Japan is a Great Country for Drinking, Smoking and Freedom - A Hangover is a Trophy!

If you want to drink and/or smoke freely, even in public, Japan is heaven. If you want to stop drinking or smoking, Japan is not the best place to be. This is a very free country. I can walk down any street and drink booze in public. Smoking is not prohibited in privately owned buildings. That's the way it's supposed to be. I didn't smoke last night. I quit smoking more than 2 years ago. But I sure drank a lot!


Last night I went to the Who the Bitch concert in Shibuya, and drank way too much. It was great. 


I was dreaming of staying in bed all day... Or at least sleeping late... Alas, I cannot. For one, I still feel a bit drunk. For two, I have to work. For three, I must write his blog.


By the way, the Who the Bitch show was classic! I haven't seen a band that good in a long time. This band is destined for great things. I'm destined for, at least, a full day of hangover.

WHO THE BITCH - SUPERSTAR

For most people, having a hangover is a bad experience but I've learned that that kind of thinking is the wrong way to look at a hangover. If you think, "Oh, I feel terrible. I have a hangover. I drank too much last night." Then you will spend the day feeling poorly. Feeling poorly is not fun.


Get rid of that negative thinking. Here's the best way to deal with a hellacious hangover that was taught to me by Ray Hearn who owns a music label and concert promotion company here in Tokyo called Beat Ink; Ray says that you shouldn't think, "I feel terrible. My head hurts and I have a hangover!" You should think that your hangover is a sort of a trophy. You should say, "Wow! What a wild night I had last night! I drank way too much. What fun! What decadence!" If you do and say this, then your friends will envy you rather than feel sorry for you.


The hangover is a trophy and that trophy is proof positive of a wild and fun night out last night. So wear your hangover trophy proudly!


Stay positive like that. Don't feel sorry for yourself and remember that the hangover is merely a question of time; it is going away very soon. The memory of a great and fun night will always be with you.


The "trophy" that is your hangover is going to fade away. Enjoy it while you can. 


Trust that I am REALLY enjoying mine right now. 


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Thanks to Ken Nishikawa!    

Japanese Girls Start Smoking Pipes!?

If you are in the west and you saw a younger person smoking a pipe, you'd probably immediately think, "What's in that pipe!?" But, in Japan, a pipe, called Kiseru, is very old fashioned and it looks like what folks back home would consider a  "pipe for smoking dope."

Well, the kiseru has been around for centuries in Japan and smoking tobacco in pipes is making a comeback, especially amongst younger people as being now fashionable and cool.

The Japanese government raised taxes on cigarettes on Oct. 1, 2010 but the taxes on loose tobacco went up only a pittance. Now, some people are smoking pipes to be different and save money.

As the Independent UK reports:

The increase in the tax on cigarettes in October has reignited sales of loose tobacco in Japan, which is designed to be smoked in old-fashioned pipes known as "kiseru."

The Japanese government raised the tax on cigarettes and other tobacco products as much as 40 percent on October 1, with retailers reporting "panic buying" in the weeks leading up to that date.

Figures released by the government show that cigarette sales were up a remarkable 88 percent in September.

But the increase on shredded tobacco was a mere Y30 (€0.27), raising the price to Y360 (€3.25) for a box, because of a difference in tax rates between ready-rolled cigarette and loose tobacco.

Sales of "Koiki" brand loose tobacco accounts an "extremely small" percentage of Japan Tobacco Inc.'s total sales, according to spokesman Yoshinori Tsuchiya, but that is creeping up as the company has not witnessed the steep decline in sales in the months since the tax hike.

" 'Koiki' is fine-cut Japanese tobacco that is not for roll-your-own cigarettes or a regular pipe, but for the traditional 'kiseru' pipe," Tsuchiya told Relaxnews.

"The biggest differences between roll-your-own tobacco and that for a Japanese pipe is that Koiki is cut finer than hair - less than 0.3 milimetres - and no additives are included, so the smoker can enjoy the original flavour of the tobacco," he said.

