Soju in the morning
Sunday Morning, a Korean restaurant in Flushing, Queens.
A Group of elderly people gather in the back of a restaurant for breakfast.
They are retired Korean War veterans who know each other from the same Catholic church.
Unusual mysterious green bottles, Soju, are on their table. Soju is a locally fermented rice spirit with a 20% alcoholic content. The group meets every Sunday morning at the same restaurant after church service to drink Soju.
According to a Euro monitor International report, South Koreans down 13.7 shots of Soju liquor every week. Koreans see liquor as a way of bonding, and the work culture encourages it as well, with many companies holding work dinners called ‘hoesik’ — which are viewed as a way for colleagues to get to know each other outside the workplace. Additionally, South Korean society is collectivist, embracing a group mentality, which expresses itself through collective drinking.
