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Japan has 33k businesses at least a century old

bbc.com

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Re: Japan has 33k businesses at least a century old

#71

Post by GuiA »

gumby wrote: post #7
cyberferret wrote: post #2

Wow - that tea house has been operating for 900 years? I thought the previous record was a Japanese temple building company that was around for 400+ years before having to close during the global financial crisis a decade ago?! There is that old adage in multi generational businesses that goes - "The first generation kicks off the business, the second generation builds upon what the first generation did, and the thir…

> I thought the previous record was a Japanese temple building company that was around for 400+ years before having to close during the global financial crisis a decade ago?! There are banks in Europe older than 400 years as well.

And high schools, and houses, and pubs, and random walls in the middle of downtown, and...

Re: Japan has 33k businesses at least a century old

#72

Post by fogetti »

momentbruh wrote: post #58
kinkora wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't remember where i heard this from (it was a podcast) but it was on an economic theory that, if you exclude the internet & computer revolution, humans has not progressed that much in the past 100 years and that we may have entered a period of stagnant growth that may extend a century. Again, internet & computer revolution aside, realistically saying the last "human leap" was the invention of the combustion engi…

> Oh, there is this new computer & internet thing but that's it. This sentence is doing an unbelievable amount of work. I don't think you realize how strange it is that we have instant-speed trans-Atlantic communication that can transmit massive amounts of data. Computers are practically foreign objects to plenty of people born in the 60s, who grew up as they were invented. You don't think someone from 1920, with no…

You could make transatlantic calls in the 1920s. Sure, it was not that fast or capable as the internet, but the fundamental capability of connecting the world together has been around for a century or so. So it's not that strange as you try to make it to be.

Re: Japan has 33k businesses at least a century old

#73

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

msiyer wrote: post #70
WoahNoun wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think every brain cell is replaced every few months? Please delete this comment and read a biology textbook.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16495940?access_num=1649... Adult neurogenesis or brain plasticity is a fact. Skin cells, blood cells and all types of cells have a finite lifespan - a few days to a few months.

Just because neurogenesis exists, it most definitely does not follow that "every single cell in the body of a plant or animal is replaced every few months", which is what you said.

Osteocytes in human bone can live up to 50 years.

Re: Japan has 33k businesses at least a century old

#74

Post by [deleted] »

WoahNoun wrote: post #54
msiyer wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This thought experiment is neither just a thought nor an experiment. This is the reality of life - every single cell in the body of a plant or animal is replaced every few months. Essentially, talking about the physical body, we are not what we were a few months ago. EDIT: Agreed, a few types of brain cells do not get replaced, but everything else does. My point still stands. Physically, we are not what we were a few…

You think every brain cell is replaced every few months? Please delete this comment and read a biology textbook.

[deleted]

Re: Japan has 33k businesses at least a century old

#75

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

doikor wrote: post #69
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the reality of life - every single cell in the body of a plant or animal is replaced every few months. This is laughably false.

Outside of some cells in the brain all the cells do get replaced. But there are some that have lifespans of over a year (white blood cells) and some only a few days (cells in a human colon)

Osteocytes in your bone have a half life of 25 years, and many of them don't get "replaced" even after they die.

Re: Japan has 33k businesses at least a century old

#76

Post by rorykoehler »

egypturnash wrote: post #56
bane wrote: post #18

It's interesting about growing older. I don't know if this is a function of aging or a change in how humanity recons time. When I was younger, a century seemed like forever. Now it's just 1920 and we have film, music, audio, books and so on from that time period readily available. In many ways 1920 doesn't really seem all that far away to me while 1860, 1870, 1880 (a century from when I was a child) seemed to be fore…

I was born in the seventies, and have looked at a lot of cartoons from the 1920s over the course of my life, what with ending up being in the animation industry for a while. Read a lot of comics from around then too as part of surveying the history of that medium, To me the 1920s always felt like the Remote Past. I wonder what someone born now will feel about the 1920s once they are old enough to communicate their op…

My 8 year old nephew told me my techno playlist sounded like old people's music...

