Asia Shorts, no. 1. Ann Arbor, MI: Association for Asian Studies, Inc., 2018. xi, 170 pp. (Tables, illustrations.) US$14.99, paper. ISBN 978-0-924304-85-9.
Alcohol and its consumption are well noted and discussed elements of postwar Japan. Sake, whiskey, beer, shōchū, and a host of other categories of drink are readily available, widely consumed, and eagerly discussed. Less well known is the prominence and prevalence of methamphetamine-based stimulants and Japan’s complex social relationship around drugs and their use. Jeffrey W. Alexander’s accessible and informative Drinking Bomb and Shooting Meth: Alcohol and Drug Use in Japan “explores how and why Western alcohol and stimulant drug use took root and flourished and why these products offer us valuable perspectives on the evolution of Japan’s culture, society, and economy” (1). In doing so, Alexander addresses a gap in the scholarly literature on Japan by giving much-needed historical context into how and why certain substances, particularly whiskey and beer, achieved positions of celebrated prominence and why others, particularly methamphetamine-based stimulant drugs, are aggressively stigmatized despite a long history of widespread use.
Drinking Bomb & Shooting Meth is a historical work divided into four chapters between a short introduction and conclusion. Each of the four chapters examines a specific substance—whiskey, beer, liver stimulants, and methamphetamine—over roughly the last hundred years. The book’s organization allows readers to easily find information on a specific topic, such as the history of beer and how it became the “beverage of the masses” in Japan (35). Or, when taken together, gain a comprehensive understanding of Japan’s often paradoxical relationship towards psychoactive substances, including why alcohol and drunkenness are widely tolerated while drug use is deeply stigmatized.
Chapters 1 and 2 focus on whiskey and beer respectively, documenting how these foreign beverages gained large followings of loyal drinkers in Japan. Much of Alexander’s work draws upon the reception of advertising campaigns and how they left an enduring imprint on the national psyche. Examples include Uncle Tory, an iconic campaign for Tory’s Whiskey launched in the 1950s that brought mainstream recognition and consumption to a previously obscure Western beverage. Chapter 2 shifts the focus to beer and charts its rise from a foreign import in the late 1800s to becoming unquestionably Japan’s most consumed alcoholic beverage today. Both chapters offer a firm historical foundation for understanding present-day drinking practices and attitudes.
Chapter 3, “Alcohol Damage: Liver Stimulants and Hangover Remedies of the 1950s and 1960s,” is a particularly interesting portion of the book that examines a still pervasive yet understudied aspect of Japanese life. Visitors to Japan will likely notice the multitude of small glass bottles at convenience stores which often occupy a position of prominence near the registers. These contemporary vials of various concoctions with outlandish claims to cure hangovers, boost energy, and stave off the ill-effects of over-consumption, are the present-day cousins of, and in some cases quite frightening, postwar pharmaceuticals. The immediate postwar years (1945–1952) saw the emergence in Japan of kasutori, “a cheap, noxious liquor” (72) and bakudan (literally “bomb”), a “dangerous ethyl/methyl alcohol cocktail” that could cause blindness if improperly prepared (13). This era of drinking such alcohol brought about desires for a miracle hangover cure and allowed for the rise of widespread “pseudoscience” (75) around a wide array of vitamin pills and syrups that claimed to protect livers and lessen the nasty aftermath of intoxication. Alongside wonderfully vivid and disturbing print advertisements from the time period, Alexander shows how the rise in popularity of these pharmaceuticals helped drive a culture of mass overconsumption and cement after-work drinking as an essential aspect of salaryman life in Japan. In a sadly twisted irony, many of these pills were likely furthering the liver damage brought on by heavy alcohol consumption.
The book is also the first in the Association for Asian Studies’ new series “Asia Shorts,” and does an excellent job of launching this new and exciting set of titles. The nature of the book series, however, also generates my only major criticism. As is implied in the “Shorts” series title, the book can leave readers with the feeling of wanting more. I particularly wanted more historical information on drug use and policy in Japan before and after World War II. For example, chapter 4 provides a clear foundation for understanding some of the historical factors that have influenced how the stigma around drugs and drug use developed in Japan. Yet this chapter, the shortest of the four major entries, leaves the impression that there is much more to the history of drug use in Japan. Such a criticism is also quite minor, and more a product of a concise series designed to elicit discussion and push other scholars to take up the topic where this volume leaves off. In total, Drinking Bomb & Shooting Meth is an excellent historical overview to an important aspect of Japanese society.
Paul Christensen
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, USA