Teetotallers emerge from the shadows of hard-drinking Japan

TOKYO - At a trendy Tokyo cocktail bar, customers sip brightly coloured beverages with sophisticated flavour profiles, designed for a small but growing market in hard-drinking Japan: teetotallers.

That has long put non-drinkers like Mr Hideto Fujino, a 54-year-old fund manager, at a disadvantage, but he and others like him are speaking out - and finding they are not alone."You sometimes hear statements like, 'you can't get promoted if you can't drink alcohol,'" said Mr Fujino, who started a Facebook group for non-drinkers.

Some cite health reasons, or pregnancy, while others dislike alcohol or its effects on them, and some like drinking but have decided to cut back - a group that is growing in other parts of the world and is sometimes termed"sober curious". Mr Fujino coined the term"gekonomist" for people like him - combining the word for people allergic to alcohol"geko" with"nomi" and the English suffix"ist".

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