Genki?

Genki?
Japanese people have a love affair with caffeine. Empirical and circumstancial evidence supports this:

1. Starbucks
They have embraced Starbucks with a fervour usually reserved for copulating rabbits. Determined to outdo the Americans, they have also opened a slew of their own American style coffee chains, such as Doutor, Excelsior and Caffe Veloce, charging exorbitant prices for a "Kafe Ratte" (300yen or A$4.50) cos they know Japanese and foreigners alike will fork out the cash for it.

2. Vending machine coffee cans
In keeping with the tradition of all things vent, the Japanese love their canned coffee and dole them out of vending machines. These little suckers come in mini-coca-cola-size cans, and, while being overly sweet, are the darlings of food-product companies with brands such as 'Roots' and 'Boss', and the saviour of impoverished, caffeine-addicted locals, at a mere 120yen a can.

3. Green tea ("ocha")
The Japanese insist that you imbibe green tea with every meal. They will swear that its healthy, fail to inform you that it is chockfull of caffeine, then smile secretly to themselves while you bounce of the walls.

4. Genki drinks
Genki (Japanese for "healthy") drinks are the little bottles of liquid vitamins with exhausting-sounding names like 'Dekavita' and 'Arinamin V'. They look and taste like medicine and have some ridiculous caffeine content. Not satisfied with the level of caffeine, they also balance their genki drinks with a nice hit of nicotine. During the past year, out of hundreds of different types, I have discovered one genki drink without caffeine and about five without nicotine.

5. Cold and Flu Tablets
In Australia, the one lifeline at the end of an insufferably snotty and flu-ridden day, was the vaunted Codral Night tablet. In Japan, these pills of the gods do not exist. Every cold and flu tablet here (while being half the strength and twice the price of ones we are used to back home) has...you guessed it, caffeine. In a country where nearly everyone works from 9am-11pm to impress the "boss", the overwhelming need to sleep is a civil right only for those without the flu. Now, whenever we have a guest stay, we beg, plead and bribe them to supply us with a cache of Codral Day and Night tablets from home.

Japan has reduced us to becoming addicts to non-addictive substances.