It was the morning of April 1.

That date explained the sea of earnest, eager young faces in the audience, the somber ranks of white-haired executives on the stage, the huge blue-and-white felt banner on the wall reading "Nippon Denki K.K." (which is to say, Nippon Electronic Corporation, an industrial giant known around the world as NEC), and the overall aura of great expectations in the air as the corporate band launched into the familiar opening chords and 1,400 young people in dark blue business suits rose as one to gush forth a spirited and surprisingly harmonic rendition of a peppy, upbeat song, a song that would be, for the next three or four decades, their song:

"To build a culture of communication Shall be our destin-eeee, Nippon, Nippon, Nippon Den-keee!"

That song, the "Nippon Denki Corporate Anthem," has been changed only slightly since 1889, when Alexander Graham Bell provided the money to start a Japanese counterpart of his Western Electric Company. Today, Western Electric is no more, and the Bell System is history, but NEC ranks as one of the world's largest and richest makers of electric and electronic equipment, a company with the wealth and stature of an IBM or a Microsoft. To start work there -- or, rather, "to become a member of the Nippon Denki family," as the company's president, Tadahiro Sekimoto, put it in his speech that April 1 -- is an important and thrilling moment in the life of any Japanese person. That's why I saw all those eager young faces as I sat in the back of the ridiculously rococo Gold Ballroom at the Tanagawa Prince Hotel in Tokyo on the morning of April 1.

At NEC and hundreds of other companies all over Japan, April 1 is the day for the Nyu-Sha-Shiki, or Entering-the-Company Ceremony. About one million new graduates -- kids who have finished high school or college about a month before this big day -- start their working careers on April 1 every year. For NEC and most other big companies, it is the only day all year they will take in new employees. You can't just open the door on any old day and take in workers. Hiring somebody -- inviting a person to share membership in the corporate group -- is an important moment, not just for the company and the new worker, but for the society as a whole. Such things have to be done right, with ritual and ceremony that befit a defining moment. Confucius says in the first book of the Analects that joint observance of established rituals by all members of a group is crucial to building the feeling of harmonious relations that is required for the group to succeed. That applies whether it's the Nyu-Sha-Shiki at a Japanese company or the company picnic or the whole family gathering for Thanksgiving dinner in the United States. "Of all the things brought about by ritual," it says in the Analects, "harmony is the most valuable."

There was no shortfall of ritual at NEC. A few weeks before the ceremony started, each new employee had received a letter addressed "Dear New Member of the Company." It had directed them to wear a dark gray or blue business suit and to be in their seats -- assigned seats, of course -- thirty-five minutes before the ceremony. Most of the new "members" took these admonitions seriously, and just about all of the 1,400 new hires for NEC's Tokyo-area plants and offices were on hand in the Gold Ballroom at 8:25 a.m., when roll was taken. Precise instructions were provided for the morning's events: when to stand, how to bow, when to applaud, etc. The group was ordered not to smoke, a fairly painful command for Japanese young people. The recruits then practiced singing "Nippon Denki Corporate Anthem" so there would be no errors during the actual ceremony.

The Nyu-Sha-Shiki began at precisely 9:00 a.m., and there was a perceptible ripple of pride, mixed with a little embarrassment, as the first of the white-haired corporate elders on the stage stepped to the microphone and wished a good morning to "my fellow company members." There followed a formal address from President Sekimoto, whose speech was nicely crystallized in its title: "Let's Build the Richness of Our Hearts Through Our Jobs." Then there were pep talks from a couple of board members, the head of the personnel section, and other in-house dignitaries. Then each new member was instructed to open the packet under his or her seat, wherein each employee found business cards (bearing the title "NEC corporate-member-in-training") and an NEC corporate lapel badge, exactly like the ones worn by the big shots on the stage. Next, one young woman from the entering class came forward as representative for all her peers to recite the New Company Members' Pledge, a short but highminded declaration that "we will use all our strength and skill to improve daily life for all the world's people through electronics and communications." After that, President Sekimoto led the entire room in the recitation of the NEC corporate oath.

All the songs, speeches, and pledges marked a mutual oath of loyalty. The employees agreed, in essence, to be good corporate members -- in short, to do what the company orders -- and the company agreed to watch out for the employees in good times and bad, virtually guaranteeing that these workers will never face a layoff and will not be fired for anything short of outright crime. These are Confucian loyalties, of course, and they run both ways.

All the NEC recruits who joined the company that day would be paid about $1,500 per month, with yearly increases thereafter; the amount would be based strictly on seniority for at least the next ten years. That way, all the members of that day's starting class would remain on an equal basis. In addition to the pay, they would get housing -- a single room with kitchen in a corporate dormitory cost $150 per month, about 90 percent less than market rent. They would get NEC corporate health insurance, with many routine medical services provided at the NEC health center. They would all wear their NEC lapel pins, vacation at NEC resorts, play on NEC sports teams, and join the NEC company union.

They would all have accounts at Sumitomo Bank, because NEC is a member of the Sumitomo keiretsu, or corporate grouping; in fact, a pass book for an account that had already been opened in each new member's name at Sumitomo was included in that packet under the seat. In short, what happened in the Gold Ballroom that April 1 was that each of these people got a new job, but they got something more than that in the bargain.

