on the right. If there are 12 heads on the left, there are 6 on the right etc. To insert some letters: if there are x heads on the left, then there are 18-x heads on the right.

The blind man then flips over all the coins in the left pile. Problem solved. If there were 18 heads on the left then they all turn to tails. If there were 12 heads on the left, then those 12 turn to tails and the remaining 6 turn to heads. To use letters again, if there were x heads on the left, then after flipping all of the coins on the left, there are now 18-x heads on the left. This is the same number as the number of heads on the right.

I like puzzles and I thought that was a good ‘un. Hope you had fun thinking about it.

Singapore – Storms, English and a Puzzle

I spent the past week in Hong Kong and Singapore on business and I thought I'd write a little bit about these trips.

Arriving in Singapore on the Sunday evening, I was dreading the tropical heat that I knew would greet me. Running around town attending 6 meetings every day in temperatures of up to 36 degrees is a challenge for a Scotsman. I politely suggested to my 部長 (director), that perhaps we could attend the meetings in the same fashion as our clients – with no jacket or tie. I got a firm rebuttal. Fortunately, I had made the wise decision of investing in a summer suit and short sleeved shirts in preparation for the similarly unpleasant heat during Tokyo’s summer.

I had anticipated the heat, but what I hadn’t anticipated were the tropical storms. We were in a meeting on the 15^th floor of a central building when quite suddenly, the sky darkened and the heavens opened. We’re not talking about the typical Tokyo drizzle, we’re talking about seriously heavy rain crashing against the windows. Thunder and lightning then began their assault on our exposed position and interrupted my presentation. My listeners were completely unperturbed though and asked me to continue, saying that it would be over soon. Sure enough, after about an hour, the skies cleared. Talking to locals, I was told that these storms occur almost daily so I resolved to carry around an umbrella for the remaining two days. Of course, carrying the umbrella with my heavy bag full of presentation material ensured that the rain didn’t return.

Singapore is slowly becoming the dominant financial centre in Asia and it becomes quickly obvious that one of the main reasons for this is the prevalence of English. Although the vast majority of the population is of Chinese, Malay or Indian descent, English is the official language and is spoken by everyone. If you get in a taxi in Singapore, you can have a good conversation with the driver. If you get in a taxi in Japan or Hong Kong, you end up stabbing a map with your finger. The street signs look identical to those in the States, with white writing on a green background. It’s no wonder that so many American firms choose to set up their Asian hub in Singapore.

Singapore is similar to Japan in quite a few ways. There’s no tipping and you get great service. Everyone smiles, talks to you politely and calls you sir. It felt very safe too.

On the last evening, we were having some drinks with clients and one of them gave me a puzzle. I love puzzles and this is a good one. It took me about 20 minutes to figure it out. Continuing with the theme of Michael’s post last month, I thought I’d share it with you.

A blind man has 30 coins in front of him on a table. 18 of those coins have heads facing up. The remaining 12 have tails facing up. The blind man has to separate the coins into two groups such that the number of heads facing up is the same in both groups. How does he do it?

I can tell you that there are no trick answers to this puzzle. The coins are all perfectly smooth so the blind man can’t feel the pattern of heads or tails using his fingers. Balancing the coins on their edges doesn’t solve the problem either. It’s pretty straight forward when you’ve got the answer but figuring it out takes time.

Answers in the comments or by email!

Honestly...

You don't tip in Japan. Despite this, I wouldn't be surprised if it's the best service in the world. I've heard a few stories of foreigners who leave a tip on the restaurant table and the owner comes running down the street to give it back to them. 

This story takes the cake though.

At the weekend, we went to the supermarket and picked up a few things. One of them was a small pizza that cost around 200 yen. We got a call today from the supermarket telling us that they'd overcharged us by 30 yen. 30 yen is about 20 pence or 30 cents. They apologized profusely and wanted to come to our apartment to give us the money. Of course, we told them not to bother but they insisted on putting it aside at the shop and told us to give our name and pick it up the next time we're there.