Suburban Japan: 1
During 2008, I found this pharmacy while visiting the town of Aomori at the northern end of Honshu. In the United States, of course, such a name would be condemned for conveying the “wrong message,” especially to “the nation's youth.” But the Japanese are generally unencumbered with Protestant prohibitions and moral probity, freeing them to display a very practical attitude toward social issues. It seems to me, the name Happy Drug is quite accurate, because that's the whole point of drugs, whether they are pain relievers, blood thinners, or laxatives. Their ultimate purpose is to make our lives less miserable and, therefore, happier. The interesting question is why we in the west find this so difficult to acknowledge.
the latest
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i think it's more american than western...
i don't think any aussies would mind happy drug.
uk has superdrug, is that better?
everything is happy in asia, although europe seemed to have a lot happy phone stores when i was there last
I remember thinking the exact same thing when I saw shops in the UK proudly called "SUPER DRUG".
To add to the effect, English speakers in Europe rarely (more like never) refer to chemists or pharmacies as drug-stores, so it was just doubly out-of-place and hilarious.
I had my internal giggle, all the way home..
A second point is that Euro English speakers generally call legal drugs 'medicine' and illegal ones 'drugs'.
So 'drug' anything is initially perceived as the other kind, whether or not it is.
In the US I think it's less a result of morality and just a matter of semantics and conditioning. Kids are taught that "drugs are bad, mmmkay" before they are really capable of understanding what responsible use is, and before they are totally able to distinguish between pharmacy drugs and crack cocaine.
While I think it is more a matter of the popular buzzword being tacked on to the store (see Lucky in China), I love the slam on American puritanism. If something like this were done, let's say on accident, in America, the only recourse would be renaming the store Christ-Drug, Just Say No Drug or something like that.
Holy generalizations and orientalism, batman....
we in the west abhor being sick or unwell, or generally OUT OF ORDER.
The term "drug" is usually used in a derrogatory way, either while speaking about illicit street drugs, or "happy pills" that help people deal with psychiatric or psychologic problem - also taboo in the West. When someone is "drugged" it usually means they are incapable - another horrid thought to most people.
Happy Drug is a term that is not acceptable to our inability to accept mental pain or problems, nor to see past the "drugs are bad" mentality.
I suspect it's not so much the Japanese attitude towards drugs, as it is a lack of cultural references around the specific English word "drug."
In the U.S., the word "drug" carries a whole cultural constellation of ideas like "drug addiction," "war on drugs," "illegal drugs," etc. From childhood, most of us are lectured repeatedly about how "[illegal] drugs are bad."
The Japanese are no less uptight about illegal drugs, but they have been indoctrinated in Japanese, not English. The word "drug" doesn't carry the same weight, because the Japanese don't necessarily map all of their anti-illegal drug attitudes onto that single word.
In the other direction, what does the word "sushi" mean to you? Many Americans don't know the difference between sushi and sashimi, and quite a few Americans think sushi is synonymous with California Rolls.
Lucky Drugs was a retail store in downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan up until it went out of business a couple years ago. You can see the sign for Joy Pharmacies / Lucky Drugs in this 1993 photo:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/83025347@N00/2222636755/
Locally it's remembered for its name rather than the quality of its service. People who speak English natively come up with business names like this too.
Good points all. It should be noted that Japan's government has a fairly Draconian attitude toward illegal drugs however, with stiff sentences meted out for possession.
Just FYI.
Happy Drug! Yay!
Jason
"by accident"
/pedantic grammar fairy (* * *)
I think you're misconstruing this in a major way. It's not that 'drug' has different connotations for the Japanese; it's that it has no connotations at all. The majority of Japanese people know what 'happy' means, because it's an English word that's used often in Japanese; however, I'm willing to bet that the majority of Japanese people, young or old, puritanical or non-, don't know what 'drug' means, or know it only as the name of this pharmacy. If the store were called 幸せ麻薬 (a quasi-literal translation) it would be a very different story.
Reminds me of the Drug Store in
Natural Born Killers!
#7 (BShock) nailed it.
The English word "drug" (or "doraggu") in Japanese is probably used more as a shortening of the word "drugstore" ("doraggusutoa") which is commonly used in Japan. The Japanese have their own word for "drugs" so I doubt they ever use the English word to refer to drugs, illegal or otherwise.
