Drinking in Japan vs. USA

Yesterday was my birthday, so I went on something called a “drinkabout” with some local friends, essentially a pub crawl to some excellent bars that’s facilitated by a convenient “beer bus” that arrives every 30 minutes to take everyone to the next place.

In the years I’ve been in Japan, San Diego has gone and re-invented itself as the home of craft beers, and there is a huge selection of amazing brews to sample. Drinking in the U.S. is very different from drinking in Japan, of course. In Japan, there’s much less choice when it comes to finding amazing beers, since the Japanese government likes its beer companies large and easy to manage tax-wise, and while I love Kirin and Sapporo as much as the next guy, the variety of what’s available in San Diego was amazing. It was also interesting to compare the social act of drinking itself. In Japan, beer is usually consumed in small glasses, and everyone is constantly refilling everyone else’s glass, though never their own, since that’s a mild taboo. (If you don’t want to drink alcohol, you can act out the same ceremony but with oolong tea instead.) Whenever foreigners in Japan drink together, there’s an odd tension for a few moments while they decide whether they want to pour each other’s drinks Japan-style, or just pour all their own beers.

Drinking in Japan is very different from in San Diego.