Quote:
Originally Posted by MMM
I think there is some confusion with this area, as public intoxication is more prevalent in Japan rather than the US. It isn't uncommon to see (especially but not exclusively) younger people passed out in restaurant booths or at train stations. Here someone would call the police if someone was that drunk in public. Public intoxication is illegal, and the bar or restaurant serving them could be fined or even closed.
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I think that your
passed out and my
passed out may mean different things. To me, being passed out is to the point of being close to or impossible to wake. It isn`t hard to find someone in Japan who drank to much and then went to sleep in a booth or on a station bench, but the guys who are really passed out DO get the police or at least someone called on them here. There is little stigma to just falling asleep in public (I mean, look at how many people who don`t drink at all who fall into a deep slumber during their commutes) so it is looked at differently.
If you want to see some serious people passed out in the streets... Well, I grew up fairly close to the campus of a major US university and go back to that area on US visits.
There would be ropes blocking the drunks from stumbling into traffic, and there would be people passed out (as in needing to be carried) all over the place.
You do not see that in Japan. You don`t see parties where the goal is to get someone so trashed that they pass out. You don`t see people sitting out on their porches with kegs watching friends vomit on the lawn.
The culture is just completely different in regards to drinking.