Drinking in Japan

How to Avoid Any Cultural Faux Pas

“A civilization stands or falls by the degree to which drink has entered the lives of its people, and from that point of view Japan must rank very high among the civilizations of the world,”

— Yoshida Kenichi

Booze, hooch, sauce — call it what you will but there can be no downplaying the essential role that alcohol consumption plays in Japan. Visitors from countries with more conservative liquor policies will often be surprised at how critical the stuff is to Japanese everyday life. Be it the required drinking with clients and co-workers after hours or getting trashed with friends on the weekend, alcohol is a central pillar of life. Indeed it sometimes seems that the entire society would cease to function without the constant outlet of a good drink.

Compared to some other countries where public intoxication is a criminal offense, Japan’s lax attitudes towards drinking can be startling. For one, it’s just as legal to consume alcohol out in the open as it is to pass out on the street in a drunken bliss. Unlike in the West, convenience stores like 7/11 and Family Mart almost always can be found carrying a selection of beers and mixed drinks. Furthermore, their age verification involves nothing more than the tapping a touch panel to confirm that one is of drinking age (20 years old as of this writing).

Given the legality of drinking just about anywhere in public, it’s common to find groups of friends pregaming right in front of the very store where they bought their liquor. Restaurants too are often set up to facilitate drunkenness with many offering hangover inducing all-you-can-drink courses that last two to three hours. Coupled with quasi-mandatory drinking with coworkers after a long day in the office, this all leads to a situation where anyone found out on the streets past 10 PM is at the very least buzzed (and more likely than not totally wasted).

As you might imagine, Japan is an alcoholic’s paradise that doesn’t even recognize that addiction to the substance could ever be a problem. With booze flowing in seemingly all directions, it can seem hard for those who aren’t…