Nomikai in Japanese Universities and Companies: a cultural analysis

Yixuan Wu
Carnegie Mellon University – Japanese Studies

Abstract

The research is a descriptive research on nomikai culture in Japan. Nomikai is prevalent in Japanese universities and companies. After work, people will go drinking together with their colleagues and friends in izakaya in order to discuss business matters (business Nomikai) or relax with friends (refreshment Nomikai), and usually they will go to more than one izakaya and party until midnight. The nomikai culture is largely associated with the idea of traditional values such as group consciousness, hierarchical structure, and masculinity. The purpose of this research is to find nomikai and nomikai culture’s impacts on organizations and individuals, and the change of nomikai over time. To examine this, interviews are conducted with seven participants who have experienced Japanese nomikai. Results revealed that the general trend of nomikai seems to be less restrictions and more freedom, and nomikai has a generally positive impact on organizations, including developing friendship among colleagues or clubmates and having in-depth conversation out of class/work with professors/senior workers, but also have somewhat negative impacts on individuals such as mandatory attendance and keishikika,

Introduction

Nomikai, formed by the word “飲み” nomi, drink, and “会” kai, session, means drinking party. Nomikai is a Japanese style of party, and it is commonly seen in college clubs and companies and is viewed as an inevitable social interaction for clubmates or colleagues to connect, discuss business matters with cooperators, celebrating a success or festival, etc. (Richard, 2018)

Resulting from the prevalence of nomikai, drinking culture is ubiquitous for all ages and in all groups in Japanese society. According to Christensen (2014), the Japanese people have early access to alcohol as teenagers can easily purchase not only beer but even sake and shōchū without providing their ID at vending machines and convenience stores; college students and salarymen will be inevitably asked to numerous nomikai after working or studying and might end up knocked-out drunk; the Japanese society also has a high tolerance of public drunkenness as inebriated salarymen are sleeping at the underground stations almost every day.

Notably, nowadays, the nomikai culture is gradually shifting from a necessary social manner in big corporations and university clubs to an unnecessary way of party among some friends or colleagues at a company or university club. The restrictions and manners on nomikai have largely reduced comparing to the restrictions in the 19^th century, and the nomikai presented in Japanese variety shows and TV shows appear to be a casual way of relaxation (Ho, 2018).

Nomikai is also associated as the rise of feminism in Japan, especially as a way that Japanese women combats with the traditional dominance of men in workplace. (Ho, 2012) As nomikai is often associated with men and masculinity, women co-workers were not invited to business nomikai because of their gender. (Ho, 2018) By having women’s presence at business nomikai and holding women-only refreshment nomikai, women are combating gender unfairness and emphasizing the idea of feminism and equality in workplace.

I am interested in this topic because nomikai reflects many aspects of Japanese traditional values and recent movements such as group consciousness, hierarchical structure, and feminism and masculinity. In this research, I will mainly focus on the drinking habit and nomikai in universities and companies. I expect to find that nomikai connects people better and is effective in reaching business consensus in terms of the group benefit as it conforms to the traditions and cultural values but is somehow harmful to the individuals. I pose the following research question: is nomikai helpful or harmful in terms of social interaction and business practices, and how is it helpful/harmful?

Background

Abuse of Alcohol

Alcohol using or even abuse is associated with masculinity in Japan. Partanen (2006) suggests that alcohol has never been regarded as a major social problem in Japan and this is unusual for a developed country. Drinking in Japan is often associated with masculinity and necessary social norms. Before the iteration of the Japanese Equal Employment Opportunity Act in 1985, the Japanese corporate culture is highly masculinized, and drinking parties is a means that salarymen express their masculinity after work. Christensen (2014) suggests that men are forced to be alcoholics and frequently attending nomikai even they are not fond of that and joining sobriety programs “can have a devastating impact on men’s sense of themselves as social beings and as men”.

