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Markets in everything, the riches of Japan once again
So much for fixed costs, this time it's weird drinks. How about "Bilk": 70 percent beer, 30 percent milk? That's only the beginning. There's a cheese drink, desalinated seawater (hey, isn't that expensive?), placenta drink (made from swine placenta) and eel soda. And if that's not enough for you, here is last year's list. As I like to say, if you're not thinking about Japan every day, you've yet to wake up.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on July 30, 2008 at 07:17 AM in Economics | Permalink
Comments
Perceptions of the Japanese economy made the transition from wave of the future during the rah-rah "Japan as Number One" 1980s to cautionary tale during the subsequent long twilight.
Sometimes I wonder if Japanese popular culture is on the same trajectory.
Posted by: at Jul 30, 2008 8:36:18 AM
Guinness ice cream floats are excellent. (Even better if you substitute Young's Chocolate Stout for Guinneess.)
Posted by: Jacqueline at Jul 30, 2008 8:40:42 AM
Rumor has it that there is a sweat drink (made from pocari sweat). It's heartbreaking to think of all the pocaris hooked up to treadmills in factory farms.
Posted by: at Jul 30, 2008 8:41:37 AM
Japanese culture is so ... different. E.g., this article in today's WSJ:
"Popular Cartoon Series Makes Japanese Shrine a Magnet for Fans: Devotees Are Mainly Young Men, Who Dress Like the Characters -- in Miniskirts," by Hiroko Tabuchi
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121737740486095275.html
Posted by: chug at Jul 30, 2008 9:37:18 AM
Pocari Sweat is only the tip of the iceberg:
http://tinyurl.com/6n6z32
Posted by: Erich at Jul 30, 2008 10:47:46 AM
If you're thinking about anything every day, you've yet to wake up.
Posted by: l at Jul 30, 2008 11:00:36 AM
Finally the day of mass marketed placenta products has arrived..
Posted by: rowdy at Jul 30, 2008 12:16:56 PM
It's no more weird than some of the things Americans consume: who'd put salmon in cream cheese? Energy drinks that make you hyper for 6 hours? Milk with beer is weird, but White Russians aren't? Chocolate soda, anybody? Ben and Jerry's make a "Cake Batter" ice cream.
As for culture, we have: tourist villages where people pretend to be from the 1600's, nerdy men dressing up as futuristic (or from a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away) space travelers waving around extended glowsticks, talking songs about dealing drugs and bitches 'n' ho's, television shows where people humiliate themselves for money, or just so they can be on TV!, grown men reading cartoons about crazed renegades in tights (and setting box office records for a movie about that same crazed renegade), thousands of books that can be summarized as, "eat less and exercise", thousands more books that teach people how to stop being losers, thousands of people making yearly treks to see the piece of French toast that looks like a religious figure, etc.
OTOH, the Japanese have elderly porn (it's a CNN video), so I guess they're more weird.
Posted by: Hei Lun Chan at Jul 30, 2008 12:23:37 PM
PS The Japanese elderly porn should totally get its own Markets in Everything, Japanese Edition post from Tyler. And it's coming stateside!
Posted by: Hei Lun Chan at Jul 30, 2008 12:26:41 PM
so is the same a miniskirt drees or darth Vader mas
okok
Posted by: karl at Jul 30, 2008 2:12:05 PM
I agree. I've been getting into Kiyoshi Kurosawa movies lately and am totally fascinated. Japan is awesome.
Posted by: steve at Jul 30, 2008 8:14:29 PM
I've lived in Japan, first in Tokyo and then later in a medium-sized city in central Japan, for several years. I never in my daily life see any of this goofy stuff that's alleged to be so very current and popular in Japan - except in English language internet articles.
And except for Pocari Sweat, which you can buy in any convenience store. And which is just like Gatorade.
Posted by: Mike at Jul 30, 2008 9:27:56 PM
Hei Lun Chan is absolutely right. Would you like some raspberry sauce on your extra cheese, buffalo wing pizza? A lot of garbage food gets invented;it gets forgotten. Higher food prices will make for better inventions, though I pity the Mexican sharecropper living off maize.
Posted by: Frank at Jul 30, 2008 9:59:51 PM
I would much rather avoid thinking about placenta flavored beverages every day.
Posted by: Alan at Jul 30, 2008 11:10:59 PM
Pocari Sweat isn't even uniquely Japanese anymore. It is available in cities in the Philippines and, from what I understand, in Thailand and China and probably other countries in Asia. It reminds me of water with a small amount of re-hydration salts thrown in.
Posted by: Ricardo at Jul 31, 2008 12:58:02 AM
From what I understand, the 'sweat' beverage is just a poorly translated energy drink. It's called "sweat" because you should drink it to rehydrate.
Great links by the way. :)
Posted by: JB at Jul 31, 2008 1:36:10 PM
I like this site, at the dawn of Christmas, like all the sites frequented by friends sent holiday wishes ahead of time, a happy holiday.
Posted by: 傢俱 at Dec 3, 2008 10:08:44 PM
一個人背起行囊，離開喧囂的城市，走進清境民宿的懷抱。去體味大自然的清新的原汁原味。在臺灣，只要背離了川流不息的鬧市，到處都有花園般的宜蘭民宿歡迎您，她們就像是自己的家一樣溫馨、舒適。
Posted by: 機票 at Dec 8, 2008 10:19:10 PM
一個人背起行囊，離開喧囂的城市，走進清境民宿的懷抱。去體味大自然的清新的原汁原味。在臺灣，只要背離了川流不息的鬧市，到處都有花園般的宜蘭民宿歡迎您，她們就像是自己的家一樣溫馨、舒適。
Posted by: 機票 at Dec 8, 2008 10:24:56 PM
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