Drink (69 page)

The obligation to drink with colleagues or clients after work was reflected in Japanese consumption statistics by age, which resembled, for men, a bell curve. Their boozing was limited in their teens
⁷⁰
—a 1980 survey into the drinking habits of fifteen- to eighteen-year-olds in Japan found only 0.8 percent of the boys and none of the girls were daily drinkers—began to rise as they commenced their careers as salarymen, got heavy as they entered their forties, peaked between ages of fifty and fifty-nine, remained heavy for another decade, then tailed away upon retirement. The profile of Japan’s few female drinkers, in contrast, was a gently rising curve, with women more likely to drink between the ages of seventy and seventy-nine than in their twenties and thirties.

The importance of alcohol to Japanese business culture resulted in a public tolerance of drunkenness far in excess of that which prevailed in America. It was no crime to be intoxicated and no shame to vomit or urinate in the streets. Alcohol was readily available for those of an age to drink it—no license was required to sell it, and in addition to countless bars, restaurants, and grocery stores, beer was sold from vending machines for those wishing to refresh themselves while on the move.

In addition to drinking for the good of their careers, urban salarymen did so for hedonistic reasons, often at one of the growing number of karaoke bars. These venues, which commenced life in the mid-1970s, supplied taped background music over which drinkers took turns singing lyrics. Their delivery was often compromised by the bottle, in accordance with the Japanese concept of
jogo,
i.e., “the tendency to change character when drunk.” Jogo recognizes three subcategories: the
warai-jogo
(happy drunk), the
naki-jogo
(lachrymose drunk), and the
neji-jogo
, or nasty drunk. Depending upon his jogo, the salaryman might be expected to giggle, frown, or rage when he crooned. A small percentage of Japanese drinkers suffered a supplementary transformation to that occasioned by mal
jogo
when in their cups. Their faces would
makkaka naru,
i.e., turn red. This condition results from the genetic disability of some Japanese to digest alcohol. Those possessed of this hereditary trait do not produce acetaldehyde dehydrogenase and so cannot properly metabolize acetaldehyde, and hence suffer some of the same problems as alcoholics on Antabuse when they take a drink, including an instantaneous
futsukayoi
or hangover.

While the metropolitan salarymen tippled on Western booze in drinking places that fused domestic and imported rituals, their compatriots in rural areas favored traditional beverages, which they employed to guard the integrity of native styles of drunkenness.
Sake
was the staple drink outside of cities. Brewed from rice, to an ABV ranging from 18 to 25 percent, and with a flavor profile radically different from Western beverages, which sought to balance “sweetness, sourness, pungency, bitterness, and stringency,” sake was Japanese to the bottom of the flask. In contrast to the limited selection of beers produced by the brewers’ cabal, it was available from thousands of manufacturers, in a wide range of styles, some of which were intended for consumption on highly specific occasions. For instance,
iwai-sake
(celebration sake) was brewed for use in Shinto festivals and purification rituals; other kinds were fermented for the sole purpose of being offered to Akiyasama, the fire goddess, or to Ebisusama, the god of trade.

Sake was a secular as well as sacred fluid in rural parts of Japan. Its consumption was obligatory to commemorate rites of passage—births, marriages, deaths; and to seal business transactions. It was the correct present to give on certain calendar holidays, and, finally, it was the cause of endemic drunkenness. According to a study of an agricultural community in the Ono Valley in Kyushu, the use of sake was ubiquitous both in space and time. Like Holland in its golden age, men drank at the slightest provocation. Moreover, they used alcohol to regulate formal matters among themselves and, like their salarymen kin, set aside time for feigned or real intoxication, which they used to express the feelings that they were otherwise expected to conceal.

The form for such official binges in Kyushu was as follows: All the men in the village would convene at the house of one of its principal landowners, where they were seated, according to precedence, at low tables laid out in a horseshoe shape. The eldest man sat at the top of the curve, the next eldest to his right, the third to his left, and so on. They were followed down the arms of the horseshoe by the women, who also sat according to age. The host would open proceedings with a brief speech of welcome, which was answered by his oldest guest. Sake was poured for the men by the women, and once everyone had a full cup the host would issue the command
“Kanpai!”
(“Glasses dry!”) and his guests would drain them in unison.