It's hard to take any store name seriously when they use giant bubble letters and clown colors for their branding.
@ #5, funny, I had *exactly* the same reaction to this piece.
Your interpretation is wrong. Absolutely wrong.
"Happy Drug" is a Japanese pun. The most common name for a Japanese drugstore is "kusuriya," it starts with the kanji 薬. That one kanji is often used as a sign on a drugstore, or as a shorthand notation for drugstores generally.
That kanji 薬 is extremely close to the kanji for "happiness" or "enjoyment" 楽, it is often misread on first glance. The English script (romaji, "roman characters") conceals the Japanese pun (a common tactic in Japanese advertising and media). The pun is "楽薬." It is a subtle visual/textual pun, but fairly typical of Japanese written puns.
Please refrain from making sweeping generalizations about Japanese society based on your Western perceptions. Those of us who have an extensive background in Japanese studies call your problem "Orientalism."
Do happy drugs work more efficiently than unhappy ones? Or do they just have better social lives?
Wow, that reminds me of the "Drug Penguin" I found last year in Sendai:
http://flickr.com/photos/auilix/2378797561/in/set-72157604340421701/
It's obviously for the nice tomorrow.
since takuan isn't here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm9ULeuCqmA
Good intentions are not always a roadmap.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6zUCSurFGCc
As insightful and true as the sentiments here might be, what's more likely is simply that the Japanese like using English words, that the use of foreign words in any country generall have different meanings/implications, and that Asians are particularly fond of using the word Happy in establishment titles. Just look at how many Chinese/Japanese restaurants have the very same word, "Happy" in them.
It's similar to how a lot of German Establishments have the word "Haus" in them.
#14: 3rded.
Frau
Nice :)
"I'm a doper. C'mon look at my eyes, look at the pupils.. ain't they related?"
#19: I concur.
There used to be a breakfast place in Berkeley named "Bonjour Croissant". See, unlike the dour French, who would never give such a name to a café, Americans are so friendly that they even say hello to their breakfast food. If you are a French person who wants to understand the differences between France and America, the first place you should look is at the names of cheap chain cafes and drug stores; if any of them are in French, you've hit your sociological gold mine.
Or maybe the name "Happy Drug" doesn't reflect anything about the Japanese (as opposed to the Western) mind vis-a-vis Puritanism, but is just a friendly-sounding brand name designed to appeal to customers so they go inside and spend their money.
Perhaps worth mentioning: the Chinese character for drug actually contains the character for pleasant/enjoyment and to some extent happy, with the radical meaning herb
When I was growing up in Atlanta, there were drug stores (yes, I said it) with "drug" in the title - Reeds Drugs, Eckerd drugs, etc. That was in the 70's and early 80's. They all seem to be labeled "pharmacy" now, although I still don't think twice about calling them drug stores. Just thought I'd provide a counterexample. :-)
Thinking further, I wonder if the War on Drugs has had an influence on this labeling. I don't really buy the puritan angle.
#21: fifthed. (and hey, it's Aomori.)
I'm with BSHOCK and Matt on this one. It says nothing about the Japanese approach to drugs or wellness or anything else. Japanese love to take English words that they see around alot, and repurpose them however they like. This store was just as likely to be named 3-2-1 Blastoff Pharmacy.
This is no different than the fad of getting tattoos of Japanese Kanji characters - you do it because you think it looks cool and you have some vague idea of what the meaning supposedly is, but you don't do it because you are trying to send a specific clear message.
The best part is how a cursory glance at the state department's travel advisories kinda debunks most of the obnoxious orientalism in this post.
Certain medications, including some commonly prescribed for depression and Attention Deficient Disorder (ADD), are not widely available. Please see the section below entitled, "Confiscation of Prescription Drugs and Other Medication," regarding the importation of medicine into Japan.
Confiscation of Prescription Drugs and Other Medication: Decisions on what medications may be imported legally into Japan are made by the Japanese Government, and unfortunately the limited information available at the American Embassy and Consulate does not include comprehensive lists of specific medications or ingredients.
[...] However, it is illegal to bring into Japan some over-the-counter medicines commonly used in the United States, including inhalers and some allergy and sinus medications. Specifically, products that contain stimulants (medicines that contain pseudoephedrine such as Actifed, Sudafed, and Vicks inhalers) or codeine are prohibited. [...] Travelers must bring a copy of their doctor's prescription as well as a letter stating the purpose of the drug. However, some U.S. prescription medications cannot be imported into Japan, even when accompanied by a customs declaration and a copy of the prescription. [...]