"A job in Japan," wrote Edwin 0. Reischauer, "is not merely a contractual arrangement for pay, but a means of identification with a larger entity -- in other words, a satisfying sense of being part of something big and significant [which] brings a sense of security and also pride in loyalty to the firm. Both managers and workers suffer no loss of identity but rather gain pride through their company, particularly if it is large and famous. Company songs are sung with enthusiasm, and company pins are proudly displayed in buttonholes."

For all of the new company members who started work that day, the first assignment was to be a two-month training course, covering the structure of NEC, the makeup of the global electronics and communications industry, and the rules of behavior that apply to employees. The packet under each chair contained a 320-page textbook, the Business Manner, published by the NEC Culture Center. This dealt with such matters as how to answer the phone politely, how to exchange name cards, how to serve tea, how and when to address corporate superiors. It's important to exchange respectful greetings when coming to work first thing in the morning, the manual observed, and to address corporate big shots politely if you meet them in a hallway or an elevator. "But when you see a superior in the bathroom, no greeting is necessary."

I got a real kick out of this book, particularly the section teaching the new members how to bow. Bowing is a symbol of respect in Japan, a way of expressing one's deference to others. It contributes to the wa [group harmony], and thus it is too important to be left to chance. So the text lays out the rights and wrongs:

"This chart teaches new company employees the right way to bow: 30 degrees for greeting at a reception, 60 degrees as a 'normal' bow, or 90 degrees when making an apology. Women should cross hands in front when bowing. Employees should not raise their heads or smile."

It isn't only NEC that makes a big deal out of April 1 in Japan. The whole country joins in to mark the august occasion of young people starting their economic careers. These new working people are given the collective title shin-shakaijin, or "new members of society." Retailers, bankers, and brokers mount special advertising campaigns every spring aimed at these "new members," with fancy booths set up, manned by attractive young people, to help the youngsters figure out what it means to have a bank account or a credit card. The department stores, acting on the theory that a kid just out of high school or college doesn't know how to dress for success, offer special package deals for new members. There's a yon-ten setto, or four-point set, offering a two-piece suit along with a shirt and a necktie guaranteed to match. For those even farther out of sync with fashion, there are flve-point, six-point, or seven-point setto, which throw in shoes, socks, and a handkerchief certified not to clash with the other parts of the set.

Each year around the first of April, the Japanese TV networks all broadcast documentaries and dramas about the excitement and trauma of this new stage of life. I particularly remember a drama special one year in which Nishida Hikari, a cute, peppy young actress, was cast as a cute, peppy new corporate member at a big stationery company. The program showed our heroine attending the Nyu-Sha-Shiki on April 1, taking the pledge, and pinning on the company badge, after which she was assigned to a particular section of the firm and ordered to report to the section chief for work. The camera followed her as she wandered the seemingly endless corridors of the giant corporate headquarters and finally found the right office. She lingered outside in the hallway to take off her backpack -- she wasn't a college girt anymore, after all -- and straighten her new pin-striped blue suit. Then she bounded into the office and introduced herself: "Honorable sectionmates, I plan to work so hard for this section that I collapse from stress or a heart attack, so please welcome me as a member here." Everyone seemed to think this was a sufficiently self-effacing greeting, and they welcomed her with open arms. She was a member.

I met a woman who reminded me of Nishida Hikari that day I went to the NEC Nyu-Sha-Shiki -- an earnest, nervous twenty-two-year-old who was seated next to me in the last row of seats in the Gold Ballroom. A few weeks earlier, no doubt, she had been hanging around some campus bar in jeans and a sweatshirt. But that day, she was freshly scrubbed and neatly tailored. Everything was so fresh and new, in fact, that the price tag was still hanging from the neat blue pin-striped skirt that matched her neat blue pin-striped blazer. I debated for a while but finally went ahead and told her about that dangling price tag. She was horrified. She ripped off the offending tag as if it were a carrier of bubonic plague, then turned to thank me profusely, over and over again, as if I had just saved her entire business career.

We got to chatting. In the course of conversation, this new NEC member-to-be asked me to describe my entering-the-company ceremony, back when I had joined the Washington Post. "What day do they do it over there?" she asked. Interesting question. I had no idea what date I had started at my company, and frankly couldn't remember anything that had happened on the first day, except that I had stood for a while at the edge of the newsroom until some sub-subeditor came up to say, "There's your desk." That was my Nyu-Sha-Shiki at the Washington Post Company. The young woman seemed crushed. I had really let her down. Striving to salvage the moment, I quickly added the information that my company does in fact have a corporate song of its own -- a truly great one, in fact: John Philip Sousa's "Washington Post March." Dah dah dah-dah DAH dah DAH dah DAH dah ... That seemed to help a little, but she was still clearly crestfallen at the lack of ritual that marked an American's first day on the job.

And she had a point, I think. A society should make a collective fuss about a day so important in the lives of a million of its citizens. A society should sit back and take the time to make sure these young people understand the privileges and responsibilities that come with moving on to a new stage of life. Any society, as Confucius insisted, can benefit from the rituals and ceremonies that remind people that they live in a community with a shared moral and cultural tradition. For if there is a collective moral voice in a corporation, a school, a neighborhood, or a nation, it makes sense to be sure that newcomers hear that voice and understand it. The whole point of ceremonies like the Nyu-Sha-Shiki is to tell the members what is expected of them. Then a company, a school, or a community will rely on the members' basic human decency to make them live up to expectations, without the need for reprimand or punishment. That's how Confucius saw it twenty-five centuries ago, and that's the way things still work today, most of the time, in East Asian societies.