[HN Gopher] A Japanese shop is 1,020 years old
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A Japanese shop is 1,020 years old
Author : kawera
Score : 124 points
Date : 2020-12-02 20:31 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/2JZ14
| nikk1 wrote:
| Related, recent article:
|
| https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200211-why-are-so-man...
| sriram_sun wrote:
| Do shops like these mostly inherited? I'm also aware of Japan's
| adult adoptions. Is there pressure on the next gen. to take over
| the family business? I would think yes.
|
| In my mind, just imagining operating for a Millennium, these
| institutions are more temples than businesses. Brings tears to my
| eyes just thinking about it. Thankfully the practice is not very
| widespread as I could easily have found myself taking care of a
| breakfast place by a moderately busy highway in Southern India.
| jacobwilliamroy wrote:
| Oh no, owning property and having a place in the community.
| What a nightmare.
| kiddico wrote:
| Or you can read it as "social pressure to do something for
| your entire life that you don't really want to do."
| iratewizard wrote:
| Like work?
| kiddico wrote:
| No, like work you want to do.
|
| Imagine everyone around you is allowed the opportunity to
| choose their career. You however are the son of a
| plumber, and have no choice but to be a plumber. This
| plumbing business is 1000 years old! Why throw away the
| family name?! Well, because I'd rather not be a plumber
| and I'm perfectly capable of something else.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| that's what maturation into adulthood is, taking
| responsibility for social institutions that are larger than
| oneself and endure longer than oneself, rather than being a
| 35 year old owning nothing and playing paintball, which is,
| in contrast to the business culture on display here the
| future sold to us by the beloved SV companies. Most of
| which if I had to bet will not last longer than this store.
| threatofrain wrote:
| Maturity means different things for people at different
| income levels. I've seen young children mature by
| managing a real estate portfolio, and then moving onto
| greater relations and responsibilities. I've seen other
| children mature by rotting in a failing Filipino bakery.
| munificent wrote:
| That's true.
|
| But at the same time, for many people, what they want to do
| is to carry on a legacy and contribute to something larger
| than themselves. A culture that forces all young people to
| build from scratch denies those opportunities just as
| surely as a culture that forces everyone to follow in their
| parent' footsteps denies opportunities to start afresh.
| EB66 wrote:
| Or more accurately: owning property and being told your place
| in the community.
| [deleted]
| felipemnoa wrote:
| A lot of us do not want to work in the family business but
| rather want to pursue our dreams. You only have the one life
| after all.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| The documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi has a poignant
| commentary on this. Jiro's oldest son is expected to
| eventually take over Jiro's sushi place, so as a result
| essentially is toiling for his father into old age. On the
| other hand, somewhat ironically Jiro's younger son actually
| has more freedom, so he strikes out on his own pretty early
| and has his own very successful sushi joint.
| Michael_Sieb wrote:
| I don't think any tech companies will ever survive that long.
| hansjorg wrote:
| Let's hope not.
|
| A small, geographically bound family business like this is one
| thing, but we should pay more attention to what kind of
| creatures we're creating in the long run. An LLC is a very
| useful legal fiction, but more and more we're seeing the
| effects of virtually unbounded organizations.
| lapetitejort wrote:
| Could Nintendo be the oldest company currently involved with
| tech?
| jbjbjbjb wrote:
| British Telecom's origins date back to the founding in 1846
| of the Electric Telegraph Company. ETC was the first public
| telegraph company.
| shrubble wrote:
| Kiewit is the precursor company to MFS and Level 3
| Communications. Level3 merged with CenturyLink and is now
| known as Lumen.
|
| Kiewit formed in 1884.
| moron4hire wrote:
| It's probably Isabellenhutte, established in 1482 in Germany
| (https://www.isabellenhuette.de/en/company/innovation-by-
| trad...)
| robin_reala wrote:
| Who currently produce components that go into Teslas.
| moron4hire wrote:
| I was originally looking for "old companies that
| currently work in tech", but even their original industry
| of copper smelting was pretty high tech for the 15th
| century.
| tpmx wrote:
| Maybe let's do it in two classes: oldest information-
| managing tech company and oldest mechanical tech company?
| moron4hire wrote:
| I mean, I don't know what other definition you want.
| geogra4 wrote:
| 'tech' is kind of a broad brush. But Nintendo is even older
| than old behemoths like GE and IBM.
| seattletech wrote:
| Yep, IBM was founded in 1911
| TorKlingberg wrote:
| Ericsson was founded in 1876 and had a big part in developing
| 5G. Nokia started in 1865. There must be many 19:th century
| tech companies around.
| tpmx wrote:
| Define "tech"?
|
| Nintendo was founded in 1889.
|
| As just one counter-example; I'm sure there are plenty
| more/earlier: Siemens was founded in 1847 (edit: by building
| telegraph equipment and infrastructure).
|
| Edit: I'm sure there must have been earlier companies
| involved in "tech" that are still relevant? Maybe let's think
| about "tech" as "information technology" companies?
| jakeva wrote:
| Making playing cards, IIRC. Was that considered tech back
| then?
| tpmx wrote:
| In the case of Nintendo: probably not.
| Axsuul wrote:
| Isn't history being written everyday?
| kstrauser wrote:
| Well, crud. I honestly thought a 10-bit `company_age` field would
| be sufficient. I'll add a Pivotal story to make the database
| migration.
| danielheath wrote:
| Put it in the icebox, we won't need that for _years_.
| kbelder wrote:
| Leave it, store the 11th bit in the top bit of the first byte
| of the company name. That'll future proof us.
| tvb12 wrote:
| I played a game that implemented something like this. A
| player could have 32 buffs simultaneously, and on release
| there were fewer than 255 unique buffs. The id for each buff
| was stored in one byte and was bundled along with all of the
| other buffs into a much larger packet which also contained
| other player data.
|
| The game later surpassed 255 unique buffs. Rather than change
| the packet structure, they repurposed a group of 64 bits
| which had previously been padding. Each buff id could then be
| unpacked by using the nth pair of bits from the block of 64
| as the two high bits, and tacking on the original byte as the
| lower eight.
