Omotenashi
Also known as: おもてなし, Japanese Hospitality
Formulated by Japanese Culture (2013)
Definition
Omotenashi (おもてなし) is often translated as 'hospitality,' but the word carries a stronger, more unconditional sense: wholehearted care that anticipates another person's needs and attends to them without necessarily expecting anything in return, not even thanks. The term is generally traced to the tea ceremony (chanoyu) that spread under tea master Sen no Rikyū (1522-1591) during the Muromachi era, and to the associated philosophy of ichigo ichie: treating every encounter as unrepeatable and therefore worthy of complete attention. Omotenashi entered global vocabulary in September 2013, when broadcaster Christel Takigawa built Tokyo's Olympic bid presentation to the IOC around the word; it went on to win one of Japan's annual 'New Words and Buzzwords' grand prizes that December. Read narrowly, as a service-industry slogan, omotenashi risks becoming empty marketing; read as originally intended, it describes noticing a need before it is voiced, an instinct not unlike what economists call entrepreneurial alertness, and meeting it as a gift rather than a transaction.