Category: Drinking Culture

Japan: Where Faith And Beer Come Together

Jay has been lamenting the divide between Southern Baptists and their beer. You know, it was darn pesky of the Lord to hang around in taverns and make wine when you think of it. In addition to the work, however, of Rev. Taffy Davis in Macclesfield, England, Jay found one US pastor who has followed in the steps of the Big Guy and brought the word back to the tavern. Good stuff.

Interesting, then, it was for me to find out this sort of thing is happening under other faiths as well as this story from last month about Buddhist monks in Japan shows:

This is what you might call “Buddhism-lite” though. It is performance, not preaching. After their first session on the stage, which lasts about 20 minutes, they sit down with the audience for a drink and a chat. One of the monks gets a bag of balloons out of his pocket and starts sculpting balloon flowers for some of the older ladies sitting around the room. “Many Japanese don’t want to come to temple,” Hogen Natori says. He is standing behind the bar where he has lit up a cigarette as he chats with the drinkers. “They think Buddhism is very difficult, and deep and serious, but Buddhism is much more than that – exciting, funny even. I want to spread this kind of teaching.” He feels people are more receptive in a bar, when they are drinking and with friends.

Hmmm…that last bit makes it sound a bit like a pick up line: “Hey good looking – that’s quite the soul you have there.” The BBC has a short video of the monks in action at the Chippie Sound Music Bar in Tokyo. Be warned – having watched it, I am still not clear which beer goes best with “Ohmm”.

Beer In Japan

I saw this short but somewhat jam-packed story on beer culture in Japan today during my sweep of the entire internet¹ for new amazing tales of beer:

After-hours beer binges are a mainstay of corporate communication between salarymen, bosses and business partners. Red-faced executives, their neckties yanked open to one side, are a fixture of late night train stations. Beer girls with “backpack kegs” rush down the aisles at baseball stadiums to refill fans’ cups. And though the official drinking age is 20, nearly anyone with enough spare change can buy a cold brew at beer vending machines.

Sounds like a land gone mad but I wonder how a Japanese paper might sum up Canadian beer culture in a couple of paragraphs – how would a sports bar fill of people sucking on pitchers look, all staring at the same big screen TV? Or the imaginary line at the doors of bars beyond which beer cannot be carried? Or having to buy it only at the government store or other legally authorized monopoly.

¹ OK, I use Google News like everyone else but the effect is entirely the same as it I had swept of the entire internet for new amazing tales of beer.

Medieval Ale Drinking In London

An exhibit opens this week in London, England which provides evidence as to the drinking habits of the locals from around 1300 AD:

Experts have uncovered evidence that 12th century Londoners drank ale by the gallon, starting at breakfast time, due to poor quality drinking water. Exhibits at the Museum of London, including a selection of old Toby jugs, depict tubby men with beer bellies. London’s many drinking dens entertained ‘immoderate quaffing by fools’, according to a writer of the time.

Here is the website for the museum’s new exhibit. That would be an interesting place for a correspondent to visit. Any takers?

Asleep on the Beach

 

I've grown in so many ways in the last 17 years

As my life as PEI resident comes to a close – the water test was clear – I thought I would pull an old chestnut out of the photo album from one of my first “” experiences in the Province.

Taken in 1986, it shows your gentle correspondent in repose on the beach at dawn after about 14 hours of wild-eyed pintin’ at the shore at a cottage in the Darnley area. You will see in the foreground both an empty Keiths and a film case laying next to my sandy head. Through the night I took about 5 rolls worth of pictures of the 30 or so of us which, care of the tripod, came through the event far clearer than I did.

This photo was taken by my buddy Jonny with the last frame of the last roll before he himself keeled over one night, one summer seventeen years ago.