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.

A Very Japanese Holiday Season

Happy New Year!  I’ve just spent my first Christmas and New Year in Japan.  In fact, it is my first Christmas and New Year outside of Australia.  I was wondering what to expect.  Now that it’s over and we’re rocketing into 2012, I can tell you all about it.

Christmas 

I think we’re all familiar with the standard Western Christmas.  Putting aside differences in climate between the Hemispheres, Christmas is a public holiday day spent with your family exchanging presents and eating turkey, pudding etc.  You know the drill.  Christmas in Japan is a decidedly different affair.  I think the following six points illustrate this.

First and foremost, Christmas is not a public holiday in Japan.  Yes, you read correctly.  If Christmas doesn’t fall on a Sunday or Saturday, you’ll be spending the day at work.  That said, 23 December is a public holiday for the Emperor’s Birthday (which is like Christmas for the few nationalistic loonies in Japan!) so you can’t feel that deprived of holidays.

Secondly, in Japan you are not expected to spend Christmas Day with your family.  If anything, Christmas is a “date night” for doting young couples.  It’s almost like a second Valentine’s Day.

Thirdly, buying a present for your family and friends is not expected.  Retailers must hate it!  However, if you’re a devoted young man on “date night”, your fair lady may be expecting a gift!

Fourthly, Japan is not a Christian country.  I don’t think that distinguishes Japan greatly from Australia since the average Australian does not seem like a particularly devote Christian (or a Christian at all) despite what they may write in the census.  I think Christmas is the only day that many Australians attend church as if it makes up for the complete year of Sundays they have otherwise missed.  In Japan, you can skip church along with the rest of the population.  And rest assured, there will be no nativity play at your local elementary school.

Fifthly, there is little in the way of Christmas decorations, carols and other fa, la, la, la, la, ho, ho, ho, ho, deck the halls stuff in Japan.  You’ll see the odd Christmas tree in a department store but not much more.  However, the one thing Tokyo does have is “illumination,” which are outdoor lighting displays.  These are many of these around Tokyo but they are not in Christmas colours and would be just as appropriate at any other time of year.  Some are quite impressive, such as the one at Tokyo Midtown.

Tokyo Illumination:  All lit up like a Christmas Tree?  No, just all lit up.

Finally, no-one seems to care that much for the “Christmas spirit,” which is so heavily promoted in Australia.  In Japan, you are not asked to “dig deep at Christmas time” to help various charities nor are you under any obligation to be nicer to anyone than you are for the other 364 days of the year.  That said, everyone is already pretty nice here, so there’s really no need to ramp it up just for Christmas.

New Year

I think we’re all equally familiar with the traditional Western New Year:  stay out all night drinking too many over-priced drinks then spend the next day hungover, un-tagging yourself in embarrassing Facebook photos thinking “there must be better ways to spend the first day of the year.”  In Japan, this is not the custom, except perhaps with some of the younger generation who have adopted such revelry.

Traditionally, Japanese New Year’s Eve is a quiet time spent with family.  People may visit a Shinto Shrine at midnight to say a prayer for the coming year.  Before midnight, they may eat toshikoshi soba at home with their family.  This is a special type of noodle eaten just before midnight on New Year’s Eve.  

 

On New Year’s Day, itself, they will eat Osechi which is the traditional food of New Year’s Day.  Osechi actually comprises several different types of food all of which are very organic and healthy.  It is served in a three-layered box where each level looks somewhat like a bento box.  Like many Japanese foods, Osechi is meticulously arranged and presented.  Each item of food symbolizes a particular virtue that you are hoping for in the New Year.  Unfortunately, I don’t know anything more about the meaning or history of Osechi, but I can tell you that it’s very nice and one of the best Japanese dishes I’ve had.

Zōjō-ji post balloon release.

So did I partake in the traditional Japanese New Year?  To an extent, yes.  Although I didn’t eat any toshikoshi soba, I visited Zōjō-ji at midnight which is the most popular shrine in Tokyo for seeing in the New Year (very crowded!).  At midnight, people release helium balloons carrying a piece of paper containing a wish for the New Year.  Hundreds were released at Zōjō-ji.  On New Year’s Day, I ate some wonderful Osechi prepared by the family of one of my Japanese friends.  All in all, much better than spending the day with a hangover!

