Last weekend I traveled to Ibusuki, a small city in Kagoshima prefecture, far down the coast in southern Kyushu. The trip was made to spend the weekend at “Hospital #1″, one of only three centers in Japan using a form of Zen meditation to treat alcoholism. The treatment method used is called naikan, a system [...]
Archive for March, 2008
Zen and the art of sobriety maintenance
Posted in Japan, Kyushu, Society, Zen, alcohol, alcoholism, treatment on March 26, 2008 | No Comments »
Vegetable Beer
Posted in Japan, Society, alcohol, beer on March 19, 2008 | No Comments »
Japan has forged a recent niche creating and marketing odd beer concoctions. Bilk saw the combination of milk and beer and “kid’s drink” was created in order to ‘educate’ Japan’s youth on proper adult drinking mannerism and behavior. The most recent player in the game appears to be vegetable beer and has the [...]
Japanese alcohol advertisements
Posted in Japan, alcohol on March 17, 2008 | No Comments »
It is commonplace in Japan for well known celebrities to appear in advertisements for beer, wine and other alcoholic beverages. The Boston Red Sox’s Daisuke Matsuzaka even got himself in a bit of trouble with US authorities for his appearance in an Asahi Super Dry commercial.
Ken Watanabe, likely among the most internationally known Japanese [...]
Binge Drinking
Posted in Brasil, Japan, United States, alcohol, alcoholism, drunkenness on March 10, 2008 | No Comments »
This article was recently in the New York Times. Its an interesting, albeit brief account of why so many of us like to get wildly drunk. It also mentions the book Drunken Comportment, which is great except that its a 40-something year old work. Is this a reflection of the paucity in [...]
