Reference
Concepts
Terms that arrive in English half-translated. Each entry gives the original script, what the word actually denotes, what it is commonly mistaken for, and the native-language terms to search if you want to go further.
All 8 entries verified
Each entry’s sources were checked against primary references on 1 August 2026 — named statutes with article numbers, named dictionaries, and papers with identifiers rather than the source categories these entries carried before. Seven of the eight required correction; two had errors in the definition itself. The corrections log records what changed.
- 996 996工作制 A working pattern of roughly 09:00 to 21:00, six days a week, associated particularly with parts of the technology sector. Widely discussed as a labour-rights issue. Open entry ↗
- Chaebol 재벌 A large business group, often founded and controlled by a family, operating across several industries through legally distinct affiliates. Ownership arrangements vary; new circular shareholding is restricted for groups subject to the statutory cross-shareholding regime. Open entry ↗
- Honne and tatemae 本音・建前 A paired distinction between privately held feeling (honne) and the position one presents in a given social setting (tatemae). The pair describes a register shift, not a moral failing. Open entry ↗
- Hukou 户口 China's household registration system, which ties a person to a registered locality and historically to an agricultural or non-agricultural classification, affecting access to schooling, healthcare and other local public services. Open entry ↗
- Involution (neijuan) 内卷 In contemporary Chinese usage, escalating positional competition in which greater effort yields little improvement in relative reward, such as extra work for a fixed share of academic honors. Earlier academic uses differ: Geertz examined intensified elaboration without structural transformation, while Huang described rising agricultural labor input and total output alongside diminishing returns per workday. Open entry ↗
- Keiretsu 系列 A grouping of Japanese firms connected by sustained capital or commercial relationships. Horizontal formations may include cross-shareholdings and a main bank; vertical formations often connect a large manufacturer with suppliers or distributors, sometimes through unequal control relationships. Open entry ↗
- Nunchi 눈치 The practised ability to read a room: to gauge others' mood and standing quickly and adjust what you say and do accordingly. Commonly appraised in Korean as something a person has much or little of. Open entry ↗
- Senpai and kōhai 先輩・後輩 A relational pair that can mark relative age, experience, standing, or order of entry. Japanese dictionaries give a distinct institutional sense: senpai entered the same school or workplace earlier, while kōhai entered later. Expectations of guidance, consideration, and deferential speech vary with the situation and need not coincide with managerial rank. Open entry ↗