Word: ise
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...press conferences with his manager in tow and with the eminently reasonable expectation of making more than $100,000 the first time he laces up professionally. For many of the record-setting American boxers, who won eleven medals on the way to an overwhelming team victory, the prom ise of future green seemed to outweigh the pleasure of present gold...
...come to dislike the city"), but knew little about the rest of England. He decided to travel around its coast and those of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, going mainly by foot and rail, as is his custom, and avoiding cathedrals and castles on principle. The prem ise sounds delightful; the practice was catastrophic. Man was so vile that few prospects pleased. The author found defeated respectability at best, tackiness and decay as a matter of course, buildings meanly and cheaply made, people ignorant and dulled...
What looks and sounds like a cult indoctrination is in fact a "training session" for employees of Japanese companies. They were at Ise last month at the behest of their employers to learn team spirit, feel team achievement and, in so doing, perhaps become better, more productive workers. Says Ise Training Center Director Yasuo Nakayama: "We want them to suffer. We want them to feel pain. But we also want them to enjoy, to sing and dance. We want them to empty out their old selves and become new people...
...month, each draw workers ranging in age from 17 to 60, about 90% of them men. Companies do not require their workers to attend, but strongly encourage them by paying the center's $200 fee in full and not docking workers' pay while they are at Ise. Many of the big Japanese companies, including Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Toyota and Marubeni, have at one time or another sent employees to Ise...
Some alumni, though, are not so enthusiastic. Says a 26-year-old office worker: "You feel different for a while, and then you're back to normal." The sternly taught lessons of Ise are stimulating, contends Suzuko Ogura, 19, a forklift operator for automaker Toyota, "but it's a lesson easy to forget...