Japan Tobacco stopped producing kiseru in 1979 as the popularity of cigarettes soared, but "Koiki" was launched in 1985 to meet demand from purists who yearened for a revival of Japanese tobacco culture, Tsuchiya said.

The product is made by hand at a single JT factory, but the company also owns the "Old Holborn" and "Amber Leaf" brands of rolling tobacco, while "Golden Virginia" and "Drum" can also be purchased in Japan.

"I first tried roll-your-own cigarettes on holiday in Europe because they are not at all common in Japan, but I liked the taste and I do prefer them to regular cigarettes," said Kanako Hosomura, 28, a bar worker from Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo. "And it is nice to be doing something different from everyone else around me." 


Thanks to News on Japan

Antique Cigarette and Alcohol Posters

This is a hybrid of posters from Pink Tentacle and East-Asian History net.

The first two posters are from East-Asian History net and I highly recommend that you click the link and go see the great article (complete with tons of cool posters) showing how nationalism was also used to sell cigarettes, alcohol and virility. It's highly recommended! See it here: East-Asian History net (Also good to get an idea about why anti-Chinese demonstrations are unproductive! And why stupid people shouldn't have children!)

Another of my favorite sites, Pink Tentacle, also has more posters at their page. Pink Tentacle has a display of posters from the 1890's to 1954. And it is called, "Addictive Ads." See it here.

More: http://pinktentacle.com/2010/09/addictive-ads-1894-1954/

More: http://www.east-asian-history.net/textbooks/Slideshows/nation_advertising/nation_in_advertising.pdf

Two Cigarette Brands Are Selling Well in Japan

I just came back from a late night run to the convenience store where I was surprised to see, for the first time in my entire time in Japan, convenience stores selling what people consider to be "B-grade" Japanese cigarettes. It is quite unusual to see these low-end cigarettes at a convenience store.

I wrote before about how the Japanese government insanely raised taxes on cigarettes here. Now, the news is coming out that people have seriously curtailed their smoking and it has hurt government tax coiffures as well as the tobacco industry... Well, duh!

Wakaba cigarettes... Notice the cool and trendy design! 

¥220 (about $2.50 USD) for twenty 18 mg. cigarettes 

It used to be that convenience stores, due to lack of space, only sold the premium brands of cigarettes; Seven Star, Marlboro, Camel, Lark, Lucky Strike, etc... (Japanese cigarette, High-Lite, was considered low-end)... But now since a pack of premium cigarettes costs about ¥420 a pack or more (about $5.00 USD), it seems that sales of the low-grade tobaccos are soaring. Low-grade tobaccos sell for about half what premium brands sell for - between ¥220 ~ ¥250 a pack ($2.50 ~ $3.00)!

The guy at the convenience store told me that Wakaba cigarettes, especially, are enjoying brisk sales!

Wakaba is a very old brand in Japan and is definitely not considered cool by the younger people (I think it is very cool!)... The other brand the store clerk said was selling well was the other brand that is considered very low-class and only smoked by nearly homeless old men; Golden Bat.

Both Wakaba and Golden Bat are strong cigarettes at 18 & 21 mg. But as my Japanese friend says about people who smokes one mg. cigs, "Are you going to smoke cigarettes or not smoke cigarettes?" 

Both these brands are not trendy at all and have the image of depression era Japan...

Good thing, maybe their time has come again!

Hooray for the folks that elect to buy the cheaper stuff. If everyone did the same, the other cigarettes would have to lower their prices!

Here's a Golden Bat TV commercial from about 10 ~ 15 years ago:



Wakaba is too low grade to have ever had a TV commercial as far as I know.

Hell, and, come to think of it... The older stuff is always better anyway, right? And if these two are not cool, then I don't know what is!

Cigarette Sales in Japan Up 88% Before Tax Rise - To Drop Off Cliff After

Yesterday, I went to the store to buy two packs of cigarettes for my friends. They were ¥440 yen per pack! I quit smoking when they were ¥300 (or so). I was shocked at how expensive one pack has become!