In closing, wherever you may be, thank you for visiting this blog in 2011 and I hope that you continue to drop by in 2012.  Happy New Year and all the best for 2012!

Our Man in Japan.

Should native English-speakers learn a second language?

Since this is Christmas Eve, you may have been expecting a post about festive season activities.  Well, this isn’t that.  Don’t worry.  I will make a post reviewing Christmas and New Year when those events have finished.   Today’s post is about something entirely different.

For the last nine months, I have been studying Japanese in my spare time.  I have been quite diligent and learnt a lot, although I still only know about 0.1% of what I need to know!  All this time I have struggled with the question of whether I should be bothering to learn Japanese at all.  I definitely think that it is worth learning the standard phrases so that you are able to survive, but what about going beyond that?  What about studying a second language for years on end so that you become highly proficient?  Well, that is the subject or today’s post.

The only reason for becoming highly proficient in a second language

After much thinking I have concluded that the only time anyone should learn a second language to a highly proficient level is if they need to in order to regularly communicate.  None of the other reasons advanced for learning a second language, in my opinion, are valid.  

The three reasons I have heard for learning a second language (other than communication) are (i) it helps you understand another culture, (ii) it builds memorisation skills and (iii) it helps you better understand your native language.  As for the (i), I think the most effective way to understand another culture is to study that culture.  I agree that language is an important part of culture but I think you will get a sufficient understanding of how a country’s language is different from your own by simply reading about the fundamentals of the language.  There is no need to undertake the laborious task of memorising every word you know in your native language in a second language.

As for (ii), I agree that memorising many words in a different language is likely to build your memorisation skills but surely it would be better to build such skills by memorising something that you are likely to use on a regular basis?  If you are not going to regularly use a second language on a regular basis, there is little point in memorising so much information regarding it.  Further, I question whether memorising large volumes of material is a good in itself.  The ability to analyse and create is far more valuable than the ability to slavishly “wrote learn” material.  Every advance has been made through the creation of a new method or being able to discern something which was not immediately apparent.  Memorisation is at odds with this.  Perhaps focusing on memorisation even damages such skills.

As for (iii), I think it is obvious that the best way to understand and improve your native language is to study it.  Studying a second language (which may have very little in common with your native language) is a very circuitous way to go about improving your native language.

Some might say that learning a second language opens up career, study and travel opportunities.  I agree, but this is an example of learning a second language for the purpose of communication, which I have already acknowledged is the only valid reason for learning a second language.  

Should native English speakers become highly proficient in a second language?

I was wondering how many English speakers, both native and non-native, there are in the World.  Unfortunately, no-one really knows.  The answer to this question largely depends on how proficient someone must be at English to be considered an English speaker.  Some people estimate that there are as many as 2 billion English speakers in the World, which means English has more speakers than any other language.  If you accept the figure of 2 billion, less than 20% of English speakers are in fact native speakers, which makes the native English speaker quite a rare creature.  Even if you only count native English speakers, English is the most widely spoken language in geographic terms and more countries have English as their official language than any other language.  The result of all these facts is something most of us already know:  if you already speak English is it very unlikely that you need to learn another language to regularly communicate.   

I acknowledge that some native English speakers may need to learn a second language due to their particular circumstances.  These circumstances are largely unique to each individual but nationality may have some influence.  In this regard, I was wondering what is the worst country on Earth for learning a second language.  Firstly, it has to be a country that has English as its official language.  Secondly, it has to be a country which is geographically isolated from speakers of another language.  This second factor rules out the UK (close to Continental Europe), Canada (all those Quebecoise!), the USA (Spanish is spoken by so many people in the South West) and South Africa (Afrikan).  I think the winner would have to be Australia or New Zealand.

So, for the reasons above, I do not think most native English speakers should become highly proficient in a second language.  There is simply no reason to be.

If not highly proficient, how about utterly incompetent?

You have probably noticed that I have been saying that native English speakers should not become “highly proficient” in a second language.  I still think that native English speakers should learn a small part of a second language, in certain circumstances, for reasons other than communication.  I think there are two such circumstances.

Firstly, I think school students should be made to learn a second language for at least two years.  This is because school should introduce children to as many areas of study as possible so that they can determine what interests them.  For this reason, drama, sport, music, geography and various other subjects are all taught in schools.

