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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

#121

Post by wodenokoto »

reustle wrote: post #99

If I own a reasonably successful business, and want the prestige / vanity of something like "Since 1953", could I buy a small / failing business in some small town and merge the companies? Would my company now technically be running since 1953? I have companies in both Japan and the US. It's a fun though experiment at the very least. I don't think I'd ever execute on something like this, but a software development ag…

Yes, this is exactly what the people behind Abercrombie & Fitch did.

They had an idea for a college brand of clothing and repurposed an old, dying hunting brand in the company lineup to give the new brand authenticity and a nice number to follow “est. “ in their branding.

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

#122

Post by goodcanadian »

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…

Similar in Japan's family business the lineage can be preserved by adopting a adult man capable of continuing the business.

This is often put out as something uniquely Japanese, and perhaps in modern times it is, but the Roman Empire used to to this pretty regularly as well: nominating heirs by adopting adult men.

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

#123

Post by tkgally »

A few days ago, I went into a barbershop in Fujisawa, south of Tokyo, to have my hair cut. When I entered, the sole barber was slumped on a sofa looking at a computer screen. He didn't seem particularly happy to have a customer. The shop was messy, a white cat wandered around, and I had to step over a live turtle in a tank on the floor to get to the barber chair.

As the barber cut my hair, I asked him about the shop. He said that it was ninety years old—the area had escaped bombing during the war—and that his grandfather and father had run the shop before him.

If someone opened a similarly shambolic barbershop today, it would almost certainly fail, as Japanese consumers are picky about appearances. But he said he had a steady clientele, including customers who themselves were the second or third generation in their families to get their hair cut there. He also turned out to be pleasant to chat with, and I had no complaint about the quality of the haircut.

The cost of the haircut was on the high side, and as he lives behind the shop in a house he inherited he must have minimal overhead. He looked to be in his forties. He should have no trouble keeping the shop running well past the century mark.

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

#124

Post by momentbruh »

fogetti wrote: post #72
momentbruh wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You're being incredibly disingenuous; the very first transatlantic call was made in 1927. To say that the "fundamental capability" of information transmission was there is like saying that the fundamental capability of travel or illumination existed with the horse or candle. You can't simultaneously claim that the car's invention represents a dramatic paradigm shift while the Internet doesn't.

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

#125

Post by goodcanadian »

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…

Somewhere around her 85th birthday, my grandmother said to me, out of the blue:

"You know in school, in history class, 100 years seems like a long time. It's not really."

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

#126

Post by Plyphon_ »

PinguTS wrote: post #120
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…

> 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 a new building. That is a wrong example/comparison. Even in the west rebuilding an heritage is not considered as a new building. In Europe…

I think the GP made a great point but missed a key detail -

This attitude is reflected in their homes, also. (I'm talking about sub-urban or rural, not metropolitan) They tend to build their homes to last around 20-30 years, then they'll knock them down and rebuild them. But they would still refer to it as the same family home for [x] decades.

source: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/16/japan-reusabl...

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

#128

Post by bump64 »

Another point I want to mention is that Japan was never invaded on its own territory by a foreign power and it wasn't ruled or politically influenced by outsiders for many centuries. This helps a lot to build and preserve a business.

On the contrary if you take the Balkans in Europe every few centuries the ruling power changed. First was the Roman Empire, then the Byzantine Empire, Bulgarian Empire, many other nations come to power for different periods, then the Ottomans, the Soviet Union and in the present day most of the companies and corporations in the Balkans are very proud if they have a history of 20-30 years (after the collapse of the Soviet Union)

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

#129

Post by netrus »

PinguTS wrote: post #120
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…

> 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 a new building. That is a wrong example/comparison. Even in the west rebuilding an heritage is not considered as a new building. In Europe…

Interesting examples I have seen are The Frauenkirche in Dresden (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dresden_Frauenkirche) and The Bratislava Castle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bratislava_Castle), both complete rebuilds (and both were ruins for a long time before they were rebuild). I have an uneasy relationship with these buildings. On the one hand, I understand the appeal of old buildings, and that people want them to be around again. On the other hand, I find it weird to build a building today that looks like it is an old one (Historismus?). Somehow, these buildings feel like lies to me, like a Disneyland or Las Vegas version of history. So I guess my (German) view is indeed quite different from the Japanese perspective described by GP.

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

#130

Post by illwrks »

My wife's familys business has been up and running for well over 100 years.

As it was told to me... Her great great great grandfather had a small bank of sorts, then he or perhaps his children, I forget the reason why, moved into food. Primarily sourcing food for upscale restaurants. Her uncles and mother run the business now, although they are in their late 60s so I doubt it will stay going for another generation.

Her two brothers have their own careers, we live in the other side of the world and her cousin lives in the US.

It is a strange combination of having smaller families, career aspirations and globalisation which makes it less appealing I guess.

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