Nomikai: Japanese drinking culture (Japanese person’s view)

When you have possibility to interact with Japanese people such as working in a Japanese based company, doing business with Japanese companies or getting along with Japanese friends, you might have chance to drink alcohol with them.

Basically a lot of Japanese people tend to drink alcohol together with customer, business partner, supervisor, colleague and friend.(The number of drinking was decreased recently due to Covid-19 though)

If you have chance to drink with them, you might be wondering what kind of drinking culture Japanese people have and what kind of activity is impolite or makes negative impression to them.

In this article, I’d like to share Japanese drinking culture with the same company workers, customers and etiquette of drinking, etc.

Nomikai: Japanese drinking culture

Usually Japanese people drink alcohol with other members such as friends or colleagues which starts when they enter university or company

and when you enter Japanese company there are many event of drinking such as year end party, new year party, welcoming party and farewell party

and you have a lot of chance to drink alcohol with supervisors and seniors.

Further you may have chance to drink alcohol with Japanese customers/business partners to keep good business relationship with them.

Drinking with supervisors, seniors & colleagues

If you enter Japanese based company you possibly have chance to drink alcohol with Japanese supervisor, senior, colleague and we Japanese people think it is good opportunity to understand more about each other.

Usually after drinking alcohol with them, the relationship while working can also be influenced positively.

For instance, I belong to Japanese manufacturing company and often drank alcohol with seniors in a different department, and once I made relationship with them, they were rather supportive when I needed their help to get business or needed to finish my work.

Likewise, they also asked us for help when they need my support such as translating documents to English in working hours.

Drinking makes kind of smooth communication inside company.

Drinking with customer/business partner

If you enter Japanese based company or have business in Japan you possibly have chance to drink together with customer/business partner.
We Japanese people think after drinking together with customers we can have much better relationship with them.

For example, when I was working in logistic company, to keep good relationship with manufacturers who gave us export/import business we often went drink together with the person in charge of our company.

Otherwise I could have been worried whether customer would gave orders to another competitor.

After drinking we really receive good orders from them if their conditions match to our service.

To keep customers relationship, we Japanese often go drinking with our customers.

Etiquette of drinking

We Japanese people share the same etiquette to follow while drinking together with other Japanese people and I’d like to share some of them.

Be punctual

If drinking starts from 7pm you should be there before 7pm.

Especially when drinking with customer, you should be there at least 5 minutes before the starting time.

Japanese people usually have strict time concept and if you are late for drinking you could be regarded as incompetent worker and could lose credibility.

We Japanese people are strictly trained when entering a new company after graduation of school or university.

I was scolded several times by my senior, if I couldn’t finish my job before dinner time with my supervisor.

If I needed to delay the dinner I should have told senior or other participants that I would be late in advance.
They feel uncomfortable with you if you are late for drinking without informing in advance.

Let customer/supervisor sit at the place of honer

If you drink with your Japanese customer/supervisor let them sit at the “place of honer”.

The place of honer is usually back seat which you can see all the dinner participants and inside restaurant around easily.

Instead you should sit at near entrance or door because you can help convey food and drink to them rather easily.

We Japanese people always consider where is the seat of honer before drinking and they tend to avoid that seat because if you are not supervisor or upper position person it is rude to sit on the seat of honer.

The way making a toast

When making a toast with your supervisor or customer before drinking, please make a toast with lower height position than their glass position.

If your glass is in higher position when making a toast, some Japanese supervisor/customer feel uncomfortable.

But when making a toast with Japanese people, you easily notice they always consider height of glass high or not too much.

If you help pouring, use both hands to grab bottle

If your supervisor/customer’s glass is empty you may help pouring but please hold bottle by both hands.

If you use one hand to hold bottle to pour, it is considered to be rude in Japan.

Please gently hold by both hands and help pour till the best volume of liquid inside the glass, that attitude is preferred and shows politeness in Japanese society.

Say thank you or send thank you mail next day

If you drink with your supervisor/customer, next day you should show gratitude to them.
Usually when drinking with supervisor, he/she pay more than subordinates, so it is highly recommended to say thank-you in next day when you are in the office.

(If supervisor didn’t pay more than us, I have no idea if we should say thank-you next day though.. Usually he/she pays more or everything.)

Also, after drinking with your customer regardless of who pay for the dinner, you need to show gratitude to him/her of sparing time with you for dinner through e-mail or phone next day.

That behavior is really important among Japanese people to keep good relationship with them.

My current supervisor in my company was angry at me once when I forget to say thank-you in the next day of drinking together with him.

Is it rude if you don’t participate drinking?

You noticed that Japanese people have such a crazy drinking culture, and you might be wondering if it is rude to refuse joining drinking.

It used to be rude till several years ago if you refused drinking with supervisors/seniors and some of them might have treated you badly in a working hours such as getting angry to you easily comparing with other subordinates who often participate drinking.

However, due to COVID-19, opportunity of drinking with other Japanese people was decreased dramatically and it was good chance such as for me who hate drinking with supervisor/senior to avoid drinking together.

Also, the number of young Japanese people who hate drinking with company’s people was increased recently

and they tend to refuse supervisor’s suggestion of drinking together easily, and that tendency makes getting easier for us to refuse drinking together as well.

Thus, it used to be difficult to refuse drinking with supervisors/seniors in the past, but it is getting easier recently due to above reasons.

Harassment of drinking

In Japan, the number has been decreased, but still some supervisors/seniors bully or harass subordinates while drinking.

For example forcing subordinates to drink a lot even if they get drank easily, or preaching/blaming subordinates pointing out behaviours during office hours were terrible.

I also was bullied by one of the seniors in my company when drinking with him and I was forced to drink too much and dance in front of other people even if I didn’t wish.

At that time I was scared to inform that harassment to other people and I cried myself to sleep at that time.

If you encounter such a bad seniors you don’t need to participate drinking with him/her ever again and due to above reasons mentioned, it is easier to refuse drinking nowadays

and recently there are a lot of Japanese government policy to countermeasure for any harassment in companies

and it is easier to inform your experience of harassment to company (recently there are a lot of companies opening windows for people who suffer harassment)

and if you are disappointed to your companies response to your claim, you may directly ask for bureau of labor standard in Japan for help, then that company receive strict instructions.

To harassment, situation is gradually improved in Japan.

Conclusion

In this article I introduced about Japanese distinctive drinking culture.

Hope you read mine and enjoy drinking with Japanese Japanese people.

Thank you for reading this article till the end.