Tsuji Jun
If your coworker jumps off a roof
Author | 4 October 1884 – 24 November 1944

I’m sure many of you have experienced that feeling when you’ve had too much to drink, and then, suddenly, you feel like you could literally do anything.

While it goes without saying, that feeling is of course but an illusion. And yet, the majority of booze-related troubles and gaffes are brought about by this simple misunderstanding.

Drinking can’t turn you into a superstar—at the end of the day, an office worker is still but an office worker—but it can change the way you think and behave. Your department chief, that one Average Joe who’s always going, “Oh, I’m no Ichiro, I’m just a nobody,” who happens to like baseball? If he were to turn into a serious binge drinker, it might get him to start copying Ichiro by eating curry for breakfast every morning and practicing his bat-swinging skills at the office.

Or, well… He might start not coming to the office in the first place.

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Kajii Motojiro
If your coworker throws a tantrum and lies down in the middle of the street
Author | 17 February 1901 – 24 March 1932

When one hears the name “Kajii Motojiro,” the first thing they think of is lemons. When one hears the word “lemons,” the first thing they think of is Kajii Motojiro.

Okay, that might be an overstatement. The first thing they think of is lemon soda. And lemon sours. But right after those two things, it’s Kajii Motojiro. Even before one thinks of lemonade, they would think of Kajii Motojiro.

Even if you have never read his works before, surely many among you would at least be reminded of the title of Lemon upon the mention of his name.

Kajii died of tuberculosis in 1932. He was 31 years old. Because he died so young, he left behind only around 20 short stories. The majority of these stories were released in fanzines, and only one book of his writings was published during his lifetime.

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Hiratsuka Raicho
If your coworker hurls rocks at your house and still you don’t stop drinking
Thinker | 10 February 1886 – 24 May 1971

The proportion of women over 40 who regularly consume alcohol is increasing.

According to a survey by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, the percentage of women in their forties who drink frequently (meaning more than one unit of alcohol on three or more days a week) has seen a drastic rise in the last 20 years. It now stands at 15.6%—an increase of 5.7% since 1996. On the other hand, the percentage of men in their twenties who drink has dropped to less than a third of what it used to be, falling from 36.2% to just 10.9%.

Surely a result of women’s social advancement and diversification of interests, if you actually go to a bar and do a quick visual survey, you will instantly notice the multitude of lively women present there. Then, almost as if to prove the results of this survey correct, if you go and read the comments on forums discussing this news, you will find numerous young men saying things like, “Alcohol just tastes bad.”

But while it is none of anyone’s business what anyone else drinks or does not drink, you still come across comments saying things like, “What are you aunties doing, drinking alcohol? And you call yourselves women?” Apparently, it does bother some people.

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Nakahara Chuya
If your coworker tries to hit you with a beer bottle
Poet | 29 April 1907 – 22 October 1937

The Heisei era, which began on January 8th, 1989, has now ended.

One doesn’t often stop to really think about it, but the fact is that we have literally just run past an era in time. The Lost Decades, the Aum Shinrikyo Incidents, the Great East Japan Earthquake… These phenomenon of the past thirty years shook people’s sense of values, and they changed the way in which we live our lives.

Meanwhile, in the world of sports, perhaps one of the more significant incidents during the final Heisei years was sumo grand champion Harumafuji’s alleged beer bottle assault and his subsequent retirement.

While there is no excuse for violence under any circumstances, really the main reason why this incident in particular attracted so much attention may have been because of how shocking the initial reports were.

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Otomo no Tabito
If your coworker calls you a monkey because you don’t drink
Poet | 665 – 31 August 731

If you could choose any great historical figure to drink with, who would it be?

That was the question running through my mind as I was drinking last night. Honestly, as long as I got to drink, it wouldn’t matter who it was with—it could be an eminent figure or some total freak and it wouldn’t matter to me one way or another. But then that doesn’t really get the conversation going, does it now?

So, if I was to make a list of a few names, one person who would definitely be on the list is Otomo no Tabito.

“Oh, come on. Who the hell is that? Now you’re just being esoteric for the sake of it.” I can hear the complaints of all you snotnosed Heisei era folks. “How do you even read the kanji of his name?” Nevertheless, it was actually reported that the current era of Reiwa originally got its name from a waka poem by Tabito, suddenly making him the man of the hour. One never knows when it’s going to be their time to shine.

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