If you have ever been impressed by Japanese convenience stores, you may have never heard of the term yorozuya. This term is used to refer to stores that sell everything, or the willingness to offer, sell, or do anything for money.
The word yorozuya [万屋] refers to stores that sell everything, or people who do all kinds of services. Yorozuya sometimes refers to someone who knows everything. It can refer to a person who does everything in a broad and superficial way, that is, a generalist.
Perhaps you have heard of yorozuya through the anime Gintama, in which it refers to its company that performs any service for money. What is the connection between stores that sell everything and the anime Gintama?
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Yorozuya – Japanese Warehouse
There are many stores in Japan called “Yorozuya” mainly in remote areas and in the countryside. In areas with a small population, it is difficult to establish specialized stores because there is no demand, which is why we find yorozuya stores.
Generally, it is a tiny supermarket or stores selling drinks and sweets that usually sell other products. In the countryside, there can literally be “stores of everything,” from fresh food to stationery, but there are some that sell everything.
Yorozuya can be considered an old version of a konbini. In fact, these convenience store franchises that also sell everything have been replacing yorozuya year by year, leaving only those in remote places.
In the past, it was also called Banji or Banya. In Okinawa, it is called Machiya. Its English equivalent is General Store, which indicates its broad and superficial meaning. The closest term we find in Portuguese is the word armazém, but I can’t say if it’s an appropriate translation.
The Meaning of the Word Yorozuya
“Yorozuya” is written with the ideogram for 10,000 [万]. A generic term for stores in front of stations and on corners where various groceries and diverse daily products are sold. It can be said to be the predecessor of today’s convenience stores.
In real life, the word is written only with the ideograms [万屋] where the 10,000 can be translated as “everything“. In the anime Gintama, the ideogram for thing [事] is added to literally mean “Store of 10,000 businesses” [万事屋].
The ideogram added in the anime [事] does not change the pronunciation or reading of the word, but adds the sense of business, matter, thing, or service. Even in the anime Gintama, Kagura refers to the predecessor name banjiya.
In the anime Gintama, the yorozuya also went extinct after the Joui Wars, leaving only the one from Gintama. The same happens in real life, where convenience stores have replaced these generic stores, leaving very few.
Jack-of-all-trades – A jack of all trades
Yorozura also refers to a popular English term Jack-of-all-trades which can be translated as jack of all trades. The full expression is jack of all trades, master of none, which means “does a bit of everything, but nothing well.”
It is a figure of speech used to refer to a person who has engaged in many skills, rather than gaining experience by focusing on one. It sounds a lot like me, haha!
In summary, the word yorozuya can refer to stores that sell everything, daily necessities, warehouse or variety store, as well as a person who knows a bit of everything. Did you know about these little Japanese stores?
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