Some popular medications legal in the U.S., such as Prozac and Viagra, are sold illegally in Japan on the black market. You are subject to arrest and imprisonment if you purchase such drugs illegally while in Japan.
Illegal Drugs: Penalties for possession or use of, or trafficking in illegal drugs, including marijuana, in Japan are severe, and convicted offenders can expect long jail sentences and fines. In most drug cases, suspects are detained incommunicado, which bars them from receiving visitors or corresponding with anyone other than a lawyer or U.S. consular officer until after indictment, which may take several months. Solitary confinement is common.
People can be convicted of drug use based on positive blood or urine tests alone, and multiple Americans are now serving time in Japanese prisons as the result of sting operations and the use of informants. The Japanese police routinely share information on drug arrests with Interpol, assuring that notice of the arrest will reach U.S. law enforcement agencies. About half of all Americans now in prison in Japan are incarcerated for drug-related crimes.
Japanese authorities aggressively pursue drug smugglers with sophisticated detection equipment, "sniffing" dogs and other methods. Travelers and their luggage entering Japan are screened at ports of entry; incoming and outgoing mail, as well as international packages sent via DHL or FEDEX, is also checked carefully. The Japanese police make arrests for even the smallest amounts of illegal drugs. Several Americans are now in custody after having mailed illegal drugs to themselves from other countries. Other Americans are serving time for having tried to bring drugs into Japan as paid couriers working out of Southeast Asia or Europe.
Happy Harry Discount Drugs! Now a Walgreen's pharmacy.
http://flickr.com/photos/46944656@N00/2264344003
belated whinnneyyyy!
how about "LEGAL DRUGS STORE"
Jesus Christ, Japanese drug laws are draconian. (I've been told that) it's impossible to get even moderately good weed in Tokyo. This is a very weird post.
I guess the author has never been to "Happy Harry's Discount Drugs", they've got a big picture of Harry looking very happy:
http://www.walgreens.com/about/companyhistory/happy.jsp
Where the heck is Wall Drug?
My favorite drug store in Japan is Smile Every Day. Whoever named this place and create the little waving dog may have been sampling the goods. http://www.funkiness.com/japan/engrish/images/IMG_0585.jpg
I was meeting with my psychiatrist and we decided to swith my meds around. At the end I said "I hope these new meds work out awesome." To which she responded, "well, awesome isn't what we're going for, we're trying for something more like 'manageable trade-offs.'"
Why not awesome? What's wrong with 'awesome'?
It's funny, weed is extremely difficult to find in Japan, and yet, at the time I was there psilocybin was legal and speed was very common (particularly if you worked for NOVA). The saying was that if you could find hash, it likely came there up someone's ass...
...or so I've been told.
@#38 - Because "awesome" is easy to find... it's called MDMA. ;)
It's been my experience that psych professionals are trying to get patients on an even keel, not feeling super good... cause that's usually manic.
Personally, I've found that the occasional "happy drug" does much more for my overall state of mind than paxil, buspar, celexa, wellbutrin, zoloft or lithium ever did.
In addition to #14's comment on the kanji pun,
Note that this is written in English. The effect is somewhat, but not exactly, like speaking in French in an English speaking country. It would be like having a store here called "Heureux de drogues" (or so google-translate tells me).
I'm switching up my blogging style on this down the rabbit hole day by including a link to something that is not music. I really, really wanted to link to Huey Lewis' "I Want a New Drug," but I guess that will have to wait for another day. Here is the link to a study which investigates that so-called "happy drug." Careful, kids.
http://www.mdma.net/longterm/depression.html
Japanese give as much attention to signs in English as gaijin give to the giant kanji tatooed on their arms...
http://www.walgreens.com/happy/default.html
our local drugstore was called happy harry's.
@Thayan
There is nothing wrong with awesome. Your post was really awesome and made me laugh and I hope the new meds do, indeed, work out awesome.
Yes, Japan has extremely draconian drug laws, and they are currently in the middle of a crackdown on marijuana use. 5 University students were convicted to 5 years of prison each after police found .35 grams of "leafy matter" in their car. .35 grams!!
