Word: sokubei
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Dates: during 1946-1946
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...Sokubei Mitsui had a head as round, as bald and as bright as a full moon. "With remarkable moral fortitude," says a chronicle, "he decided to abandon all rank and class and enter a commercial career.'' Sokubei put it more bluntly. "The Mitsuis," he said, "must get money." Some time before 1650 he put away his two samurai swords and-like many a British aristocrat of the same period-became a brewer. Soon Mitsui sake was selling fast throughout Yedo's thirsty red-light district...
Many of the top Mitsuis, though not exactly starving, were already jobless. They had returned, full circle, to the aristocratic idleness of the time before old Sokubei, the brewer. The most sadness, however, was expressed by one of the Mitsui "clerks" (actually a top executive), a grey, frail little man named Tatsuo Sumi, who is said to be descended from a 17th Century Mitsui clerk or banto. Tatsuo talked like an aging English butler whose lord & lady had come on evil times. "I have given my life to Mitsui," he said; "there is nothing more to do. . . . A glorious history...
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