This picture depicts two men drinking near an alcohol vending machine in the San'ya section of Tokyo.  Residents of this section of Tokyo suffers from amongst the most severe poverty in Japan, and it is a well know area for day laborers to live.  The scene depicts a side of Tokyo not often portrayed in the United States, including problems with alcohol and poverty.  For an excellent book about San'ya, please consult San'ya Blues: Laboring Life in Contemporary Tokyo by Edward Fowler (1998).  For a memoir about life in San'ya, please see A Man With No Talents: Memoirs of a Tokyo Day Laborer by Oyama Shiro, translated by Edward Fowler (2005).

This photograph was taken in March 2008.