Interview with the Translator: Asian Drinking Culture

"but I don't want to," Sang Woo states in Semantic Error.

Jae Young helps when the confrontation gets physical.

Kate: Many of the Asian dramas I watch--mostly Korean and Japanese--include scenes that involve drinks after work or drinks within a college department. A common scene in a romance goes as follows:

• A senior/boss pours a drink and expects one of the protagonists to drink.
• The senior/boss gets increasingly querulous when the protagonist doesn't drink. 
  
• The other protagonist drinks on behalf of the first.

The first few times, I shrugged off the scene as dramatic, nothing more.

 

But it is very common. Even when it isn't being used for dramatic purposes, the possibility that the "take a drink now" game will become a power play, exacerbated by potential drunkenness, is implied. In Cherry Magic, the younger employees make passing remarks that indicate their disdain for the drinking and related games; the implication is that the expectations are "old-fashioned" but culturally common enough to merit a remark.

 

Are drinking expectations really that pervasive? What do non-drinkers do? Not just Protestant types but alcoholics and abstemious Buddhists?

 

Or are members of the "salaryman" culture simply expected to bear up?

 

Eugene: This drinking culture is very real. Along with the usual "drinks after work," there is also the more formal nomikai. But the rules are similar and the objective is the same: "to encourage more open communication between people through the world’s favorite social lubricant." 

 

The portmanteau nominication (飲みニケーション) derives from nomu (to drink) and communication. Basically, it's an excuse for a nation of introverts to behave like extraverts. Alcohol covers a multitude of sins. If you want to vent at your boss, getting drunk gives you a pass.

 

NHK World does a surprising number of stories about sake breweries. NHK ran a whole Asadora series about the guy who built one of Japan's first whisky distilleries.It is a totally legit business, as are bars and liquor stores. You can even buy alcohol from vending machines. A summary of corporate drinking culture in Japan states the following: 

For such a buttoned-up country, Japan's drinking tradition is really something to behold. Drinking is something almost every adult does (when appropriate), but the biggest drinkers by far are the salarymen. In virtually every company, being invited out with the team or the boss for after-work drinks is an important bonding ritual. Since so much of office life is about being polite and not saying what you really think, getting drunk together is an essential tool for venting frustrations and letting it all hang out, as they say. Attendance is not literally mandatory, but not joining in can be a surefire way to torpedo your career because nobody will like you after that. Especially not your boss. The same goes for showing up and not drinking alcohol.

 

So, yes, it's a real pain for people who don't think that boozing it up is the definition of a fun night out. But that attitude too is slowly changing with the times.