Now, the news comes out that, n the month before a hefty tax on cigarettes came into effect, sales of cigarettes jumped 88%!

From Japan Times:


Cigarette sales in September jumped 88.0 percent from a year before to 37.4 billion cigarettes as the largest-ever tobacco tax hike on Oct. 1 spurred last-minute buying, according to the Finance Ministry. The ministry said this may be the sharpest increase ever and it is paying attention to the possible blow tobacco farmers and retailers may suffer in and after October.


Of course that is going to happen before a large increase, but my two friends both told me that they used to smoke  2 1/2 packs a day. Now, they smoke less than a pack a day.


I guess that just goes to prove that, when taxes are raised, in the long run, sales will decline. Look for tobacco sales to drop off a cliff until at least next year; people are cutting down now because of the price increases and the really smart ones will get fed up with the tax nonsense and quit.


But, as we know, the fools running our government never learn for the past. 

More on Japanese Cigarette Madness. Man buys over $3,000 of Cigs at Once!

Once again, this morning I went to the big grocery store in the area here and they were sold out of almost all major brands of cigarettes.

This is really going to pump up Japan's GDP for the 3rd quarter:

From BusinessWeek:

A man walked into Yusuke Sato's tobacco store in Atsugi, southwest of Tokyo, last month and bought 100 cartons of Mild Seven cigarettes. While that may not be good for his health, it did save him almost $1,300 in potential cigarette taxes. Hoarding by Japanese smokers, who stocked up ahead of a big tax increase on cigarette manufacturers that took effect on Oct. 1, may have also given Japan the economic equivalent of a nicotine rush. A big spike in cigarette sales may add as much as 1.4 percentage points to the projected annualized economic growth rate for the July-to-September quarter, according to estimates from the Japan Research Institute. 


What in the world is this guy going to do with 100 cartons of cigarettes? I can't imagine that he's going to sell them... There's hundreds of brands of cigarettes and each likes their own. 


If you consider that there's 20 packs in each carton and 20 cigarettes in each pack; that comes out to 40,000 cigarettes! At one pack a day, this guy has bought enough cigarettes to last over 5 years!


100 cartons costs about $3,360 (USD). Read that again: Three thousand and six-hundred dollars worth of cigarettes at once. That's a lot of cigarettes! He could have bought a good used car (OK, well at least a junky used car!)


They'll never stay fresh in the humid Japanese summer heat... What's he going to do with all these cigarettes unless he, Ugh, wants to smoke himself to death before he has to buy any more!


But the Japanese government tax officials sure won't complain.


  

Japanese guys stocking up on cigarettes

As everyone in Japan knows, the price of a pack of cigarettes is about to jump 20% in a few days. That will bring the price of a pack of regular cigarettes to about ¥410 (about $4.80 USD pack). I'm sure glad that I quit smoking a few years ago. 

I smoked from 1998 to May 2009. Yes, I am lame. I didn't smoke at all until I became over 40-years-old. Interestingly enough, I got hooked on cigarettes during a five-week hospital stay in 1998.

How does one get hooked on cigarettes while staying in the hospital? This is Japan, there are still lots of hospitals that have smoking sections inside the hospital. The one where I got hooked on cigarettes had a smoking lounge that seated at least 100 people. While I was staying there, there was not much to do - couldn't really go out (it was winter) so us guys would sit around in the lobby and smoke cigarettes...


That is so Japan...

Back then, a pack of cigarettes cost ¥240 yen (about $2.80). The price of cigarettes has been steadily increasing by about ¥30 a pack every two years or so.

I got fed up with that nonsense and quit when cigarettes hit ¥300 per pack (about $3.60). I wrote about that and how you too can quit easily here.

Now, with the price of cigarettes about to skyrocket, Japanese people are stocking up. I was in my favorite grocery store the other day and over-heard two register clerks saying that they were out of several brands of major cigarettes and that was in the morning just after opening.

Some people are buying hundreds of cartons and storing them like gold. 

