MEDIA
WHAT YOU MISSED IN THE JAPANESE PRESS
BY MARK SCHREIBER
After Dark: Times Still Hard
JORDY THEILLER
The Wako department store in Ginza, Tokyo
Efforts by the Liberal Democratic Party government to jump-start the economy have seen stock prices soar and the value of the Japanese yen plummet, to the glee of exporters.
Some believe that if things were really on the upswing, this would be indicated by outlays for corporate entertainment. So the Nikkei Marketing Journal( 24 April) surveyed expenditures in three major urban areas famed for their nightlife: Ginza( Tokyo), Sakae( Nagoya) and Kitashinchi( Osaka).
The news, unfortunately, was not very heartening. By the time both hands on Ginza Wako’ s clock point to midnight, streams of people can be seen flowing towards Ginza Station, while taxis remain lined up in a 400-metre queue.
Out of the 38 Ginza restaurants surveyed, 24 % said business was“ good”. Among 33 bar and nightclub owners queried, just 15 % gave the same response. Meanwhile, out of 31 taxi drivers, only 3 % described the times as being good.
The situation is similar in Nagoya’ s Sakae district.“ Before the Lehman Shock [ in 2008 ], customers often ran up charges of ¥ 10,000 to go back home to the suburbs. Now it’ s just a short ¥ 1,000 ride to Nagoya Station”, grumbled one taxi driver.
Located within Sakae, Nishiki is where staff members of Toyota Motor Corporation and their various vendors typically go to drink. It’ s been said that if the automobile business catches a cold, Nishiki sneezes.
Thanks to the recent decline in the value of the yen, car sales are up, and the area’ s denizens yearn for better times that, it is hoped, will come very soon.
In the good old days, popular hostesses in Osaka’ s Kitashinchi neighbourhood would expect male customers to meet them for a light meal and some shopping a few hours prior to their bar opening and before accompanying them into the establishment. Now, however, the girls wait for their customers on the street outside the bar. No more meal tickets for them, alas.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’ s policies aimed at bolstering small and medium-sized firms have led to a change in the tax code. The allowable expenditures for wining and dining have been raised to ¥ 8mn per year. What’ s more, these outlays can now be applied even when the books show a loss.
Yuichi Kamiya, an office director at Ginza Shako Ryoin Kyokai, General Inc., an association of Ginza establishments that was founded in 1925 and currently has 1,695 member businesses, told the Nikkei:“ Drinking and concluding contracts go together. We’ d like to be thought of as one of the gears that turns the Japanese economy”.
12 | BCCJ ACUMEN | MAY 2013