---Andre Frederic Hafner <afhafner@studi.unizh.ch> wrote:

On Tue, 9 Sep 1997 Metthyew@aol.com wrote:

 This has been bugging me for awile; I've read a lot of fanfics

{mostly

Ranma} where one or more charachters gets incredibly depressed,

walks into a

bar, and gets stinking drunk. It's an excellent story device, but

there is

one problem: THESE PEOPLE ARE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS!! The oldest

among them is

17, tops. Either the drinking age is incredibly low in Japan or

nobody there

checks I.D. 
 
                       -Matthew Giglia, the Magnificient Mr.Bean.-

In Switzerland, you drive with 18, but drink with 16 (legally, nobody
makes a fuss if a 12-year old buys wine for his parents. As far as I

know, 

only the U.S. have this 21-year limit. I personnaly don't drink, but

I

suspect that more U.S. teens drink in excess when they get the chance
than swiss teens. After all, they know that we can drink a beer or

two any

day. 

Andre Hafner

Here in Japan, the drinking age is 20. I have been here for over three
years and I have yet to find any high school students in any of the
bars. If there are any students that drink, they probably get the beer
from their parents. Then again stealing from your parents is highly
disgraceful and no one wants to disgrace themselves here. Personal
pride is very important to the people of Japan.

Zushi
_____________________________________________________________________
Sent by RocketMail. Get your free e-mail at http://www.rocketmail.com