Bohnenkai Benders

The Japanese, noted for their skill at importing and improving U.S. business techniques, have advanced to a new high (or low) state. They have taken to one business practice that has been on the wane in the U.S.: the office Christmas party. The Japanese, who learned the tradition from American occupation forces, call them bohnenkai (forget-the-year parties), and they work diligently at drowning the past in a torrent of alcohol during two weeks of nightly Christmastime revelry with geishas, models and strippers.

There was much to remember in 1960 before forgetting. With the business boom, companies were able to increase their year-end bonuses to employees by 20%, to a national total of $1.4 billion, still have plenty left to pay for parties. One company alone, Yawata, the nation's largest steel producer, spent an estimated $150,000 on its bohnenkai last year. Besides regarding the parties as a safety valve to let their hard-working employees blow off steam, businessmen use them to entertain favored customers and government officials. At other times in the year, such entertaining would be frowned on as commercial bribery, but a bohnenkai forgets that, too.

Burei. The keynote is burei (no manners). While employees in the U.S. may get drunk at office parties and tell the boss off, employees in Japan are virtually required to; that is considered an improvement on the hit-or-miss American tradition. Afterward, everyone politely forgets all that happened.

Most of the parties are for men only and are in restaurants and nightclubs, but this year there was competition for odd places to hold them. Two groups chartered Tokyo streetcars; another went aboard a coastal steamer. One party was held atop Tokyo Tower, which bills itself as higher than the Eiffel Tower.

Bohnenkai for upper echelons of executives generally start around 6 p.m. in a restaurant. After enough hot sake has been downed, the businessmen often show off their talents for entertaining--singing, dancing, doing magic tricks. Then come the strippers, dancing nude among the tables to the tune of Jingle Bells and White Christmas. Or, for variety, there may be a pornographic film. This Christmas the women employees at one company rebelled against the men-only rule. The company officials finally relented, with the stipulation that the working girls provide some of the entertainment.

Shame Campaign. About the only Tokyo men who do not approve of the Christmas celebrations are the hard-working police. They arrested 30% more drunks during the holidays than the 100-a-night they jugged for two weeks straight the year before. To keep the more violent ones under control, the police have had to build a special truck lined with foam rubber and equipped with straps to tie them down. In an effort to teach some lessons, the police made recordings of the maudlin performances of the worst drunks arrested. The next morning the recordings were played back to them. If they were married, the wives were invited to listen.

The police hoped that this technique would cause some bohnenkai fans to swear off. But they fear, with considerable justification, that the bohnenkai has become so much of a tradition that by next Christmas, the lessons will be forgotten.

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