Work hard, play hard (part 2)

How about 'play hard'?

Well, when Japanese people do relax, they often throw themselves into that as well. Going out to a dinner and ordering loads of stuff, having 'all you can drink' deals, or just freely ordering drink after drink without thought of cost, staying out late regardless of work the next morning, even shy people singing karaoke with gusto, etc etc.

Perhaps it was just the groups I associated with, but it struck me that it is easy to do this kind of free 'let's go out!' thing in Japan, because the areas where people work are also packed full of restaurants and nightlife. This makes it very easy to just leave work and go to an izakaya or something. Most people don't drive home, so most people can drink as much as they like.

Naturally, it depends on the person and their responsibilities. I'm just generalising.

On a slightly different tack, I think Japanese also 'play hard' in the sense that some Japanese people will often have a hobby they follow quite seriously. (Bar the numerous young girls I talked to who, when asked what their hobby was, said 'sleeping' or 'eating'. Hahaha...)

So for example, there's a category of hobbyists called 'train geeks' who really love trains - if they take a trip, they might go somewhere that has an unusual, historic or famous type of train they can ride. They might also betake themselves to particular points - eg, a place where you can photograph the shinkansen passing, or one of the few points where the underground metro comes above ground, or the train station that nobody can leave (Umi-Shibaura if you are interested ^_^).

They might also collect train memorabilia, note differences in train 'doors closing' songs, build model trains, etc. It really depends on the interest of the individual, but I've heard of all these things being done.

Or lets say you're a photography enthusiast. I've seen people with professional quality cameras, for example, in gardens and cat cafes, taking shot after shot after shot. In the case of gardens, the same person may visit the same park on different days so they can take photos under different weather conditions, in different seasons, and so on.

Of course, not everybody puts this level of dedication into their hobbies, but it does seem like an especially Japanese thing, that a hobby is also something you can work hard at like this. ^_^