Connoisseurship and drunkenness in Tokyo

Although aggregate alcohol consumption in Japan is declining, national data overlook important anomalies and local trends. One is that young adults are drinking in greater volume and frequency than previously observed in the postwar era, while health concerns pertaining to alcohol consumption struggle for national recognition against largely uncritical views of intoxication. This article focuses on the connoisseurship of alcohol among Tokyo's young adults, particularly knowledge and breadth of sampled varieties, an emergent and growing pursuit that encourages drinking and structures drunkenness. Connoisseurship and drunkenness, the article argues, serve as means to assert expertise, sophistication and global competence - a form of cultural capital among young urbanites who increasingly find themselves on the economic and social margins, disconnected from the official institutions of Japanese society. Most of the data presented here were gathered over 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Tokyo (interviews, online survey and participant observation), supplemented by ongoing participation in online conversations on the popular social media website www.mixi.jp. Ethnographic attention reveals how alcohol consumption is discussed as a culturally meaningful pursuit illustrative of major societal shifts and challenges confronting Japan.