I live in a country where nearly 40% of the general population do not have any genes to produce an enzyme, Alcohol Dehydrogenase (ADH alpha, ADH beta, and ADH gamma), needed for the body to break down alcohol. In simple-speak: they are lightweights. They get drunk quickly (we are talking a less than 1/2 a pint here), fall all over the place, and, well, puke up.
Yes, dear readers, I live in a city of nearly 4.8million lightweights (I think Tokyo's population right now is around 12million) who just can't handle their drink. And they puke up everywhere when they drink....
The "festive season" starting from Halloween ending sometime around mid April (we have a lot of public holidays, shinto festivals, and the dreaded "Hanami Festival" where basically people sit under cherry blossom trees getting wasted) is a horrible time to take the train; during the dark hours between 9pm and 10:30pm Japan Rail, and all the other private railway companies, run services that I can discribe only as: The Chunder Trains.
Everytime I take the train during those hours, regardless of what carriage I am in, there is at *least* one person purging, or has emitted, the contents of their binge-drinking (350ml of beer) and binge-eating (2 bags of boiled soybeans), oh, and bile. Many a times I have seen suit-clad business men swaying, holding onto the railings, as they turn green... The entire carriage is tense, for we all know that it's a matter of time before he throws up.
Students are even worse, for they play "drinking games" and push their mates to that point where they are hovering between semi-consciousness and coma from acute alcohol poisoning. I once saw a student being propped up by his friends, with a plastic bag -- the handles attached to his ears, almost like "horse feed" bags -- hurling his guts out. And, yup. His mates were drunk, and pissing themselves laughing at this poor man. (literally, which was quite gross)
But I think the best Chunder Train story that I have ever heard was from one of my friends.
My friend was taking the train during Chunder Hour; the train was quite crowded so he stood holding onto the railings as he listened to his music, looking out the window. He noticed that there was a suited business man sitting in front of him: he just didn't look too good. Now my friend is used to the Chunder Trains, so he decided to distance himself from the swaying business man, while keeping an eye on him just in case something nasty happened.
Just moments after my friend took a step back the green-looking business man suddenly opened his briefcase, which was sitting on his lap, and violently vomitted into his briefcase!!! And as any typical, Japanese person would do, in his zen-like manner, closed his briefcase as if nothing had happened, and continued on his journey home... (and apparently no one said anything. I guess he was invisible for a moment there... I know that if I *saw* this farce, I would have laughed my head off!!!)
I hope the drunk business man didn't have any important documents, like contracts, in that briefcase that day -- otherwise he would be fuckt!!
Chunder Trains should be banished to the twilight zone... but, there again, they *do* show an interesting side of life in Japan.
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2 comments:
Ugh, I do remember seeing a lot of young guys basically carrying their bosses through the stations puking into bins along the route. Cheap date, but the saddest part is that the practice evolved such that you HAD to go out drinking with your mates from work and stay out with them until late at night every night of the week. If you wanted to get ahead, you sucked up to your boss and carried him around to get drunk and chase women, then were expected to do the same when you were promoted. Really sad. Women just don't seem to have a career path unless they work for a foreign company. Then again, Drunken One, I am sure that you realize this.
Umm a bunch of light weights huh? I am willing to bet that the state of Wisconsin could out drink the entire country of Japan if that were the case. I am not sure what the actual figure is, but I bet there is one bar for ever 1000 people in Wisconsin. That is not straching the trugh really, it could even be like 1 to 500. We are heavy drinkers indeed. I recall back in my prime drinking days, my buddies and I would each go out and buy a case or a 30 pack of beer (usually the cheap shit, like bush light for 9.99 a 30 pack) and finish off our purchase by the end of the night. That is a lot of fucking beer and we did it all the time. I cannot drink like that any more, but I know many peeps that down a case a day and it is nothing to them. I wonder why the difference in DNA? Odd thing that is.
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