{"id":131,"date":"2006-01-24T01:46:57","date_gmt":"2006-01-24T01:46:57","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2006-02-02T00:55:57","modified_gmt":"2006-02-02T00:55:57","slug":"","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.larcompendium.com\/site\/?p=131","title":{"rendered":"Tetsugaku 62 : Alcohol"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8211; You quite like alcohol, don&#8217;t you?<br \/>\n[I do like it. Well, maybe? I guess I don&#8217;t really like it all that much.]<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Well, I guess you don&#8217;t drink your way to a pounding headache then? But, it is fun to drink a little, right? Did you start drinking a long time ago? I somehow get the impression you didn&#8217;t drink much in the past.<br \/>\n[I get told that by everybody but I haven&#8217;t changed much, really. It&#8217;s just that before, I didn&#8217;t open my heart much at all, so I didn&#8217;t go out drinking with people. Even when I did go, I didn&#8217;t get all that casual, did I?]<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; I see. What kind of alcohol do you drink the most? I&#8217;d guess beer?<br \/>\n[I start off with beer. &#8220;Beer first&#8221; (laughs) <a href=\"node\/131\/#1\">(1)<\/a><a name=\"b1\"><\/a>. While I&#8217;m drinking my &#8220;first beer&#8221; I think of what to have next. Which way to go. Well, it depends on who I&#8217;m with and on the time zone, too. Sometimes I stop after that one beer, sometimes I move from beer to wine. If there are wine drinkers among the group I&#8217;m with, then we&#8217;ll get a bottle. That or shouchuu<a href=\"node\/131\/#2\">(2)<\/a><a name=\"b2\"><\/a>. If nobody else wants to get wine, I&#8217;ll drink shouchuu by myself.]<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; You must drink a lot of ume no oyuwari<a href=\"node\/131\/#3\">(3)<\/a><a name=\"b3\"><\/a> and the like, right?<br \/>\n[Yeah. But I was a late bloomer for shouchuu. There was a shouchuu fad just recently, too. Lots of young people drank it, right? It&#8217;s image used to be that it was the drink for old men who did manual labour. But now it seems like even young women drink it, it&#8217;s become a refined drink. I&#8217;m sure that&#8217;s how I got around to drinking it. At first, I wondered what was so good about it, and now it&#8217;s like shouchuu doesn&#8217;t get me drunk, so it&#8217;s nice. It doesn&#8217;t leave a single trace the next day. Ever since way back when, drinking barely leaves a trace on me. It&#8217;s not one of my weaknesses. I can drink up to a certain amount without getting drunk, and without it lingering.]<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; I suppose you don&#8217;t get hangovers, then?<br \/>\n[Nope. At most, I&#8217;ll get maybe one in a year. More like one every two, three years. I regret those times. &#8220;Dammit! Why did I drink so much and make myself sick?&#8221; (laughs). Basically, I drink because it&#8217;s fun. Because I want it to be fun. I&#8217;ve never gotten drunk out of despair. I don&#8217;t change when I drink. Since I don&#8217;t change, it&#8217;s like nobody can tell I&#8217;m drunk. I just get a little more talkative, I think. I talk a little more than I usually do, or something.]<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; But, the corners of your eyes start to droop, and you get a little cuter&#8230;&#8230;<br \/>\n[I get panda eyes, right? (laughs)]<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; I think the time I saw you most drunk was at the party after the TETSU69 first live &#8220;Sweet December&#8221; right? You were pretty drunk that time. You even had trouble climbing stairs.<br \/>\n[Oh, yeah, I did drink a lot that time. But, wasn&#8217;t the mood rather drunken anyway?]<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; You seemed to be having a great time. Even at the party, you kept singing your songs.<br \/>\n[I was still singing even though the live was over, right? (laughs)]<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; That&#8217;s right. So, you should have made the live a little longer! Or something (laughs). Now, how do you feel when other people are drunk around you, but you aren&#8217;t?<br \/>\n[I like happy drunks. But, I hate when people walk around with that look in their eyes that says &#8220;Wanna tangle?&#8221; In the end, it just makes me think they can&#8217;t hold their booze. It&#8217;s like, usually I control myself rationally, then I hear all these stories people only bring up when they&#8217;re drunk, and I can think about them. So, I think that people who get violent when they&#8217;re drunk are actually just holding back the rest of the time, and that&#8217;s their true self. I&#8217;m glad I&#8217;m not like that. For better or for worse, I don&#8217;t have much of a hidden side. A lot of painful incidents happen that way, though.]