Homeless and old people are preferred by employers to take cleanup jobs at nuclear sites. Even if the pay is good, workers often receive no access to compensations in the event of accidents or death.

After a worker complained he was conned into working at a Fukushima nuclear site, other cases of unfair treatment were discovered and brought to public attention.

“I heard the recruiter say, ‘The older the better’ and ‘It suits us even better if (a worker) is homeless.’”, a worker said, quoted by the Weekly Playboy.

“Nothing new about that sort of thing,” a job broker in Osaka comments. “When the Tsuruga nuclear plant was built in Fukui Prefecture, those who signed up were just told they’d be doing ‘construction work’ and they’d be paid 20,000 yen per day. Since the money was good, they understood there was probably some risk involved.”

According to the Asahi Geino publication, the daily pay for workers who go on nuclear sites is currently three times higher than for a normal job. In the case of workers who go nearby the restricted areas, the pay is 1.5 times higher.

Claims for compensations are most often left unresolved, with some companies altering records of working hours, as it was the case of a 29-year old worker who died of leukemia, and others forcing workers to remain quiet about accidents that took place while working.

“They don’t announce it, but on [a nuclear] site, workers are collapsing almost daily due to bone fractures or heatstroke,” a source told Shukan Asahi publication. “It’s being hushed up. Spreading the word will just make the subcontractor look bad to Tokyo Electric Power, so nobody says anything. Workers are saying to themselves, ‘On-the-job injuries are a matter of self-responsibility.

I bet you didn’t know that Sartre — the original misanthrope, of No Exit and The Stranger fame — was an early proponent of Japanese whisky. Yes, Sartre added Japanese whisky to his diet of hard liquor, cigarettes, and amphetamines on his trip here with Simone de Beauvoir in the 60s, and he was known to knock back liters of the stuff.

Actually, the spirit’s roots in Japan can be traced back to 1854, when Commodore Perry brought over 100 gallons of American whiskey on the infamous “Black Ships” to Tokyo. The Japanese may not have relished the infiltration of Western culture and influence, but they welcomed whiskey with open arms; an article in the New York Observer from that year describing a party with US officers and samurai mentions that the “toddy flowed.” It was scene of tipsy merriment, not unlike Shimbashi on a Friday night, with lots of hugging and, presumably, red faces.

These and other fun bits of trivia are sprinkled throughout Chris Bunting’s new book Drinking Japan: A Guide to Japan’s Best Drinks and Drinking Establishments.

The book gives delightful, in-depth overviews of six of the most beloved drinks in Japan: sake, shochu, awamori, beer, whisky, and wine. As the name suggests, dozens of recommended bars and pubs are listed in each category. Bunting also throws in a section on other great bars in the country, from the esteemed cocktail bar Tender in Ginza, where you can find the perfect gimlet, to the quirky Bozu bar, where both Bloody Marys and Zen koans are served by Buddhist monks, in Nakano.

I first came to know Chris through his excellent blog, Nonjatta, which is the most informative site about Japanese whisky on the web. He was the first person to turn me on to Ichiro’s Malt, the delectable distillations of artisanal producer Ichiro Akuto in Chichibu, about an hour outside of Tokyo, and I’ve been a great fan ever since. Needless to say, the chapter on whisky belies his enthusiasm for the drink. I’ve visited a handful of the whisky bars he reviews in Drinking Japan (as well as several of the sake bars in Chapter 1 — surprise, surprise) and am keen to try the others. Hopefully, I’ll be able to catch up with Chris for a dram at one of these places. Perhaps at Cask in Roppongi, where I might give him a heart attack by ordering “one of those Yamazakis.”

Everyone has a vice (I personally have five: sake, wine, whiskey, fried food, and foie gras — not necessarily in that order). If yours can be imbibed, you should definitely check out this book. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Japan Earthquake Relief, so it’s a win-win situation.