And on the other hand, Japanese pharmaceuticals are little better than snake oil, and doctors are paid off by the large companies to over prescribe them. Common drugs in America are illegal here (as mentioned previously anything with pseudoepinephrine.) Even the BIRTH CONTROL pill was only legalized a DECADE ago, after 30 years of court battles. Use of painkillers is extremely
OTC medications are largely useless I've found.
Does the blog author have any idea what he is talking about?
Interesting note. The kanji for fun in Japanese is 楽 and the word for medicine is 薬, which has the top part of "grass" (草) on it. Hence, medicine is fun grass. Er, whatever.
At the risk of writing text that no one will read I'll reply to the issue of "orientalism." So, sentence by sentence:
"In the United States, of course, such a name would be condemned for conveying the “wrong message,” especially to “the nation's youth.” "
I think this is undeniable.
" But the Japanese are generally unencumbered with Protestant prohibitions and moral probity, freeing them to display a very practical attitude toward social issues. "
I believe this is also generally true. Note I am not talking about local laws limiting drug availability. I am talking about attitudes. These same attitudes have allowed the growth of visual arts in ways that were unimaginable in the USA, even while certain types of censorship (such as pixelation of genitals) are prevalent in Japan.
" It seems to me, the name Happy Drug is quite accurate, because that's the whole point of drugs, whether they are pain relievers, blood thinners, or laxatives. Their ultimate purpose is to make our lives less miserable and, therefore, happier. The interesting question is why we in the west find this so difficult to acknowledge. "
This again is pretty much undeniable.
I have a feeling that some of the posters accusing me of "orientalism" may be suffering from a condition whereby you see what you expect to see in someone's writing. Really, in what I wrote, there was just one sentence making a very general and not very original observation.
I was interested to learn about the pun subtext though.
That's nothing. In Finland, they have a supermarket chain run by a company called Kesko: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kesko They like to denote the size of a grocery store by the number of K's in front of the name. Hilarity ensues: http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&hl=en&q=KKK+supermaket&btnG=Search+Images
You should go into the Happy Drug (it's in my neighborhood) and take some pictures of the laxative shelf, where you will find cartoons of red-faced, straining people interspersed with happy smiling turds. I think these bolster your point better than analyzing the name of the store.
I like that someone's finally posting on what average Japan looks like. I'm sure everyone's had some sort of image.
This kind of naming is normal here. I am American, and I keep laughing and scorning at this- until this post really put it in perspective- Americans really are Puritanical morons. We've completely changed the connotations of the word "drug".
@18- You're right about the pun- I would have never seen it though! Puns are everywhere here.
#46 is right- lots of recent arrests for weed, at the most prominent universities here. & #39- there are places for weed here, but you have to know the right people. In Tokyo, it's probably a bit hard. Osaka is better. But shrooms were once legal? wow.
The Japanese DO have ridiculous drug laws, from importing normal meds, and weed- weed is this HUGE demonesque thing here, probably thanks to McArthur and current US drug policy. But Japanese police are slow to ban new stuff.
Lastly, to anyone who has lived here more than a year, this stuff is normal. You don't even see it anymore. The word "DRUG" in Japan applies to everything as medicine, equally- it's used for everything, much like AMERICA used to use the word before Puritanicals hijacked semantics with the Prohibition era. Honestly, they call things like illegal drugs a different word. "DRUG" on pharmacies is normal, it's strange to see otherwise.
Wow, way to pop in to Japan for a little and see a drug store with a funny name and proceed to read lots of crazy, unrelated things about Japanese culture from the experience.
I'm not sure I buy the pun argument, #18, but it's interesting.
To suggest that this somehow shows a different attitude toward drugs due to not being a Protestant country, though, as the OP suggests, is way off the mark.
Medication is used very very rarely for depression in Japan. In fact, Japan really hasn't come to terms with depression. It's something that is often shameful and swept under the carpet when possible.
As far as recreational drugs goes, Japan is about as naive and sheltered as they come. Not long ago some university foreign exchange student was caught growing a couple of marijuana plants, and it was discussed endlessly for days on the news. Can you imagine that in the US? A college kids getting caught with a couple of dope plants wouldn't even make it on the local news.