Re: Japan has 33k businesses at least a century old

#77

Post by calciphus »

porknubbins wrote: post #45
irq11 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re not understanding the difference: in most of the world, businesses are carried on because there’s some financial value derived from it, not for the thing itself. Family businesses do exist, and do get passed down, but if the owners of the business don’t have any natural heirs, they’ll wrap it up or sell it. That’s normal. In Japan, the longevity of the thing has a value of its own, so much so that they’ve inve…

I agree but I think regardless of profitability keeping small/medium businesses around is not just the for the longevity bragging rights. Some of these businesses preserve arts, techniques, handcrafts, recipes etc that might have otherwise been lost. And there is something to be said for street level neighborhood character created by these stores.

Something but...what?

Tge street-level character of a city isn't magically preserved because the acquiring company chose to retain the name. Example: I live near a sushi restaurant that has changed hands six times in my life. Two times they kept the name. One time they kept the facade. Never did they keep the employees. Maybe a token "manager" but the character of the place always shifts.

I like the metaphor because it really does ask the question "how much must one replace to make something indistinguishable from its progenitor?"

Re: Japan has 33k businesses at least a century old

#78

Post by mnm1 »

msiyer wrote: post #47
Danieru wrote: post #6

Do you remember Ship of Theseus? The thought experiment about if a ship which has been fully rebuilt bit by bit is it still the same thing? Japan appears consistent in saying, yes, rebuilding or swapping out components keeps the identity. You see this attitude in "Japan's oldest temple, burned to the ground and rebuilt every 20 years". In the west we might argue that burning a building and rebuilding, would count as…

This thought experiment is neither just a thought nor an experiment. This is the reality of life - every single cell in the body of a plant or animal is replaced every few months. Essentially, talking about the physical body, we are not what we were a few months ago. EDIT: Agreed, a few types of brain cells do not get replaced, but everything else does. My point still stands. Physically, we are not what we were a few…

I think this applies to most atoms in the body over time: https://stevegrand.wordpress.com/2009/01/12/where-do-those-d...

But while it applies to many cells over varied lengths of time (up to many years), it doesn't apply to all cells.

https://www.livescience.com/33179-does-human-body-replace-ce...

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/does-body-replace-itself-s...

So the idea does apply but not exactly as you claim and it's definitely not absolute, even for atoms, let alone cells.

Re: Japan has 33k businesses at least a century old

#79

Post by keiferski »

RandallBrown wrote: post #52
droithomme wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only in Japan does the adoption make it a family or lineage thing. No. Every culture worldwide accepts adoption. A child, grandchild, nephew, etc, continuing a business keeps the business in the family. Whether the child is adopted or not, and regardless of the age of adoption.

> regardless of the age of adoption Are adult adoptions common at all?

Becoming a son-in-law or daughter-in-law certainly counts in this context.

Re: Japan has 33k businesses at least a century old

#80

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

hnaccy wrote: post #17
cyberferret wrote: post #2

Wow - that tea house has been operating for 900 years? I thought the previous record was a Japanese temple building company that was around for 400+ years before having to close during the global financial crisis a decade ago?! There is that old adage in multi generational businesses that goes - "The first generation kicks off the business, the second generation builds upon what the first generation did, and the thir…

> I thought the previous record was a Japanese temple building company that was around for 400+ years before having to close during the global financial crisis a decade ago?! You have the numbers mixed up, Kongō Gumi had been founded in 578 AD so its run was over a millennia.

Japan's Kongō Gumi construction company has lasted over 1,400 years! To give a perspective of the time period of its existence -

• It was started just right at the end of Kofun period when Japanese tribes started political centralisation (578 AD).

• It has survived unification of Japan under Tokugawa shogunate (1603 - 1868).

• It has survived forced opening of Japan to the outside world by the western forces (1854).

• It has survived World War I (1914 - 1918).

• It has survived World War II (1939-1945), ending in the near total destruction of the country.

Yet, when Japan survived to become a Trillion dollar economy; Kongō Gumi Co., Ltd. was liquidated and acquired by Takamatsu Construction Group (2006).

What does it take to build a Business which lasts over 1000 years now? Would humanity even last for next 1000 years with current geo-politics, inequality and hatred?

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