Departments
青田買い
AOTA-GAI
Aota-gai was originally an agricultural term. Farmers in pre-modern Japan were usually cash-strapped, so they would sell their rice to merchants on advance terms, while the rice was still on the stalk. The farmer then had to deliver the rice to merchant when it was harvested.
Japan’s farmers seldom use the term today, but aota-gai has been borrowed by the business community. Although Japan’s economic growth has been irregular over the past decade, companies are still eager to snap up the brightest graduates from the country’s top universities. Some employers offer lucrative signing bonuses to choice candidates the year before they graduate, in order to order to prevent them from taking a job with another company. This practice of early recruiting is likened to the old merchant practice of buying rice while it is still on the stalk.
ARIGATOO
有難う
“Thank you”
Interdependence and mutual assistance are common themes throughout Japanese culture. An important element of both these concepts is gratitude. When meeting a person you have not seen in while, it is considered good form to thank him or her for recent favors.
To an outsider, Japanese “thank yous,” which are often accompanied by bows, can appear overly effusive, or even affected. However, these displays are intended to convey the depth of the speaker’s gratitude.
Arigatō can be substituted with several more intense variations: dōmo arigatō, arigatō gozaimasu, and dōmo arigatō gozaimasu. These are analogous to the way and English-speaker might say, “thank you very much,” or “thank you from the bottom of my heart” as a way to add emphasis to her gratitude.