Once the preliminaries were out of the way, the rituals changed. The men did the pouring, and toasting became one-on-one instead of universal. An older man might invite a junior several stations below him at the table to take a cup of sake, and since this involved the presentation of said cup from hand to hand, which the recipient downed in one and then reciprocated, the established order of the community that the seating plan had represented was broken as the old circulated among the young. Moreover, freedom of speech was deemed to be in operation, and discussions between participants became heated and even violent, with fights breaking out across the tables.

These formal parties served the same purpose as the Tokyo bar sessions that businessmen staged in order to learn the opinions of their juniors. An egalitarian spirit prevailed, and men without status in the village might say what they thought without undermining the traditional hierarchy, because the sessions themselves were an integral part of custom and began with a display of precedence. Moreover, they served to reinforce the conviction among their participants that they were “part of a (threatened) underclass rural population, which continue[d] to practice a traditional and ‘truly Japanese’ way of life . . . distinct from both urban lifestyles and Western customs and practices.”

The hybrid drinking culture that developed in Japan during the second half of the twentieth century had parallels elsewhere in Asia. In Hong Kong, a curious example of fusion drinking emerged in the 1970s, centered on the consumption of luxury French Cognac. By 1981, 5 million Hong Kong Chinese were drinking more of the distilled grape spirit than 120 million Japanese, and by the mid-1980s they were the heaviest per capita consumers of Cognac in the world. This obsession with Cognac, and not just any Cognac, but luxury brands, stood in marked contrast to their limited interest in other Western drinks. Beer aside, which was consumed as if it were a type of soda, none of the empire standards such as scotch, gin, and port had ever garnered much of a following among the Chinese residents of the British colony.

Prior to the adoption of Cognac, prevailing drinking practices in Hong Kong were based on traditional Chinese custom, which was best characterized, in terms of wet or dry, as constantly damp. While total consumption was low, imbibing was frequent and usually undertaken for ritual or health rather than for the express purpose of becoming drunk. Alcohol, or
jiu,
was an integral part of Chinese medicine and religion, a necessary ingredient of Chinese hospitality, and a vital ingredient in the celebration of rites of passage. When and how to drink was first formalized in the
Book of Rites,
a pre-Christian Confucian work, whose precepts set down, for instance, what an old man should drink in winter, who should prepare it for him, who serve it to him, and so on. Confucianism also regarded heavy drinking as one of the Four Vices or Disasters, and Confucius himself counseled dutiful sons against the bottle. Public drunkenness, moreover, was perceived of as disgraceful: To be drunk alone out of doors was to lose face.
Jiu,
therefore, was a necessary, if equivocal, fluid to the Chinese: Ritual and medicine demanded that they drink, without appearing to be drunk. Historically, jiu was divided into three classes: fermented grain drinks—
huang jiu,
usually brewed from rice, sorghum, or millet; distilled drinks—
bai jiu;
and
yao jiu
—medicinal alcohols, which were distilled spirits infused with herbs or animal parts. These last were highly specific beverages, formulated to take account of the intended drinker’s age, sex, and well-being.

Perhaps the most common form of
yao jiu
in use in Hong Kong was snake wine. This salutary beverage could be served aged or fresh, depending upon the ailment it was expected to treat. The aged variety was prepared by seeping the gutted bodies of dead snakes in grain alcohol for several years. Different species of snakes imparted distinct therapeutic qualities to the liquor. Fresh snake wine was made by cutting the gall bladder out of a living snake, squeezing its bile into a shot glass, and adding alcohol to taste. Hostelries dedicated to these beverages could be found in the center of high-rise Hong Kong. They usually consisted of a long wooden counter with a row of large glass jars, each stewing some variety of snake, or other kind of creature, including ravens, scorpions, and rat fetuses. Behind the bar would be floor-to-ceiling wooden drawers, with brass ventilation grilles on their faces, and various kinds of live snakes inside. An invalid in need of fresh snake wine could select a cobra, a python, a krait, or a pit viper, have it vivisected before his eyes, and finish his drink before the animal was dead.

