鳥井シンゴBlog

“The Okeya story is an old Japanese one. Okeya means persons who make and sell coffins. Some of you might not know, but it is similar to the butterfly effect which goes like this: A tiny variation changes bring dramatic results very roundabout. This is what we call the butterfly effect. The Okeya Story is started like this: “When the wind blows, the Okeya makes money”. For those of people who don’t know the story, let me tell the story and show the reason why the Okeya (people making and selling coffins) makes money when the wind blows in order.

1. The wind blows dusts up.
2. Because of the dusts, the amount of people goes blind.
3. Many people who are blind become Shamisen (Japanese string instrument) players because the job for blind people is only Shamisen player at that time, and then Shamisen sales increase.
4. The skins of cats are used for the Shamisen, so a large amount of cats are killed.
5. Cats decrease, so rats increase more.
6. Lots of rats bite out housing foundations.
7. The houses which have been bitten start to slant.
8. Because of the house slants, bricks on the house fall.
9. The falling bricks kill people, and that kind of accidental deaths increase.
10. The more people dies, the more coffins (kannoke) sell
11. The okeya (coffin sellers) make money.

This is the gist of the story. This is a parable from the Edo period. In modern society, even if cats decrease, the number of rats may not increase. And even if the rats bite the foundations, the houses may not slant. However, the point of this parable is that only an event happened but it affects the related things, and the event changes something that you may have never expected.

”抜粋：: “Profitable Thinking”  for Businessmen”。 iBooks