Zaiteku zooms into the unknown. (Japanese high-tech financing operations)

It looks like a typical Tokyo watering hole. Large paper lanterns hang from the ceiling-, kimono-clad women glide between the tables delivering beer and witticisms, and a sound system belts out enka songs – Japan’s answer to country and western. But after the last salaryman leaves each night, cleaners strip the place of its gaudy trappings to reveal another identity: in the daytime, this is the Nissan Motor Company’s office canteen.

In a determined cost-cutting attempt in the face of the high yen, Japan’s second largest car company has been tampering with the most sacred of all-corporate Japan’s traditions – management’s huge expense accounts for entertaining colleagues and associates.