Comment by ekianjo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ekianjo | Hacker News Reader

> When the train has gone and a hotel is too expensive pavements and benches are the only option.

of course not. In japan you have tons of options to spend a night in town for a few bucks. Go in a Karaoke at night, or an internet cafe (even some are "boxed" so that you have decent privacy to doze off)... it's far from being difficult. That is also why internet cafes have showers available...

> . But in the deferential, work-hard/play-hard, corporate culture of Japan, getting drunk and ending up stranded without a bed seems to happen all the time.

No. It's just statistics. When you are in a city with millions of people transiting, you are bound to see a lot more of people who are dead drunk on your journey because a lot more people pass by everyday.

The photographer has no clue about why this is happening. These folks who fall asleep anywhere don't think about "getting to a hotel", they are planning to go back home but are so drunk that they fall on the ground at some point. Making it into any other kind of societal critique is just stupid.

Your theory should apply to any huge city where drinking is not taboo.

I've visited a few huge cities in North and South America dozens of times over my lifetime. I do not remember ever seeing people in non-ragged suits sleeping rough. Is anyone else's experience different?

If this is specific to Japan, that's worth pointing out, even if the explanation is speculative and may well be wrong.

Any other theories?

Some background: the chance of getting pick-pocketed or molested is much smaller than in other cities of a comparable size worldwide, and the Japanese practice a form of privacy where such embarrassing scenes are visible but not seen.

Those guys will wake up in the morning, purchase a ready-made set of clean shirt, deodorant, and tie in a shop, and go back to the office.

Wow. Why is that not available in my american city? Spill something on my shirt (yes, I am a cliched computer programmer), and go buy an easy replacement? I want that.

> If this is specific to Japan

There are several additional factors:

- social drinking after work is "the norm" in Japan. Not every day, but several times a week is not uncommon. In large companies it is excepted that you would join such events, since it's pretty much a way to talk about work (and other things) in an informal context.

- alcohol is produced locally and there a very large industry pushing for consumption (and it is advertised everywhere).

- like in many Asian populations, there is a deficiency of the alcohol dehydrogenase enzyme among Japanese, so a majority of people can't break down alcohol very efficiently and could get drink after just 2 beers. I have seen that happening over and over again - it's just genetics at play.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1762903/

> Electrophoretic and quantitative studies reveal that 85% of Japanese carry an atypical liver alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH). The frequency of ADH polymorphism is identical with the reported frequency of alcohol sensitivity in the Japanese population. This identity in population frequencies points to a causative relationship between the two phenomena and suggests that alcohol sensitivity might be due to the increased acetaldehyde formation in individuals carrying the atypical ADH gene.

Drinking with ethnic Japanese as a white or black person really does make you feel as if your tolerance for alcohol is doubled; in reality you just drink less and in smaller portions. A common way of drinking together in Japan is ordering a large pitcher of beer and sharing it with small glasses.

Culturally drinking still is expected behaviour in Japan. When you can't drink for a while because of medication or whatever reason, you will find yourself explaining and excusing yourself all the time; in part because of the Japanese cultural habit of filling eachother's glasses instead of your own — preferably in order of seniority.

Oh and let's not forget the availability of 飲み放題 (drink as much as you want) plans in many restaurants at night. It's cheaper than usually ordering 3 drinks and leads to a higher consumption of alcohol at the end of the day...

On top of that, Tokyo is super safe. It's next to impossible to get mugged or abused. Weather is rather friendly for this behaviour as well.

i think you forgot that tokyo is one of the safest city. Those people won’t get robbed or mugged.

Try that in Paris and you’ll wake up naked on the pavement.

Or dead.

Well homeless people do die in parisian streets in the cold winter days but beyond that I really doubt that you'd be very likely to get killed sleeping on a bench in France (or frankly in most civilized places in the world, why would people randomly kill people in the street?). You'd probably end up with a cold though, parisian nights are seldom hot enough to comfortably sleep without any protection. Regardless I wouldn't exactly advise doing it, theft is definitely possible.