<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; So, you claim that even when you&#8217;re drunk, you can still exercise calm judgement. Deep down, you must admire calm, sensible people.<br \/>\n[Yes, I think I do. I think so, but I really do think I&#8217;m that kind of person myself, too. It&#8217;s no different when I&#8217;m drunk. You know how hairy people get a lot of pity? I think it&#8217;s because they say humans originally evolved from apes, so being hairy = being primitive. Primal and instinctive. Well, I&#8217;m particularly hairless (laughs). So, I guess that means I&#8217;m not primitive, and I think I&#8217;m a more evolved person. I&#8217;m not talking about whether that&#8217;s good or bad. It&#8217;s just that rather than give pity, I&#8217;m the type to coolly analyse things, staying very cool to think about them. If that means I&#8217;m cold, then I guess I&#8217;m cold.]<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; I see. We&#8217;ve gotten a bit off topic. Let&#8217;s see&#8230; Do you ever drink when you&#8217;re at home by yourself?<br \/>\n[At home, I make Ditamonis <a href=\"node\/131\/#4\">(4)<\/a><a name=\"b4\"><\/a>. By myself. Consistently. I don&#8217;t keep that much alcohol at home, though. Beer and Dita and Kahlua and that&#8217;s it?]<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; That&#8217;s a lot of sweet drinks.<br \/>\n[Cause I&#8217;m still a kid (laughs). I don&#8217;t drink every day at home, though. Maybe three or four times a week. When I want to reward myself for a good day&#8217;s work and so on. &#8220;Otsukarechan!&#8221; <a href=\"node\/131\/#5\">(5)<\/a><a name=\"b5\"><\/a> (laughs). Oh, and I don&#8217;t sleep much, so sometimes I drink a little and sleep. I have awful sleeping habits since I&#8217;m such a night person. Well, alcohol is the lubricant of life, right? I could live without it, but it seems like having it makes life move along more pleasantly.]<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Interviewer : Kikuchi Keisuke<br \/>\nTranslated by Natalie Arnold<\/p>\n<h6>\n<p><a name=\"1\"><\/a>1. He&#8217;s playing with the phrase &#8220;Toriaezu biiru,&#8221; which translates to &#8220;First of all, beer,&#8221; or &#8220;Beer first.&#8221; Typically, when Japanese go to a bar, they order a beer first instead of a fancier drink, and the ordering is done with this phrase.<a href=\"node\/131\/#b1\">Go back.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a name=\"2\"><\/a>2. Shouchuu is a traditional Japanese alcoholic beverage that is sometimes called &#8220;Japanese vodka.&#8221; It has a rather high alcohol concentration. Similar drinks are made in China and Korea.<a href=\"node\/131\/#b2\">Go back.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a name=\"3\"><\/a>3. A drink (in this case shouchuu) mixed with hot water and ume juice. Ume is a species of Japanese plum.<a href=\"node\/131\/#b3\">Go back.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a name=\"4\"><\/a>4. A drink that combines lychee liqueur, tonic water and grapefruit juice.<a href=\"node\/131\/#b4\">Go back.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a name=\"5\"><\/a>5. The phrase &#8220;otsukaresama&#8221; is said to coworkers, teammates and the like after a hard work session. By changing the end to &#8220;chan&#8221;, he is making it cuter, which is compounded by the fact that he&#8217;s saying it to himself.<a href=\"node\/131\/#b5\">Go back.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8211; You quite like alcohol, don&#8217;t you?<br \/>\n[I do like it. Well, maybe? I guess I don&#8217;t really like it all that much.]<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Well, I guess you don&#8217;t drink your way to a pounding headache then? But, it is fun to drink a little, right? Did you start drinking a long time ago? I somehow get the impression you didn&#8217;t drink much in the past.<br \/>\n[I get told that by everybody but I haven&#8217;t changed much, really. It&#8217;s just that before, I didn&#8217;t open my heart much at all, so I didn&#8217;t go out drinking with people. Even when I did go, I didn&#8217;t get all that casual, did I?]<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; I see. What kind of alcohol do you drink the most? I&#8217;d guess beer?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tetsugaku"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.larcompendium.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.larcompendium.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.larcompendium.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.larcompendium.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.larcompendium.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.larcompendium.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.larcompendium.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.larcompendium.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}