Japanese Female Workers Prefer Lunch-break to After-5 "Nominication"

Nominication? That's unheard of but acceptable as a localized jargon for communication. To drink means "nomu" in Japanese and to them this unheard-of word just means "communication through drinking".

Japanese company workers have by tradition a habit of bypassing their way back home at drinking places to "refresh their minds" and at the same time to coordinate human relations. When female workers were fewer in number, they, too, often rather unwillingly joined male colleagues just to coordinate human relations in the office.

Now, the situation has subtly changed toward female workers just as many or even larger in number turning their backs on after-5 get-togethers to share their lunchtime breaks to do the coordination, a report says in the Yomiuri, August 20.

At noon, on Friday early in July, a group of four female staff of an IT enterprise met at a Teppanyaki restaurant, Tokyo, in what they call Women Shuffle Lunch. One of them, an engineer, 31, whimpered she wanted to have a child but could not bring herself to asking for a childcare leave. "If I did, I would end up being Mrs. Rip Van Winkle", she sighed. A mother of a two-year-old boy, 35, responded," I did feel that way when I was wondering when to have my second child". The session was lively with talks over work, family and ageing.

Another similar all-female lunchtime session was arranged by the Personnel Department in several separate groups at different eating joints. The female workers of this company were 31 years old in age average and accounted for 20% or thereabouts of its workforce. Miss Kayoko Ono of the Human Resources Development Division commented, "We arranged the session specifically at lunchtime because female staff find it easier and less costlier to join". "For those meeting for the first time one-hour at lunchtime is no burden", she added.