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syockittoday at 4:31 PM2 repliesview on HN

Fun trivia: the greeting only started to become a thing during the Meiji era as part of moral and ethics education. It may be argued that it has its roots in Buddhist teachings, but there's a theory that the drive to make it a common household practice may have come from the envoys who came back from western countries and saw the Christian prayer and thought it was a good thing to imitate. It's quite a stretch, but personally I find it quite interesting given that it was an era where Westernization was the craze.


Replies

mindtrickstoday at 5:43 PM

If true, kudos to them for shrinking it all down to one word. Saying "grace" can be an event to itself at some meals.

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deatontoday at 6:16 PM

Its really not that far fetched. Japan has quite a history of copying the aesthetic of things the west does while changing the meaning completely. Christmas is a romantic holiday in Japan, and it is considered fashionable to get married in a church, even though only about 2% of the country is Christian.