I spoke about Steven Ahlgren which has done a series on corporate office life and today I will talk about polish photographer Pawel Jaszczuk which has worked on after work life of so called "Salary Man" . Is quite common in Tokyo as in other big cities in Japan to see typical employee getting pissed and drunk.
Apart from this project also have a look at Kinky City... quite interesting nightclub life in Tokyo....
Here a note on Salary Man:
Same suit, same tie, same suitcase. Hundreds of thousands of individuals. 8 AM jump in the train packed with dozens of salaryman. Arrive in the office in some fancy building in central Tokyo. Sit on their desk, don´t share their own ideas, never question their boss´s judgement. Accepted boring jobs without question. Salaryman’s lifestyle revolves entirely around work at the office. Nobody challenge the system and the system will provide for all.
If some coworker senior to you (sen pai) wants to go drinking after work, you go. Hang out with colleagues and clients into the night in outdoor standing bars in Shimbashi. Karaoke in Shinjuku, cigarettes, sake or shochu everywhere.
It´s already midnight and salaryman not even thinking of the last train. Exhaust, death-drunk collapse after a night of heavy drinking. Some of them manage to get to a capsule hotel if they know one, some make it to a taxi, and some others just try to make themselves as comfortable as they can wherever they fall.
In Japan heavy drinking is a naturally accepted and sometimes compulsory catharsis for the hard working salaryman. They don’t really care about having their suitcase or they mobile phone stolen. This is Japan, and as easy as it may seems to pick their wallet, drunk salaryman are part of the urban landscape, respected by everyone. A million ways different from the West, where young people get wasted and break the limits as an accepted crazy young attitude, but where for respectable family men it’s shameful to be cought totally drunk by a neighbor.