Nomikai’s Cultural Influence

According to Franklin (2017), nomikai in companies can be roughly divided into two categories: nomikai for business, which involves two companies that are cooperating; and nomikai for refreshment, which colleagues attend for celebrating festivals or success in business. According to nomunication.jp, a website introducing nomikai for foreigners, attendance for nomikai in companies is usually mandatory although not explicitly expressed. That is to say, no one will force the other to attend nomikai, but everyone is expected to attend as business nomikai serves as a place for unofficially finalizing promotions, contracts, and other deals; and refreshment nomikai serves as a place for knowing the real each other. While attitudes towards nomikai are becoming negative nowadays, according to numunication.jp, nomikai and Japanese business culture remain inseparable, partly due to the hierarchy of senpai-kohai system and the belief in “nomunication”, that people’s communication when drinking is the sincerest as both are drunk and cannot hide their true feelings anymore.

Nomikai for teenagers and university students is related to ceremonial occasions, family gatherings, and social interaction. According to Linhart and Frühstück (1998), for university students, the university is more relaxing and offers the opportunity to experience things that are forbidden before such as alcohol. Although the nomikai in university clubs are less compulsory and more relaxing, nomikai is more frequent and there are even students who died of overdosing alcohol.

Group Consciousness and Hierarchical structure

There are certain rules of organizing a nomikai, seating, and ordering drinks. The person who organizes nomikai is usually a middle manager called幹事 (kanji, means organizer), and he will be in charge of booking the izakaya and call together participants. There’s also a seating chart that assigns seats based on organizational hierarchy. The kamiza, “best seat” –often the seat furthest from the door and with the best view, will be given to the most senior person, and the worst seat—often the seat closest to the door, will be assigned to the newcomer. There is also common courtesy to order things that will be served relatively quickly as a first drink such as beer, and people are not allowed to drink until all drinks are served and the most senior person said a few toasting words and ended with an enthusiastic kampai. The kohai are also responsible for keeping the senpai’s glasses filled and pour beer or sake for them. After a round at one izakaya, people may move to another izakaya or karaoke under the proposal of the most senior person, and this behavior of moving to another place is called nijikai. At some point when the most senior person or kanji takes the lead to give a brief speech of thanking everyone for coming, this night is officially closed out with an ipponjime.

The group consciousness is reflected in multiple aspects: although unsaid, people are not allowed to be absent for the nomikai, as they are part of the group and should witness the unofficial agreement of signing the contract or connect to their colleagues/teammates; people should not drink before others get their drinks or before the “kampai” sign; the kohai should be responsible for reading the atmosphere （空気を読む）and filling up others’ glasses at appropriate timing. There’s also a hierarchical structure reflected as most of the events are started or ended by the most senior person or the kanji.

Nomikai’s association with feminism

Since the first iteration of Japanese Equal Employment Opportunity Act in 1985, there’s a significant increase in the number of women entering workplace. However, Ho (2012) points out that “scant attention has been paid to the importance of Japanese women’s social relations that are work-related”. One important factor is that female workers are often not invited to nomikai, as nomikai is seen as a “traditional men’s thing”. Moreover, women are also subject to harassments on nomikai. (パワハラ, power harassment/飲みハラ, nomikai harassment). As a way of combating these unfairness, Ho (2018) observed that Japanese women with professional careers are forming their own nomikai culture that mobilize after-work friendship networks, negotiate non-traditional gender identities, forge communities of coping and mutual support. Using the “women’s nomikai”, Japanese professional women manage to stay employed in highly masculinized and competitive Japanese corporates, and it also serves as a way of the rise of Japanese feminism (Ho, 2018).

Research Design and Methods

I want to examine through interviewing people who have nomikai experiences in university clubs/ companies that, whether nomikai is helpful or harmful and how it is helpful / harmful in terms of social interaction and business practices. I expect to find that nomikai connects people better and is effective in reaching business consensus in terms of the group benefit as it conforms to the traditions and cultural values but is somehow harmful to the individuals. As the abuse of alcohol is harmful physically but encouraged socially, individuals must conform to the social norms and behave as alcoholics by attending multiple nomikai. However, as a business tradition, the culture of nomikai is built upon the idea of group consciousness and hierarchical structure and will conversely strengthen these cultures in companies or clubs.

