Hi Everyone,
Have you eaten and drunken at Izakaya? It is a very Japanese drinking place, with good food and a reasonable price of a drink.
A place to go while you are travelling in Japan.
Now they have competitors.
Convenience stores.
We call them ‘Conveni.’ コンビニ. They are Lawson, Family Mart, Seven Eleven etc.
And Yakitori and Oden are very good at a convenience store.
*”Oden” consists of boiled eggs, radish(daikon) and fish cakes, etc.
Some people say Yakitori at convenience stores beat that of Izakaya. Yes food is good there.
The problem was that there was no space to eat. People buy food and eat it at home.
But you see now more and more convenience stores have an eat-in.
So Izakaya is in a crisis.
Maybe a convenience store takes over the position of Izakaya soon? It is possible.
But there are things about Izakaya. Why do the Japanese go to Izakaya?
After work, they need a place to be drunken, and talk about work or complain about their companies.
Izakaya allows them to be drunken. Almost everyone is drunken. Sometimes noisy. So people can be comfortably drunken.
Japanese can show a different face at Izakaya because everyone there is drunken.
You cannot do it at a convenience store.
None of the people shopping there are drunken. What if they see drunken people with red faces at eat-inns? I think those drunken people would feel embarrassed.
So it is a cultural thing again. Japanese don’t want to stand out or to be different or unique. And they behave within the socially allowable boundary.
Izakaya will still keep its position.
At least now.
Thank you for reading,
Toshiya
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