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| I heard a story about some restaurant or hotel where a owner
| apologized for not providing the authentic experience because the
| original shop burned down like 600 years ago
| flobosg wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies
| gravelc wrote:
| I bought some great carbon steel knives from a little 1-man shop
| called Shigeharu in Kyoto a few years back. Supposedly dates from
| pre-1390. Feels like owning a piece of history. Was very much
| wondering what would happen to the shop in the future as the
| owner/knife-maker was quite elderly.
|
| https://openkyoto.com/real-kyoto-knives-aritsugu-knives/
| [deleted]
| Axsuul wrote:
| The kicker is at the end. Should future generations be obligated
| to continue the family business even if they resent it?
| purple_ferret wrote:
| Look at it this way, how many families have the reliability of
| a thousand years streak of employment? If it ain't broke...
| felipemnoa wrote:
| Hell no!
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| Thats what adopting full grown adults as sons is for.
| err4nt wrote:
| Usually we try keep family and business apart (nepotism is
| seen as evil), but the way businesses run so often exploits
| or abuses humans and families. With this mindset of adopting
| future business owners into your real family, it's putting
| family above business even in business. I wonder how the
| results pan out, maybe there's wisdom in here we're largely
| missing by the way we approach things.
| Axsuul wrote:
| Yellowstone (TV show) reference? :)
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| No thats what they literally do
| https://freakonomics.com/2011/08/09/the-church-of-
| scionology....
| ch4s3 wrote:
| No, that's just a literal description of how these old
| Japanese businesses pass themselves along for centuries.
| geogra4 wrote:
| Oddly enough that's also how roman emperors handled
| dynastic succession[0].
|
| In a world with 40% child mortality, it was more of a
| sure thing than gambling on having a biological heir.
|
| 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoption_in_ancient_Rome
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Yeah the "good emperors" did that, but just as often
| there were coups by the praetorian guard or some general
| marched down from Gaul.
| nkoren wrote:
| Damnit, last year I walked straight past that mochi shop without
| even realising it. And now I'm hungry.
|
| (Seriously, though, the snacking in Kyoto is epic. Lovely temples
| and all, but when I go back, my first stop will be at a
| yatsuhashi shop, then mochi, then those red bean fish cake
| thingies, then maybe a cucumber on a stick. Damnit, now I'm
| REALLY hungry. Anyhow, these are businesses worth keeping around
| for a thousand years. They're just that tasty.)
| howlgarnish wrote:
| The oldest restaurant in Nara hasn't changed their menu in 500
| years or so: your options are barley rice with grated yam (mugi
| tororo) or barley rice with broiled eel (unagi).
|
| The eel is great. The barley rice with gloopy yam on top...
| let's just say I understand why nobody else sells this stuff
| anymore.
| cr1895 wrote:
| The article lacked any detail on the "honor system" that
| sustained it for centuries in place of the fixed prices charged
| post-WWII. What does that mean...pay-what-you-like?
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Anyone tried it?
| bovermyer wrote:
| Someday I hope to own my own little pub, free and clear, and just
| do that for the rest of my life. It wouldn't be stress-free, but
| I enjoyed my time working in a bar, and I like the idea of
| operating a little community hub.
| raymondrussell wrote:
| This is something https://twitter.com/MagicRealismBot would say.
| shagie wrote:
| https://www.visualcapitalist.com/oldest-companies/ is also rather
| interesting to look at. The oldest one in Japan:
|
| > The Japanese temple and shrine construction company, Kongo Gumi
| Co., Ltd. (founded in 578) has weathered a few storms over the
| millennia, from nuclear bombs to financial crises. In 2006, it
| was bought by the construction conglomerate, Takamatsu
| Construction Group Co., and continues to operate today.
| pvarangot wrote:
| Am I the only one thinking that nuclear bombings are actually
| good for a construction company?
|
| It's like saying the condom industry survived the AIDS
| pandemic.
| twic wrote:
| The story is that Kongo Gumi was founded by people who had
| worked on the first Buddhist temple, but the first Buddhist
| temple, Hoko-ji, wasn't started until 588. Not sure exactly
| what's going on there, someone should check the paperwork.
|
| Canterbury Cathedral was founded in 597. I find it kind of wild
| that those two events were only nine years apart.
| err4nt wrote:
| Really makes you wonder which businesses (and indeed which
| industries) will exist 1000 years from today!
|
| Very inspiring, thanks for sharing.
| geocrasher wrote:
| If the Web Hosting industry still exists in 1000 years, there
| will be _somebody_ asking if we support Frontpage.
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(page generated 2020-12-02 23:00 UTC)