I agree that with OP that the large number of people in Japan may be part of the explanation. But I think there are a few Japanese specific explanations at well. For instance,

- In Japan, sleeping in public is more common (0) - The workplace is more formal, meaning more men in suits (1) - Drinking after work is very common in Japan (2)

This means that sleeping outside is less taboo for salarymen, that they are more likely to wear a suit to work and they are more likely to head to the bar straight after work while still in their suit. In other places, I image people might change before heading to the bar or wear something different to work in the first place or might have more inhibition about sleeping in public.

(0) https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/16/world/what-in-the-world/j... (1) https://www.businessinsider.com/differences-between-japanese...] (2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomikai

Happens a lot in Korea. Having traveled extensively in both countries I'd say it probably happens more often in Korea actually.

Both Korea and Japan are very high on the "drinking habits" ratio, and that shows in the rate of stomach cancers: both countries have the highest rate of such cancers in the world (as well as digestive tract cancer I think). Pharma companies usually rush to get their new cancer drugs approved in Japan because the market is so huge.

Rate of stomach cancer around the world:

https://pmj.bmj.com/content/postgradmedj/81/957/419/F1.large...

How about safety?

Hard to think about getting robbed or being shot at.

Yeah, I honestly think Japan is the only country in the world where you could sleep on the street in a suit and wake up with all your possessions in tact.

I'm willing to bet all the cities you visited have higher rates of crime than Tokyo.

Options or not, salarymen sleeping on the street does seem to be a thing in Tokyo. This is far from the first article I’ve seen about it.

As for an explanation of the behavior, I don’t think that was the point. This photographer is less interested in “the answer”, but is presenting “the question” in a new way. If you found it provocative then it worked.

> street does seem to be a thing in Tokyo

it is not specific to Tokyo at all. Go to the center of Osaka, you will find drunk salarymen every day of the week.

You seem to be very passionate that the article is somehow misguided. However I, and a lot of others on this site have lived and visited large metropolitan cities all over the world. I can clearly remember seeing passed out men in suits in Tokyo and no where else in the world (anecdote). There are passed out people in other cities, but not businessmen in suits. The article clearly states that the photographers criteria was that the person was sleeping in a suit in a odd configuration. The article is interesting and accurate.

I don't quite understand your comment, Osaka is in Japan so ekianjo wasn't really dismissing the claim of the parent. Furthermore they provide interesting context as to why this might be more prevalent in Japan in other comments in this submission. I don't really see them being "very passionate that the article is somehow misguided", just adding some much needed context for people like me who have never set foot in the land of the rising sun.

You will find drunk salarymen in the evenings yes but seeing them passed out alone outside is very rare in Osaka. Not uncommon on trains however.

Sorry I typed hastily, I’d only had first hand experience of it in Tokyo; my mistake; agree this is an more generic urban phenomenon.

> When you are in a city with millions of people transiting, you are bound to see a lot more of people who are dead drunk on your journey because a lot more people pass by everyday.

Dead drunk passed out on the ground? Hobos maybe, not dudes in suits. You rarely see this phenomenon in China or South Korea.

> Dead drunk passed out on the ground? Hobos maybe, not dudes in suits. You rarely see this phenomenon in China or South Korea.

I'm pretty sure the difference in China is caused by communism of the past actively punishing homelessness. It was the same in Europe and the effect still remains: People hate and fear the homeless and would never consider sleeping on the street.

Not sure about Korea but in Japan you can do this every day with a wallet packed with cash, new iPhone and an expensive watch and you will wake up every time with all of them still there.

People do this because they know if they get that drunk and end up hell knows where, they are still completely safe and will be fine next morning. I am not sure there is another country where you can do this and not get robbed.

There are plenty of spaces to sleep in Tokyo if you are still semi conscious after a party. These guys were far beyond that.

A lot of salaryman positions are barely paying above combini rates. Renting a karaoke room in the areas these people work isn't an option when you consider how often they're out "entertaining". Internet/manga cafes are a cheaper option but from what I've heard they tend to get quite full.

> A lot of salaryman positions are barely paying above combini rates

Interesting, how long has this been the case? Is hoping for promotion realistic?

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