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If you've been to Japan or know anything about it, you're no stranger to izakaya. The first thing that strikes you is the red lantern hanging in front of the store, with the word “izakaya” written on it in big letters. When I saw the word “izakaya”, I thought to myself, “Why would a pub be called ‘izakaya’ when it's just called ‘izakaya’? I don't know if anyone else had a similar confusion, but I read the history of Izakaya. It was only when I read the history of Izakaya that I realized it, so here's a brief look at the history of Izakaya.
🤗 01 History of Izakaya
The origin of izakaya dates back to the 13th century. Prior to that, sake was a rare commodity in Japan, and only the noble “samurai” and “nobles” were allowed to drink on a regular basis. In the post Kamakura period (around the Yuan dynasty in China), Japan had an urban economy, and merchants who had a little money wanted to drink as much as the princes and nobles. As a result, places for ordinary people to drink slowly began to appear. As a result, a number of liquor stores came into existence, and those who know Japanese know that a store that sells something is called a yakuza, and a store that sells liquor is naturally called a “sake yakuza”. Note that “Sake-ya” simply means a store that sells sake, and naturally, a store is a place where you buy sake and leave, not a place where you stay and drink. Later on, in order to attract business, some sake stores allowed customers to not only buy sake but also to drink inside the store. In order to differentiate these stores from liquor stores, they added the word “izakaya” in front of their signboards to indicate that they not only sold liquor, but also allowed customers to stay and drink inside the store. This is how the name “izakaya” came about.
After the establishment of the Edo Shogunate in 1603, Edo, the seat of the Shogunate, rapidly developed into a metropolis, gathering people from all over the country, predominantly men, who had a strong demand for alcohol.
Toward the end of the Edo period, some Japanese izakaya began to sell alcoholic beverages. They mainly served grilled fish, boiled taro, and other cooked food. It is interesting to note that the modern Japanese word for fish (sakana sakana) was originally meant to be a dish for drinking (saka saka). The original Japanese word for fish was うお, and since grilled fish was often served at izakayas in those days, people slowly came to refer to the fish as sakana, and the original name うお was rarely used (in modern Japanese, うお is usually found only in specific words such as うおつり (fishing)).
🤗 02 Izakaya ≠ restaurant
To this day, izakaya in Japan has become a place for office workers or families to meet and chat. Many people may equate an izakaya with a restaurant, but although you can order food at an izakaya, they are not strictly speaking the same. The biggest difference between an izakaya and a restaurant in China is that the Japanese make a very clear distinction between eating and drinking. In China, eating and drinking basically go together. In China, eating and drinking basically go together, but Japanese people generally don't drink during meals, and Japanese restaurants such as ramen stores basically don't serve alcohol, and eating is eating. Izakaya, on the other hand, serve some small dishes, but they mainly serve alcohol rather than food. In this way, izakaya are like bars in Europe. However, bars are more of a pastime and a life experience, and most people don't go there every day. However, going to an izakaya is an almost daily activity for Japanese people, especially office workers. According to the Statistics Bureau of Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, as of 2006, there was one izakaya in Tokyo for an average of 546 people.
After work, you may go to an izakaya to drink alone, or you may meet your coworkers at an izakaya to drink together to comfort yourself after a hard day's work. In Japanese restaurants, most people concentrate on eating, and even if they do talk, they do so in a low voice, which is relatively quiet. But in izakaya, you will see another side of the Japanese people rarely seen, we remove the constraints of everyday life while relaxing to drink and spit out the workplace, talk about the world, the voice is very loud, if a group of people to go together, you can also order a lot of food to share the food, and there are often drunk, but the degree of alcohol in Japan is not very high, there will not be the kind of high liquor in China, so most of them are still slightly drunk and half-drunk. If you come to Japan to travel for the first time into the izakaya may see such a scene, the area of the room is not large many people crowded together, the distance between the table and the table is also very small, full of room chatter very noisy, very uncomfortable. But this is the unique way of “opening” an izakaya in Japan, which is different from other countries.
For office workers, having a few drinks at an izakaya with your coworkers after work is a great way to deepen your relationship without getting too full to go home and eat the dinner your wife has prepared. If you're planning to go out late into the night on the weekend, you'll often change to three izakayas in a row because you won't get enough to eat at one place, which is called climbing the ladder in Japanese. For those who work late into the night, you can drink at an izakaya until dawn for as little as 3,000 yen. Izakaya near the station are open until about 4:00 a.m., when the first train leaves.
🤗 03 Izakaya Experience
If you come to Japan and want to experience an izakaya, it's important to remember that an izakaya is not a restaurant where you eat, but rather a place where drinking and chatting are the main focus, and eating is instead a supporting role. Specifically:
First, the food at izakaya is mainly cold dishes, and they are all served in small plates, so a single serving is not enough to fill you up at all;
Secondly, Japanese people order very little food at izakaya, so a plate of cold vegetables or a few skewers will be enough for a few glasses of wine.
If you are hungry before coming to an izakaya, Japanese people will go to a fast food restaurant to fill up their stomachs, such as ramen or rice, and then come to the izakaya after they have finished eating. Just order one or two small dishes and a few beers or sakes, and you'll have a great time. So if you are hungry, you should come to an izakaya with a full stomach. The main thing to do at an izakaya is to order alcohol, so you can order draft beer, shochu, or cocktails, and pair it with a few side dishes, such as yakitori, sashimi, grilled fish, or mixed vegetables, and then you can raise your glass in the air and have a great time with your friends.
- Author:japan guides
- URL:https://japan-guides.com/article/culture-100
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