Yesterday I stopped by the Sake Paradise event by accident after bumping into a friend who was on his way there. I'm not much of a Sake drinker and wasn't really enthused by the idea of lots of people drinking it in Alice Gardens but went along anyway.
One of my least favourite Japanese stereotypes is the salaryman, drunk or sober, I'm not fussy. Now, I say stereotypes because I ofcourse know many very nice salarymen but we all generalise, however enlightened we feel ourselves and when I'm in the mood to generalise, I like to generalise about annoying salarymen. For the sake of this post, let's focus on the drunk variety. Loud, obnoxious, thinking it's hilarious to chat to a Gaijin. I'm sure a lot of us have been there. The thing is, after being here a while, this starts to grate and more importantly, I forget about drunkeness back home. Last night however brought it back to me for a moment.
Now, I know there are beer festivals and the like in the UK but like this? Completely open to all, from 4 in the afternoon, Sake being downed amongst shoppers and school kids on their way home. Where were the sirens? Where was the blood? What's all this good natured drunkeness? Not tipsy or tiddly, but properly, commitedly, studiously drunk. I had wondered why my mate enjoyed this event so much but it quickly became clear. It was just really nice, and no one was fighting. As another friend commented last night; 'Beer gardens? Nomihoudai? At home? You must be joking.' (He's from NZ)
So it was nice. Nice to realise again, one of the finer aspects of living here. No doubt the next time a salaryman staggers over to me in an Izakaya I'll have forgotten, but I'll try at least, to remember.
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