Drinking in Japan

Kimonos on Coming of Age Day.

Monday, 9 January was a public holiday here in Japan for Coming of Age Day:  a day which acknowledges all the Japanese people who reached the legal drinking age of 20 in the previous year.  If such a holiday existed in Australia, I would expect to see drunken youths strewn about most cities.  But like all Japanese holidays, Coming of Age Day is a very dignified affair.  All I saw were many sober 20-year-olds in their finest Kiminos walking to and from the coming of age ceremonies held at their local council offices.    

Coming of Age Day made me reflect upon drinking culture in Japan, and don’t be mistaken, there certainly is a culture.  I think the image of Japanese drinking culture, as it exists in the mind of foreigners, is more shaped by myth than fact.  In today’s post, I hope to set out some of the facts as I’ve observed them in the last 10 months.

Yes, Japanese love to drink!

The first thing to know about Japanese drinking culture is that the Japanese love to drink.  It’s an undeniable fact.  And when I say “drink,” I mean drink in considerable volume.  Alcohol is readily available in large amounts and at affordable prices.  Almost every restaurant and bar in Japan offers what is called a nomihōdai.  This is basically unlimited alcohol for a fixed period of time at a fixed fee.  A standard nomihōdai will be for about 2 hours, cost around USD30 and entitle you to unlimited beer, whiskey, wine, sake, umeshu and shōchu.  Nomihōdai is (unsurprisingly) very popular and a common way to have a drink with your friends or colleagues.  

Asahi ranges from "kids size" (135ml) to "adequate" (1000ml).

If the existence of nomihōdai doesn’t convince you that the Japanese love a drink, consider this:  alcohol is available from every 24-hour convenience store, beer is usually bought in 500ml cans (1000ml cans of Asahi are also available), vending machines sell alcohol, and you can drink in public places.  I remember once walking through a park on a Sunday afternoon and seeing an old lady seated on a park bench drinking a 500ml can of Kirin!

I think there are three reasons why Japanese drink so enthusiastically.  Firstly, they are naturally friendly and out-going.  Secondly, there is no religion in Japan that makes people feel guilty about drinking.  Thirdly, there is a lot of good alcohol in Japan.  And that leads me to an important matter:  Japanese alcohol.

Japanese booze

Japanese mainly drink three things:  (a) local beer, (b) local spirits and (c) local whiskey.  Please note the word “local.”  Foreign drinks are uncommon in Japan which is yet another manifestation of its insular nature.  

On the beer front, Asahi and Kirin are the two main players, but Sapporo, Yebisu and Orion are also popular.  The local spirits are sake (rice liquor), umeshu (plum liquor) and shōchu (distilled rice, sweet potato or barely).  

Japanese mainly, in fact almost exclusively, drink Suntory brand whiskey.  That’s the whiskey which Bill Murray’s character was advertising in Lost in Translation.  Strangely, whiskey highballs are very popular in Japan.  Just plain old scotch and soda is the order of the day.  You can even buy it by the can in convenience stores.

Responsible drinking

You would think the prevalence of drinking in Japan would lead to problems.  It probably would in most countries, but not here.  English ex-pats in Tokyo have remarked to me that if any bar in England offered nomihōdai, it would be drunk dry in an hour then smashed up.  In Australia, any such bar would be drunk dry and if not smashed up, it would certainly be the site of some violence.  In Japan, there are no such problems.  I haven’t witnessed a single fight in Japan nor been accosted by a drunk.  

A subway sign warning you not to be drunk on the platform.

I think there are a few reasons for the absence of alcohol-related problems in Japan.  Firstly, Japanese people are naturally courteous, even when drunk.  Secondly, drinking is often done only with your friends in a location isolated from strangers.  Many traditional Japanese drinking houses (called Izakayas) place each group of drinkers in their own closed booth.  This is different to western-style bars where a group of drunken strangers is thrown together in one room to punch each other up!  Thirdly, Japanese appear to all be happy drunks rather than aggressive drunks.

There are two other goods things about drinking in Japan.  Firstly, very few people in Tokyo drive, so drink-driving is almost non-existent.  Secondly, although drinking is popular, there is no pressure to drink.  This is a far cry from Australia where it is (sadly) acceptable to pressure people to drink and viewed as a sin to be a non-drinker.  That is not the case in Japan.  If you don’t want to drink, no-one will mind in the least.  If you order a water, you won’t be ridiculed for being a “wimp” but probably told that it is a good idea and joined by everyone else. 

So if you ever are in Japan and fell the need for a drink, do not hold back!  There are more bars and restaurants than you can imagine and endless goods drinks to be had.

Thank you for reading and take care.

Our Man in Japan.