Hard times and hard drinking don’t mix.

Of course, there’s never a good time to experience a 7.1 magnitude earthquake, but late July and early August is a particularly bad season for it. The addition of frequent typhoons and sweltering heatwaves not only hinder search and rescue efforts, but also make a hard situation exponentially harder for those who have had to evacuate their air-conditioned homes.

You could hardly blame anyone in Kumamoto for uttering the words, “I could sure use a drink” in this situation, but the Kumamoto Prefectural Police are asking everyone to think twice before cracking open that bottle. On 5 August, they issued a request on Twitter explaining that drinking is fine, but getting excessively drunk raises the risk of requiring police or medical assistance which would be better off directed at the disaster response.

Upon reading that warning, it would be reasonable to assume that the bleakness of the situation is driving a lot of victims to drink in order to escape from reality for a bit. However, Kumamoto Police later told media that the number of drunk-in-public, fighting, and alcohol poisoning incidents is more or less the same as it was before the earthquake.

It should be noted here that Kumamoto has a reputation as being a land of hard drinkers. The region is considered to have a very high number of experts in both the production and consumption of the distilled beverage shochu. They even invented a special cup just for drinking it called a sorakyu, which is shaped like a cone so that you can’t put it down until you finish drinking everything in it.

▼ Mr. Sato with a 2.7-liter bottle of shochu that cost about 1,200 yen (US$7.60) and has 20% alcohol.

So, when the police are telling people there to drink less, they actually mean to drink less than usual rather than not drinking more due to despair over the disaster. In the first week since the earthquake struck on 28 July, police received 27 calls due to public drunkenness, which was par for the course in the downtown areas of Kumamoto City.

A lot of online comments from people who live in the area pointed out that the downtown areas were largely spared from the destruction seen in other parts, which is why things seem to be unchanged. Other comments expressed mixed feelings over whether people there should indulge in alcohol at a time like this.

“The downtown areas weren’t affected very much by the earthquake, so it’s probably business as usual there.”
“I visited Kumamoto before the earthquake and was surprised how many people were out drinking at night, even on weekdays.”
“That’s just their way of life down there.”
“They should just drink at home. But it’s probably a dump, which is why they go out.”
“That’s basically back-to-back major earthquakes. I can’t blame them for wanting a drink.”
“If you were forced to sleep on a gymnasium floor with no AC, you’d feel the same way.”
“Leave the drunks alone. They’re still less of a nuisance than smokers.”
“They definitely have good reason to drink, but this is no time to cause trouble for others.”

The fact that most public drunkenness incidents are occurring in relatively unscathed parts of Kumamoto doesn’t change the fact that people requiring public services to be called in are taking them away from areas that really do need it.

The police there aren’t even telling people to stop drinking altogether, just not to get completely sloshed. So, hopefully, people there, in an act of solidarity during this time of need, can keep the sorakyu on the shelf while the initial relief effort is still underway. Actually, for Super Volunteer Haruo Obata, who’s in the area now and quit drinking himself a few years back, this might be a perfect volunteer job for him to tackle.

Source: J-Cast News, My Game News Flash, Tanoshi Osake
Images: Pakutaso, ©SoraNews24
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