Why drinking in Japan happens all year round.
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RANT ON: Drinking in Japan
Submitted by Douglas Gloag
The Japanese: on the
exterior, a mild
mannered, quiet and
healthy race, but in reality most males will drink every
night and
drink BIG
once a week.
More and more, young female Japanese are joining this trend too. Apart from this wanton drinking, there are a host of annual events where you’ll find 80% or more of the Japanese population deep in their cups!
They are:
New Year’s Day. Relatives will get together for an almost three-day party from January 1st. Some friends will visit, but mostly it's a massive family get-together.
Drinking in Japan
Shinnenkai (New Year party). Companies and schools will organize a party welcoming in the new year (and forgetting what you did at the end of year party – see below).
Graduation. All schools in Japan (elementary, Junior High, Senior High) all have big graduation parties, with parents and teachers (no students, although some Senior High students are rumored to hold their own quiet parties away from the public eye!).
Farewell parties. At the end of March, many office staff and teachers are 'asked' to change offices/schools after 4-5 years of working there. Parties are organised as a friendly send-off (even though you NEVER want to see a small percentage of the people leaving again!). Drinking in Japan under these circumstances can be a way of drowing your sorrows, or celebrating the disappearance of a bitter enemy.
Entrance ceremonies and welcome parties. Parents and teachers all get together again to welcome in the new school year (April). Teachers and office staff make their new colleagues welcome through copious amounts of alcohol!
Hana-mi (watching flowers). End of April and beginning of May sees parks full of lines of cherry trees full of blossom. The only true way to really appreciate this natural beauty is sat on a blue mat in shorts and T-shirts and LOADS of booze, drinking from about 9am! Beautiful, man!
End of April to the beginning of May is the Japanese unique 'holiday' called GOLDEN WEEK! This is not an odd reference to urinating in unusual places, but an extended holiday which often revolves around some sort of alcoholic beverage.
July sees the opening of beer gardens – drinking en plein air!
August is matsuri
month. Matsuri is
Japanese for festival
and this is the time when Japan
really comes alive.
Guys all dressed up with cool hair and girls in beautiful yukatas.
It's a whole-day thing (sometimes spreading over three days) full of chicken on a stick and nice cool beer! Some of the best drinking in Japan occurs during the matsuri period.
(Never mind pink elephants... from the picture I found, it seems drinking in Japan creates some other hallucinations! Ed.)
Around the middle of August there is another festival called O-Bon. This is commonly called The Festival of the Dead! Morbid stuff. Spirits of one's relatives are said to come back to check on the living to make sure they're doing the right thing. Families clean the family tomb site, clean their house and clean themselves before getting right royally arseholed on another three-day national holiday.
After that there is mainly just
general drinking until
school sports festivals. Another parent/teacher booze up!
And then we come to the end of the year! The stay over bonnenkai. This translates as the 'Forget the year party'. Groups of co-workers have a major party, where they recollect the year's highs and lows and then degenerate into silly drinking games and horribly off-tune karaoke!
And there it is. Just when you think you can have a couple of days off the stuff, another invitation pops through the door which requires a bit of practice and then a cooling down patch to help the old bod through another year of drinking in Japan!
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