Secondly, I think that foreign tourists should make an effort to learn some basic phrases when on holiday as a show of respect to the inhabitants of the country they are visiting.  In most cases, reciting something you have learnt from the back pages of a guide book is not going to do much to breakdown the language barrier but it is more polite than assuming everyone on Earth speaks your language.

So what should native English speakers do?

If you are not a native English speaker who needs to learn a second language for the purposes of regular communication, what should you do?  I think the answer is obvious: make sure that your English is as good as possible!  I think that every native English speaker is capable of improving their spoken and written English.  This is an ongoing challenge.  Everyone could be a better public speaker, everyone could be more widely read and everyone could have a larger vocabulary.  

Finally, I hope this post is not interpreted as a self-important native English speaker ranting about how every other language on Earth is rubbish.  Not true.  I find Japanese fascinating.  While I am in Japan, I will make an effort to learn as much as I can in my free time.  However, we must acknowledge that learning a second language is a time-consuming activity which is not worth pursuing unless there is a reason to do so.  This is the case regardless of whether your native language is English or not.

Thank you for reading and take care

Our Man in Japan

The Volcanic South

Japan is well known for earthquakes but not so much for volcanoes.  The first country that comes to my mind when I think of volcanic activity is Iceland, particularly after one of its unpronounceable volcanoes stopped most European air transport in 2010.  However, there certainly are active volcanoes in Japan.  You just have to venture to the most southern of Japan’s main islands, Kyushu, to see them.

Kyushu is home to the three most famous active volcanoes in Japan:  Sakurajima, Shinmoedake and Aso-san.  The Japanese word for volcano is kazan (火山) which literally means “fire mountain.”

Sakurajima

Sakurajima (literally “cherry island”) is a huge volcano only a few kilometres away from the major city of Kagoshima.  Sakurajima is permanently active, erupting on a daily basis.  It has been this way for decades and for that reason is of great interest to scientists.

Depending on the wind direction, ash from Sakurajima will rain down on Kagoshima.  There is ash everywhere in the city: on cars, footpaths etc.  The people of Kagoshima are quite comfortable with all of this.  Apparently they check the wind direction before hanging their clothes outside to dry and will walk around with umbrellas if an ash shower is forecast.

Sakurajima is clearly visible from Kagoshima (because it’s so huge!) and very pretty at sunrise and sunset.  When I was taking some photos of it at sunrise, it erupted throwing a large cloud of ash into the air.  Here is a sequence of photos I took as well as a photo of Sakurajima as seen from Kagoshima on a clear day.

 Shinmoedake

Shinmoedake (literally “new burning peak”) is about two-hours drive north of Kagoshima.  Shinmoedake made international headlines when it violently erupted on 26 January 2011 causing evacuations from the local area.  At one stage, a lightning storm passed through the ash cloud creating some spectacular images

When I visited Kyushu, it had fallen silent.  Here are some news photo from the eruption in January 2011.

 Aso-san

Aso-san is about three-to-four-hours drive from Kagoshima.  It is a popular tourist destination due to the beauty and tranquillity of the surrounding landscape.  Most visitors walk to the edge of the crater to look down at the bubbling lake within.  Aso-san doesn’t emit ash and smoke like most volcanoes but rather belches out steam and sulphur dioxide.  When a significant emission of sulphur dioxide occurs, a warning is sounded and everyone has to leave the area.  That occurred when I visited.  The gas definitely makes you cough!

As it was very cloudy on the day I visited Aso-san, I couldn’t take any decent photos of the crater.  Here is a promotional photo of the crater on a clearer day.

 The sleeping giant

The most famous volcano in Japan isn’t in Kyushu.  In fact, it’s only 100km from Tokyo:  Mt Fuji.  Mt Fuji hasn’t erupted since 1707 and is considered dormant.  If it was planning an eruption, now would be a good time since (i) nobody is on the mountain due to the Winter weather and (ii) the views of Mt Fuji from Tokyo are best in Winter.  Last time it erupted, some ash rained down on Tokyo, but that’s just a normal day if you live in Kagoshima!  I could handle that.  Besides, I would get a great view of the eruption from my balcony!

Thank you for reading and take care.

Our Man in Japan.