Word: tokyo
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...typical evening's entertainment for a Tokyo businessman starts with a lavish dinner accompanied by endless cups of sake served up by kimonoed geishas. Then the host takes his client to a series of the best of the capital's 80,000 bars and nightclubs. There obliging Cardin-clad hostesses keep the cups brimming with mizuwari (whisky and water). Around midnight the hostesses help their staggering patrons on with their coats and send them off to start another day of more of the same...
...boss. A little nervous, he tossed back so many stiff highballs that he lost count. Feeling no pain, he proceeded to insult his host, lose control of his bladder, pass out on the floor, and was carried home. Was he fired for having disgraced himself so? No. This was Tokyo, not New York. When the young man returned to work the next day, not a word was spoken about the previous evening. In Japanese fashion, his behavior was not held against him; in fact, the unpleasant incident was completely forgotten...
...more available in Japan than in any of the hard-swilling Western nations. Commonly called mizu shobai, or "water business." it is a $40 billion enterprise, enhanced by 100,000 conveniently located vending machines dispensing hard liquor, beer and sake 24 hours a day. "In Japan," explains a Tokyo businessman, "alcohol plays the role of psychiatry in the West. Instead of analysis, we get rid of our inhibitions with a few drinks. I think we would explode without it." Kazuo Shimada, a psychologist, agrees: "If they were forced to go on the wagon, many Japanese would simply go bang...
Yoshitaka Hojo, 47, a sales engineer for a leading Tokyo appliance firm, went through such a routine six nights a week for 20 years. He admits he became a hopeless alcoholic. "I soon found myself drinking a bottle and a half of whisky per day." He was hospitalized 14 times, including five stays in a mental institution. Throughout this period, his employers showed extraordinary patience. So did his wife. Says Hojo: "Without their help I would have ended up in Skid Row." Instead, he joined Danshu-Kai. or the All-Nippon Sobriety Association, the Japanese equivalent of Alcoholics Anonymous, which...
...whale blubber, the bear poked at the sleeping bag with his snout and turned it over while Uemura burrowed deep inside, then wandered off. Next morning, when the bear reappeared, the explorer coolly shot him at a range of 55 yards. Said Uemura's wife Kimiko in Tokyo when she heard about his encounter: "He is a continual surprise to me. At home he's afraid of cockroaches. Out there, he will confront a bear...