alt Hacker NewsI feel like this is intellectualizing something that isn't that deep. It's a word you say, not think about. Why do English speakers say "excuse me" after a sneeze? The answer is apocryphal and uninteresting.
Replies
You can make anything shallow by just not thinking about it.
Conversely, the way things become deep is because we intellectualize them.
Similar to a lot of other Japanese phrases out there - "ikigai", etc. It's quite uninteresting as someone who's Japanese or lived in Japan, but an extra level of meaning is attached when projected outwards
Probably has something to do with the fact that the blog post is not human-written.
It is nice to acknowledge someone’s or something’s existence/work/troubles/etc. through words. Think about all the gratefulness stuff that circulated around the western media in late 2010s.
Where I’m from, the person who sneezes often says nothing, unless they’re accidentally sneezing near someone else. Strangers nearby however will say “bless you!” or occasionally “gesundheit!” But yes, I think people who utter the words do so as a quick reaction without much forethought.
Haha, I think it's more like an article about "Goodbye" originating from "God be with ye". That part is interesting - a curiosity. However, I do wish there was more about the history of the term, especially that it's a 20th Century national formalization of meal ceremony that was one of many practices of the time. It seems that one particular school of Buddhism won this memetic war and the structures of formalization took it on and thereafter it is now Japanese Culture with a capital C.
The closest analogue I can think of is diamond engagement rings. Doubtless they were given out prior, but they became formally 'normal' for a while. Of course, one was orchestrated and the other was perhaps just the effect of picking some formal culture to teach and so on. But it is similar in recency of popularity.