Data collection procedures

Informants

I conducted an interview with 7 people, with 1 participated only in university nomikai, 3 participated only in company nomikai both for business and for refreshment, and 3 for both. Below is a list of the detailed information of each informant.

Table 1. information about interviewee’s experience with nomikai

Instruments

Below is a list of questions for interviews.

1. What kind of nomikai did you have? At company or at university? If company, is it a traditional Japanese company, a foreign company, or a private company? If university, is it a seminar/class or club?
2. How often is nomikai held in the organization? (Even if you do not participate)
3. What prompted the drinking party?
4. Who will be the kanji usually? How does he/she prepare? (Investigation of the store, contact of participants, confirmation of missing, etc.)
5. What are the procedures of the nomikai? (Greetings, toasts, closings, second meetings, etc.)
6. What role does the nomikai play for the organization? (Good and bad influences on interpersonal relationships and business)
7. Have you noticed any changes in drinking party over time?

Details of data collection procedures

My data is collected by interviewing the 7 interviewees. I had a zoom meeting with each of them and asked them the list of questions. Then I take notes of their responses and send them my notes and let them add anything I missed. The notes can be seen in appendix.

Data analysis procedures

I separated my participants based on the types of nomikai they have attended into two types: university nomikai, and company nomikai. People who have attended both company nomikai and university nomikai are double counted into both groups. Then I compare the responses to each question among each group.

Results

Among the 4 interviewees with experiences in university nomikai, interviewee C and interviewee D mentioned they are from Kyoto University, and interviewee A and interviewee B didn’t tell me which university they are from. Interviewee A, interviewee C, and interviewee D have participated in both seminar nomikai and club nomikai, while B has only participated in seminar nomikai. Among the three interviewees with experience in clubs, A has participated in sports related club (swimming club), while C and D have participated in non-sports related club (international communication club and calligraphy club).

Nomikai in university clubs

A, who is the interviewee that has participated in the swimming club, said that there’s nomikai almost every week, and the other two reported similar frequency for their non-sports related nomikai. There are various reasons such as the beginning of new semester, welcoming new members, winning competitions, celebrating end of midterms, etc. The interviewees believe that these nomikai are generally helpful for team members to connect with others better and make friends, so that students will cooperate better in terms of competitions and club activities. Since there’s few restrictions of attendance or manner, the interviewees think there’s little to no demerit of the club nomikai, as said by interviewee A, “if you don’t like it, you just don’t attend”.

Nomikai in university seminars

Seminar (ゼミ) refers to the form of small-class education in Japanese universities. In a seminar, there’s a limited number of students (around 15-20) and a professor that serves as the mentor of the seminar. Therefore, the students and professor in the seminar are more closely connected than those in a regular class.

The four interviewees that have participated in seminar nomikai all think that the nomikai in university seminars are generally very helpful. Interviewee C points out that the reason he loves attending seminar nomikai is that “alcohol serves as the lubricant among professor and students. The professor is always very strict and meticulous in classes that we are often fearing that we will annoy him by some mistakes…however, during the nomikai, he just behaves like a random nice and smiling guy that are willing to share anything with us.” Besides the reason that nomikai helps professor and students to get to know each other’s life out of class and connect better as friends, interviewee D also mentioned that the professor may share some jokes and “hidden talks” about the academic field they are studying, and this is helpful for them to further do research or seek employment. However, there’s also demerits. Interviewee B mentioned that she had heard about harassments from male students/professors to female students in nomikai, and it is hard for female students to reject them as the rejection in nomikai will be viewed as “do not read the atmosphere”.

Change of nomikai in universities

When it comes to the forms, all interviewees believe that the nomikai in universities are becoming more causal without many restrictions, which is different from the literature reviews. The interviewees said that this difference may be due to the changes over time. When they just entered universities, they have heard about or experienced the hierarchical structures in clubs and seminars, but that kind of nomikai is becoming less welcomed. Nowadays in the nomikai they participated, the senior members usually behave in an equal position with the students or new members.

Business nomikai in companies

The six interviewees that have participated in company nomikai gave various answers on some of the questions.