Bloomberg reports:

Yusuke Sato says a man walked into his tobacco store in Atsugi, southwest of Tokyo, this month and bought 100 cartons of Mild Seven cigarettes. While they may not be good for his health, he may have saved $1,300.

The man is one of thousands of smokers across Japan stocking up before Oct. 1 to beat a record 40 percent tax increase on tobacco. Their hoarding may add as much as 1.4 percentage points to this quarter’s annualized economic growth rate, according to estimates from the Japan Research Institute.

“We were afraid we would run out of stock,” said Sato, who started taking reservations for cartons last month. “Thirty cartons has been the norm.” Next month, customers would pay 110,000 yen ($1,300) more for the same 20,000-cigarette order after the price of a pack of 20 jumps by a third, he said.  

The headline of the Bloomberg article talks about how the Japanese government is benefitting from this "cigarette rush" due to a jump in tax income from sales.

I'm sure the government needs the money too since the economy is so bad...

But how long will this last?

I asked my best friend, Taro Furukawa, about it. Taro is 38-years-old and has been smoking since he was 14. In the last few years, he's been conserving cigarettes and sometimes smoking the same cigarette twice (he takes a puff then puts it out gently and returns it to the pack to smoke later - they taste rancid that way, but at least you get a nicotine rush, I used to do that too!). Taro is a hard core smoker - like many Japanese his age. Taro says he will not quit smoking even if cigarettes hit ¥1,000 (about $11) per pack!

Taro Furukawa

Taro went to the store and bought several hundred dollars of cigarettes at once... The amazing part is that everywhere in Japan is sold out of cigarettes. Taro had to place an order and wait one week. He will get his cigarettes tomorrow he said.

Taro says he will never quit smoking no matter what the price of cigarettes. Why? Because he likes to smoke.

I quit smoking almost 2 years ago and do not want a cigarette anymore... But I can understand why a guy likes to smoke.

If it helps him to relax and enjoy himself, then why not let him do it?

Life can be difficult enough as it is, full of stress, without having a one minute simple pleasure taken away.

But, after some more prodding, Taro admitted that his wife was not happy at all that his weekly cigarette allowance went from $21 to over $600 in one shot.


Taro said, "I might have to quit smoking at this rate..." If Taro thinks this, then there must be millions of other Japanese guys who think the same thing. Maybe this one time burst of spending helps Japan's GDP but it's going to end and, besides a huge decrease in cigarette taxes, we might see a huge increase in irritated Japanese men.


I hope not.   

Lark Cigarette TV Commercials in Japan in 1990's With James Coburn

By Mike in Tokyo Rogers

Many famous Hollywood actors and actresses who would never appear on a TV commercial in the United States, appear on commercials in Japan. From what I hear, it is considered "cool" for the Hollywood famous to be on commercials in Japan. Besides being "cool" these stars can get paid huge amounts of money to appear in commercials while in Japan and they take a vacation while they're at it.

Throw on top of that how Asian people really don't care about these sorts of things and these stars can have their cake and eat it too as appearing in commercials for products that they would never advertise in the States is a gravy train job in Japan.

There's no risk of doing a commercial in Asia for a product that might damage one's career as people in the west will never see it.

Currently, there is a very silly TV commercial with Leonardo DiCaprio selling automobile tires here.

James Coburn

Up until the early 1990's, cigarettes commercials were still on Japanese TV. At that time an American  star, who was thought of as the epitome of the macho American actor, James Coburn appeared in many TV commercials for Lark cigarettes. In several of the later ones, he even spoke Japanese. Even Roger Moore of James Bond fame gets into the act.

Here, once again, in thanks to the Internet Archives, is a retrospect of Lark Cigarette TV commercials featuring James Coburn, Charles Bronson and Roger Moore.

DOUBLE CLICK ON IMAGE TO SEE FULL SCREEN

DOUBLE CLICK ON IMAGE TO SEE FULL SCREEN

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Keywords: TV Commercial, Mike Rogers, Marketing Japan, commercial, cigarettes, James Coburn, Mike in Tokyo Rogers, Lark, Bronson, Roger Moore