Smooth Sailing

順風満帆 (junpū manpan): smooth sailing, a fair wind and a full sail, the state of things going as well as they can. The word is Japanese, made of Chinese parts; the Chinese say it the other way round, 一帆風順. It began as a sailor's plain report. A legation ship's log printed in the government gazette reads weighed anchor, fair wind, full sail, and a general's Pacific crossing of 1886 logs fair wind, full sail, as yesterday; 244 miles. The figure came from a Confucian teacher of Tsu, who told his pupils what reading is like once the gates of the classics are passed: fair wind, full sail; the greatest speed and the greatest joy. From the 1890s it is in prose, a sick man hoping for a fair-wind, full-sail recovery, a book of 1904 on Japan itself under fair wind and full sail, and by the 1930s it is the company histories' word for a good decade. The dictionaries were slow: none before the war lists it, and the Kōjien admitted it in 1983, a century after the kanbun. Two readings compete, and manpan is the dictionaries' ruling over manpo. Underneath is the proverb 順風に帆を上げる, to raise sail on a fair wind; 順風満帆 is that proverb with the doing removed, a state you are in rather than a thing you do. Its sister 一路順風 is the Chinese blessing for the journey's start. four-character idiom 順風満帆 is composed of the word 順風 (read junpū) meaning "favorable wind" and the kanji 満 (read man) meaning "full" and 帆 (read pan) meaning "sail".

In Japan 順風満帆 is given as a wedding gift or as a well wish for a new life phase. This is also an excellent gift for the sailor in your life.