All six interviewees are in traditional Japanese companies, and they held the nomikai with their cooperating companies about once every month and more than once at the end and beginning of the year around December and January. There are various reasons, and one interviewee concludes that “all of the reasons are to find a way to further connect to our business partners emotionally”.

There are varying rules in terms of preparation and during nomikai procedures. Four interviewees (D, E, F, G) reported that the young people take charge of Kanji (organizer) and organize the nomikai, and the attendance is not required, and the forms are casual; while the remaining two (A, B) reported that everyone in the company takes turn to be the kanji, and one reported they have a lottery computer program to decide who will be the kanji. Both said that their companies still follow the kampai – nijikai – ipponjime format.

What’s common is that the business nomikai no longer serve as places for discussing business matters, as the companies now only value the paperwork and the formal meeting when not drunk. The business nomikai serves as a place to share gossip and increase emotional relationship with the cooperating companies.

Refreshment nomikai in companies

The six interviewees have similar experiences in the company refreshment nomikai. The frequency of refreshment nomikai differs by organizations, largely depends on how many people enjoy going to nomikai and drinking. The rules of preparation and procedures also differs a lot, and the interviewees described that “if there’s a person who really cares about the format, we will conform to the format; otherwise, we just do whatever we want”. The company refreshment nomikai serves as a good place for learning business skills from senpai, as every interviewee mentioned that Japanese people tend to discuss only business matters when working and will share their personal life and advices for kohai during nomikai when they feel more relaxed. However, recently there’s less nomikai, as people start thinking nomikai is unnecessary and disliking getting drunk, and they choose to do other group activities such as barbecue parties or hiking.

Discussion

The values in the internal culture that leads to nomikai are group consciousness and hierarchical structure, and the external culture that contributes to the prevalence of nomikai is the abuse and high tolerance of alcohol. From the perspective of group consciousness, in traditional nomikai, people are expected to enjoy the nomikai and be willing to share their personal life with the club mates/ colleagues even if they don’t want to. Specifically, attendance and getting drunk is expected, as these are behaviors shared in the groups and people are expected to show their group consciousness. Moreover, the hierarchical structure is also reflected from the manners such as kamiza and pouring beer for senpai in the literature review. The external culture of the association of nomikai with masculinity also leads to the prevalence of nomikai in all kinds of organizations, and harassment to women during the nomikai.

However, as showed by the interview results, the traditional manners and restrictions brought by internal culture and external culture seem to be less important in nowadays nomikai. There’s less group consciousness or hierarchical structures as attendances are no longer compulsory and people are not expected to pour drinks for their senpai or be assigned to a particular seat that has some bad/good meanings; rather, from the responses of the interviewees, the nomikai are more casual and serve as an alternative for colleagues, partners, and schoolmates who want to have emotional connections and become friend with each other. People are also less impacted by the external culture of inebriety as the expectation of “getting drunk” is not mentioned by any participant.

This change is similar to the trend of changes of other cultural terms we introduced in classes. With the issuances of laws and regulations in Meiji Restoration and the Westernize movements in Japan, the traditional social norms that are harmful for Japanese individuals are being abandoned or revised into a way that fits the needs of modern Japanese people.

This project contributes to my understanding of Japanese culture that the Japanese culture is a dynamic, everchanging culture. Just as the sharp contrast between my literature review and responses gathered from interviewees, the definition and cultures that come along with nomikai is changing with the change of people, which is the same as the change of Japanese culture.

Final Reflections

In this study, I examined the historical development of nomikai in Japanese universities and companies, its impact on individuals and organizations, and its changes with the change of society. The cultural phenomenon of nomikai helped me better understand how the ideas of group consciousness and hierarchical structure function in Japanese universities and companies both during work and outside of work, as well as nowadays Japanese people’s point of view on these traditional cultural values. I think the sharp difference between the previous strictly formed, mandatory nomikai and nowadays casual nomikai is very interesting, and this also helped me to realize the importance of learning Japanese culture with correspondence to the current policies, social trends, and individual needs.

References

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