Phenomenal article by Gillian Tett (ex-FT Tokyo bureau chief) on LTCB, Shinsei, Japanese bank reform (or the lack of it.) Long but well worth your time.
As they [bankers Vernon Jordan, David Fite, and Tim Collins] looked around [the LTCB cafeteria in 1990] they saw that in Japan bankers sit in neat, quiet rows, in a clear pattern. At some of the tables there were just women, wearing matching uniforms; at others there were only men in dark blue suits. This was not segregation by sex but by status: the women, so-called "office ladies", all held the lowliest clerical jobs, so they tended to sit together."I have seen segregation before," Jordan, a political activist and close friend of former US president Bill Clinton, later recalled. "I'm from the American South - I grew up with segregation. But when I looked at that canteen, it was like a whole new type of divide... it was like nothing I'd seen before."
