千客万来 senkyaku banrai Flood of Customers

The thousand and the ten thousand are not counted but piled up, the way the dictionaries put it: many, and more. The phrase is Japanese, made out of Chinese parts by people who painted signs; no Chinese text has the four characters together. Its two oldest witnesses share the year 1811 and do not know each other.

Brushed for a new shop, the word goes back onto the door it was made for.

The four-character idiom 千客万来 is composed of the kanji 千 (read sen) meaning "thousand", 客 (read kyaku) meaning "customers", 万 (read ban) meaning "ten thousand" and 来 (read rai) meaning "visits".

The term is used as a wish for "doing a roaring business" or for "a constant stream of customers".

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 千客万来.

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