@ Charles,
See, the lack of research, while galling, is *not* really what people are complaining about when they say Orientalism. What we're complaining about is that you read into the name of this store and extrapolated a sweeping generalization of the Japanese people as an exotic Other with views on pharmaceuticals that is fundamentally contrary to our stodgy Western view. The factual error is definitely a factor in why this is problematic, but the orientalism lies very much in the presentation, more than anything.
Also, it isn't a simple matter of local laws regarding drugs, but rather, self-evident national public policy. Japan has some of the most restrictive drug policies on earth, and it's pretty much impossible to chalk restrictive policies regarding foreign perscriptions up to local enforcement, as you do above. Moreover, most advisaries and commentary I've seen has indicated that mental health conditions are rarely, if ever, medicated, and medications like Viagra exist only on the black market. As noted above, even the Birth Control pill was only legalized ten years ago, after 30 years of protracted debate.
Conversely, without discussing perceptions for a moment, the United States remains one of the most heavily-medicated countries on earth; it certainly outstrips Europe in regards to mental health meds being perscribed to children, which itself certainly seems indicative of a fairly liberal attitude towards legal meds taken to "correct" various chemical imbalances.
It *is* certainly true that Americans tend to be extremely erotophobic, and most people I know who have lived in Japan for an extended period of time have commented that this is noticably less the case over there, but you miss the mark considerably by generalizing this apparent liberalism to a permissive attitute towards medication and drug use, and, as far as I've seen in indications anywhere else, you seem to get the bulk of the comparison backwards.
Living in Suburban Maryland in the early '90s, I always thought Peoples Drug was pretty hilarious:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Drug
And just as a final point to cap off our debate about the Japanese repression of recreational, depression and birth control medication, we should also mention the other side of the coin resulting from these political choices: the enormous importance of alcohol, and the huge alcohol consumption in Japan.
That's Japans, "Happy Drug."
#54 is right, it's not the sentence-by-sentence facts that people are taken aback at, just that the post reads like naive, armchair sociology. It gives the impression of the following thoughtstream: "Here I am in Japan..I wonder what the local people are like? I could ask their opinions, or.. wait, there's a crazy sign! And my American English speaker's linguistic apprehension of that sign will surely tell me something useful."
Forgive me if I misrepresent, but this was the impression I got.
Hmm... I didn't read all the comments, but I'm pretty sure you can get locked up and charged just for having a drug in your system - or rather, for having a positive test.
I don't think the attitude to illicit or legal drugs is much different, and generally (world wide) there has been a trend to more conservative views on illicit drugs over the past couple of years.
BSHOCK @ #8 and many people after knock it on the head: It's an English word that doesn't carrry the weight it does here. Slap the Japanese character for drug up there and it'd most probably be a different story.
#54: Agreed. Homer simpson's conversation with Rodd and Todd Flanders comes to mind:
Rod: "But drugs are bad"
Homer: "No, not *drruuuuuugs* (wailing ghost voice)...'drugs'"
The U.S. has a terrible culture for throwing unneccessary medications down people's throats, one that is reflected in alot of other western countries.
#57: I sorta have to agree, too. But i'm guilty of similar "thoughtstreams", they just don't have an audience.
Just a few points of clarification:
Viagra is legal in Japan and was approved for prescription here in 1999:
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/27/science/japan-s-tale-of-two-pills-viagra-and-birth-control.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
The hypocrisy and blatant sexism in the way viagra was approved at record speed by the aging predominately male law drafters at the MoHLW while there had been so many years of protracted opposition there to women getting access to the safer Pill produced a critical and derisory backlash in the media and the public's mind and so the Pill was approved a few months later in June 1999.
Prozac was mentioned. Prozac is not available in Japan because Eli Lily failed to complete the correct clinical trials legal approval for its prescription at least twice since the 1990's. Other companies producing medications known as SSRIs (e.g. Paxil, Luvox, Zoloft, Prozac) used in the treatment of depression and anxiety disorders did their homework better and completed the full clinical trials in Japan set by the Japanese MoHLW and were granted legal approval and so are now commonly prescribed in Japan. The comment above that "most advisaries and commentary... has indicated that mental health conditions are rarely, if ever, medicated" is simply not true. The strong sales figures of Luvox (first SSRI approved in 1999) and then Paxil (second SSRI to be approved in Japan in 2000) are testiment to this. Ironically some articles focus on Japanese psychiatrists and claim they only prescribe medication without counseling their patients and that there are no professional counselors doing psychotherapy in Japan which is also not the case.