When Hiroshi Kato, president of Chiba University of Commerce, stepped into a Tokyo hotel room one day in the early 1980s, he soon realized he had violated a political taboo.
About 50 Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers were waiting for him — many of them furious. A heavy glass ashtray was hurled his way after some became excessively excited.
Kato had committed the faux pas of venturing to discuss revision of a set of sacrosanct tax revenues traditionally earmarked solely for the construction of roads across the country.