In addition to taking a large proportion of their medicine with jiu, the Hong Kong Chinese employed alcohol in their relations with the supernatural world. It was necessary to present some to the ancestors at the annual festival of Ching Ming, when participants would disinter their forebears after they had been in the ground for seven years, polish their bones, and offer them libations. Similarly, on the night of the Hungry Ghosts, when the spirits of those neglected by their descendants roamed the streets, little offerings of food and alcohol would be left out to placate the unhappy phantoms. Drinks were also served to the dead at the Dragon Boat Festival; and to the spiritual guardians of the community, and of the households it contained, at Chinese New Year. Alcohol was ubiquitous in Hong Kong Chinese culture and available 24/7 everywhere, to more or less anyone of any age with the money to pay for it. There was little overt drunkenness, however, because of the potential loss of face. Even when occasion demanded more than a ritual drink, it was anathema to behave in a boorish manner as a consequence.

Until the 1970s, there had seemed little place for Western booze in such a tightly regulated drinking culture. However, by the end of the decade, Cognac had been adopted by the Hong Kong Chinese as part of their identity, and their penchant for the stuff was acknowledged by other Chinese communities as being unusual. Why was Cognac so special? The answer was its price. The Hong Kong Chinese considered it a social duty to show their wealth. Ostentation was achieved through consumption, and Cognac was the most expensive form of Western alcohol. Moreover, thanks to rigorous French classification, it was graded by quality, thus enabling it to express distinctions in wealth. Those on middle incomes could serve VS, those with more money VSOP, the truly wealthy XO, and the super rich could offer crystal decanters of Cognac distilled in the reign of the last French king. Brands of Cognac became as well known as Coca-Cola and acquired specific identities among the Chinese. Rémy Martin, for instance, was
Yan Tau Ma
(“Human-Head Horse”), after the centaur on the label. The drink itself was attributed with medicinal qualities, to assist its absorption into Chinese society. According to a local expert, “The Chinese associate the grape with hot foods, which are essentially fiery, masculine, potent.” Cognac was thought to work directly on the male sex drive and to be a defense against impotence. The very rich would add a rare and costly piece of ginseng to a similarly expensive bottle of Cognac in order to create a deluxe aphrodisiac. Whisky, in contrast, was reckoned to have the opposite effect. The Hong Kong Chinese associated it “with cool elements, feminine elements, so it has never been seen as a man’s drink here.”

The integration of Cognac was also assisted by its amber color. To the Chinese eye it looked expensive, unlike, say, the empire-standard gin. According to an agent for Hennessey Cognac, “No businessman here would think of opening a good bottle of vodka or gin at an important dinner. . . . It’s colorless and looks like a cheap Chinese liquor, so nobody would be impressed.” With white spirits condemned on account of their transparency, and whisky because it was effeminate, Cognac had the field to itself. Its properties and virtues had been established in traditional terms and differentiated from other Western spirits. It could be drunk—it should be drunk—but when? Banquets were the answer, especially wedding banquets, which were the prime opportunities for showing wealth. Traditionally, families had prepared a special rice wine upon the birth of a daughter, called
Nuerhong
(Red Daughter) or
Nujiu
(Daughter’s Wine), to serve at her wedding. As Hong Kong became increasingly crowded, so that it was more or less impossible to brew and store large quantities of Red Daughter, commercial varieties appeared. But these were no match for Cognac, which became de rigueur at wedding banquets and spread to other types of feast where communal drinking took place.

At banquets to mark the Chinese lunar new year, the French spirit was also consumed with especial fervor. Bottles were placed on each table of guests, for use in toasts. Toasts were frequent: to the host, to the other tables one at a time, to circulating dignitaries, and to each of the twelve courses upon arrival. Toasts were bumpers—participants were required to charge their glasses together, say, “Yum sing,” i.e., drink up, then empty them in one. Even careful drinkers could get through a quarter bottle of Human-Head Horse over dinner. So much liquor, in a relatively short space of time, inevitably led to intoxication and the consequent need for strategies for appearing sober after the banquet had finished. In order to avoid the loss of face from being drunk in public, many guests would jettison their cargo of alcohol in the toilets as soon as they left the banquet.