In these moments you have only two prayers. The first is that you are alone; because if you're not, then you sure won't be able to remember her name no matter what she did for you last night - which means you definitely won't be getting it again. The second prayer is that you can still access your inbox to give you some sad clue as to who you were before this happened.
Of course, even when our brains periodically crash, our internal reboot procedure kicks in to perform a few basic self-diagnostics as we struggle to re-engage with the universe.
Firstly: sensory; are we laying in anything overly moist, damp or soggy ?
Secondly: locomotion; can we confirm full motor control of our limbs and can we still scratch all the body parts which need scratching ?
Thirdly: mental faculty; which of the Tracy brothers piloted Thunderbird 3 ?
And for a bonus point which Malaysian hotty did he have a crush on ?
Being able to successfully complete this routine means that we probably have a sporting chance of finding the bathroom and then correctly knowing which part of the body discharges into which receptacle, if, indeed, we can actually get there on time. Wooah !
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| Thunderbird 3 was piloted by Alan Tracy, who had a crush on TinTin (but could often be distracted by Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward) |
In most cultures such total inebriation would be occasional, self-inflicted and normally done with friends. However in Korea this has to be taken as something of a regular occupational hazard - it is part of the job.
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| Want to know what she is whispering as you contemplate her navel ? |
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| "Drink soju with me Friday night .... and wake up alone on Wednesday afternoon !" |
In a society steeped in honour, tradition, overtly displayed deference and strict social hierarchy; soju is the ice breaker of choice and let’s face it; there’s a lot of ice to be broken. Soju’s very success may be due to the fact that it is one of the very few social tools which cuts across people’s age, their social standing and for the most part, also their gender.
Soju is a semi-spirit made from rice, wheat, barley, etc. With a typical alcohol content of 25% it is 5 times stronger than beer, twice as strong as wine and about half the strength of vodka. You get a true feeling for its ‘popularity’ if you consider that domestic sales of the two top brands of soju match global sales of Smirnoff at a staggering ratio of 3:1.
SOJU
The Millionare’s Club statistics 2011
· World’s #1 best-selling liquor; Jinro Soju, sold 61.38 million cases in 2011
· World’s #2 best-selling liquor; Smirnoff vodka, sold 24.70 million cases in 2011
· World’s #3 best-selling liquor; Lotte Liquor Soju, sold 23.90 million cases in 2011
· Basically 85 out of 110 million cases of the world’s 3 best selling liquors were soju
- consumed almost entirely in South Korea's domestic market
- consumed almost entirely in South Korea's domestic market
Although increasingly mixed into beer or taken as a shot with beer by the younger folks, soju is still mostly drunk neat from shot glasses which must always be filled by someone else, never yourself, and often downed in one by the whole table following a short speech or toast. The next person at the table then makes the next toast in quick order, making it quite feasible to drink a shot every 3 minutes; the equivalent of 10 shots of vodka per hour. And this goes on and on for hours.
Koreans now realise that they may have overindulged a tad in the past, in much the same way that Godzilla overindulges in skyscrapers when roaming about for a snack in New York. Today Koreans will tell you (with a little wink) of their new culture of moderation; a concept called ‘119’; which means limiting yourself to:
- 1 location (either restaurant, bar or karaoke, not all 3)
- 1 type of alcohol (beer, soju, wine, spirits, no mixing) and
- 9pm finish.
So good luck with that then !
http://travel.cnn.com/seoul/drink/soju-most-sold-drink-world-930177
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