Gaijin Tonic

When bar-owners scratch their chins and try to think up appealing names for their establishments, they usually want words which seem inviting and up-beat. Bright and breezy words like Cheers, that bring forth images of parties and good times, names that would draw in customers like moths to the flame. Not so in Japan!
Take, for instance, Refrain. When you want to let off steam and go a little nuts at night, the last word you want to hear is “refrain”. It’s a word you’d normally see on a list of petty rules on the wall of a swimming pool.

“When you are in this bar, please refrain from eating, talking, drinking, smoking and chewing gum. Strictly no fun allowed!”

Speak Low is a bar with a name that would be more suitable for a library. I can imagine a waspish woman sitting behind the bar, hissing “shhh!” every time you open your mouth to speak.

There is another bar in Tokyo called Prison.

What less pleasing environment could you imagine for a Saturday night party, than a cold, sterile jail cell? A sign on the website says “welcome to prison.”

That’s as terrifying a phrase as I’ve ever heard. I wonder if, for the sake of authenticity, there is a tattooed psychopath waiting to attack you in the toilet. Don’t drop the soap when you’re washing your hands!

Despite the ominous names, I’m sure all these bars are perfectly fun places to hit. Names can be deceptive. I mean, look at Goofy’s Bar. With a name like that, you’d expect the walls to be covered with Disney pictures, whoopee-cushions on the seats and a buck-toothed guffawing moron behind the bar, whistling “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah”.
Wrong! Take a look:

Here’s a funny video from The Meth Minute 39, which pokes fun at the Hollywood superstars who make a quick buck by appearing in embarrassing and weird commercials in Japan (the likes of which I’ve posted before here.) Check it out!

Today I have been writing this blog for exactly a year, and there’s no sign yet of me running out of booze-related stories from Japan.
Just the other day I was reading about a programme on Fuji television that was broadcast in 1995, called “Drinking Battle Royal”, in which ten celebrities had to guzzle as much wine, beer and whiskey as possible in an hour. A good, wholesome, family show. Seven women ended up being hospitalized with alcohol poisoning! “We may not do it again for a while,” a Fuji spokesman said. Ha!
What a concept for a show!

Anyway, to celebrate my anniversary I thought I’d post some of my favourite Japanese Youtube videos. You may well have seen all of these already, but if not, enjoy…

First off, a demented TV show which combines aerobics with English study. Here, they teach viewers how to deal with muggers.

Next, a technically impressive but quite scary and possibly insane woman freestyle dances on the streets of Shinjuku.

Here’s some funny toilet humour from an old hidden-camera show.

Here’s a great video a friend of mine has made of Tsukiji fish market in the morning. He has a knack of making Japan look foreign and exotic to me, even after being here for six years.
(Or maybe it’s just because a lazy sod and I’m not usually up that early in the morning, unless I’m staggering home from an all-night booze-binge!)

More amusing old beer commercials from Japan.

Yikes, here’s a creepy ad from 1984. What could possibly be worse than pink beer? Why, dyeing kittens pink to advertise it, of course.
I have no idea who the hell they’re trying to market this concoction to. Disturbed children, perhaps? It looks like something “The Abominable Dr Phibes” might drink.
Watch out for the laughably unrealistic kittens playing the piano at the end of the commercial.

To see the video follow this link!

Here’s an embarrassing collection of old Japanese ads for starring the usually great Gene Hackman, miscast as a romantic lead. These commercials are hilarious because Hackman looks tired, confused and disorientated throughout, and has to say incomprehensible things like “dry…dry.”

That Harrison Ford is happy to unashamedly sell out will not be news to anyone who’s seen “Hollywood Homicide,” but his starring role in the cheesy Japanese 1990s ads for Kirin beer were an all-time low for Han Solo. (Solo’s sunk so low, ho ho.)
In the commercials, Harrison has been cast as an uncontrollable alcoholic, wandering the streets of Japan, asking everyone he encounters for “Kirin Lager Beer, please.” Such is the extent of his dipsomania, he’s branded as “Mr. Beer.”
Well, hell, that’s exactly how I spend my evenings, too, so who am I to judge!

Apparently the only Japanese he can say is “Kirin Lager Birru, Kudasai.” Yep, pretty much the same as me.

In the ad below, Mr movie-star pulls a prima-donna act, striding into a yakitori shop and petulantly demanding that he only be served Kirin Lager Beer. He stops short of saying “do you know who I am?”

The manager should have said “Well, excuuuuse me, your highness. And I suppose you want a bowl of M & Ms with all the green ones taken out, too.”
I like the line “everyone drinks Kirin Lager Birru.” Does that include children and recovering alcoholics?

In the next advert, Ford’s alcoholic character is so desperate for a drink, he actually starts hallucinating that he’s drinking a glass of Kirin. Oh dear, time for a trip to Alcoholics Anonymous, Harrison.

It’s inadvisable to drink beer in a sauna- you get blinding headaches from the dehydration. It’s also inadvisable to approach strange middle-aged men in Turkish baths while wearing only a towel.

Oh well, whatever you say about Harrison Ford, at least he’s got good taste in beer. He’s also got a sense of humour, judging by the clip below, from his son’s friend’s home video.

More amusing videos of Hollywood celebrities hamming it up for big bucks in Japanese television commercials can be seen at JapanAds.net

Here are some entertaining Japanese television commercials for beer. The last one features a young Sylvester Stallone.