The Land od the Rising Yen

expense
account world, he reaches heaven. His life is changed. He can take clients,
visitors, inquirers out for lunch or dinner, sign the bill and forget about it.
    This ‘go and enjoy yourself’ is a
traditional attitude of Japanese employers: it is paternalistic like almost
everything in Japan. The gay and dazzling entertainment world of the Ginza and other places is a wonderful escape after hard work but even this escape is
arranged for you by the company. And even during your escape you continue
working, for the company. Elegant and fashionable places are ruinously
expensive. On their salary alone none of them could get near them; as it is,
they live in them. The places are full and not one single bill is paid from an
individual’s pocket — unless a stray American vice-president happens to walk
in, but his bill, in turn, will probably be presented to his company.
    If you are taken out by your Japanese
host in the evening you will be taken to several places. After a sumptuous
dinner he will take you to a fabulous — although probably a shade too noisy —
night-club where hostesses will be invited to the table. These ladies drink a
lot (often yellow-tinted water which will pass — as far as the bill is
concerned — for whisky) and they also get high table-money. Your host will
often invite two hostesses for each male guest. Japanese hospitality is
fabulous; but the idea never far from their minds is that the other chap has to
be impressed: ‘We can afford it.’
    All this is entirely at the
tax-payers’ expense. Every penny — as long as you have the bill — is
deductible. Japan’s entertainment bill is larger than many an Asian country’s
total budget; and it is frequently pointed out by rueful Americans, who are
responsible for Japan’s defence, that the Japanese treasury spends more on
dinners, night-clubs and geisha-girls than on defence.
    There is a festival in June when fireflies,
or fire-bugs, are said to bring luck. But Tokyo has no fireflies so planeloads
of ‘luck’ have to be imported from Hokkaido. A country where bugs travel by
aeroplane must be prosperous indeed; and one where they travel at the
tax-payers’ expense, many would say, must be Paradise itself.
     
    Westerners often suggest that there
is a great deal of corruption in Japanese entertainment. Perhaps it is only a
different interpretation of the idea of corruption, but certain practices
certainly do seem unusual to us; although — this must be emphasized — all is
done openly and above board. A man may be employed, in an executive capacity
and with a high salary, by one of the large companies and his only duty will be
to cultivate and entertain the firm’s banker on whom even more depends in Japan than in Britain or the United States. This official will have to play golf with the banker,
and take him out to restaurants, night-clubs, geisha-houses, and for week-ends.
This is not regarded as bribery either by the firm or by the bank: the two are
supposed to discuss business, and no doubt business must be one of many
subjects that crop up.
    It is quite customary for the head of
a government department to entertain the head of another government department
to a slap-up meal, in order to discuss government business. A few advisers are
usually included on both sides. And the invitation is always promptly and
generously reciprocated.
    Women are nearly always excluded from
all this — even on occasions when a foreign visitor brings his wife. Japanese
women do not seem to mind very much, although one can hear more rebellious
murmuring today than a few years ago. But on the whole Japanese women expect their husbands to stay out late, to take people out, to go to geisha-houses
(and behave virtuously while there although few questions are asked). Busy
evenings mean that the husband is successful and is getting ahead; if he can
spend too many evenings in his happy family circle he has surely failed in his
job.
     
    Like everything else in Japan, entertainment is strictly hierarchical. Who entertains whom, where, and how much he
is allowed to spend is carefully weighed. At first I was a little embarrassed
by the hospitality lavished upon me, until I understood that I was just as much
a gift of God to them as they were a gift of God to me: I was raw material, an
excuse for them to go out. Entertainable guests who look reasonably acceptable
on the expense accounts are few and far between; when they turn up there is
keen competition