'Tis the season to be... drunk?

Middle school drinking party in Nov.

As it’s enkai (drinking party) season now I felt like this update should be focused on one of the most intriguing aspects of Japanese business culture I have stumbled upon yet - drinking parties.

 Shall we start with a quick life update? It snowed today! I have been telling people I have never seen snow before but that’s not entirely true since I saw it in DC once on a high school field trip and I have since seen it melting on pavement in various cities and the one time I went skiing. But for all intensive purposes, I have never experienced the snow earned through short, cold days and leaves changing and seasons. I saw that snow today. It started as sleet then upgraded to light flurries. In the afternoon it snowed again for about 20 minutes and this time it stayed on the ground but when it stopped snowing it melted. The teachers keep telling me it will really snow soon but I think there were entertained by my child-like delight at the flurries falling on my clothes and in my hair and with me making video after video of the falling stuff.

Blowfish sashimi!

End of the year party with middle school

Mr. and Ms. Claus?

With that I will move into the relationship I have with the people I work with. I do have nine schools so keeping relationships straight sometimes strains my brain and I don’t often remember the names of the teachers I work with outside of school but I do put in an honest effort. On that note, I go to the same middle school every Tuesday and Thursday so I have developed substantial relationships with my colleagues there. This was aided strongly by the three enkais I have now attended with these teachers. The first was back in September (the 17^th actually) and I believe I already discussed it in detail earlier. There was one I couldn’t attend after sports day, also in September (entry coming soon) and I actually didn’t go because it was my birthday and I had other plans. The second for me occurred in November after culture festival (also an entry coming for this) and it was a much different experience than the mini one in September (only 5 of us were there) and from the BOE one (my welcome party which I believe I also discussed earlier). For one thing, I knew everyone who was there and had been seeing them on a regular basis but was curious to learn more about them outside of work. Also, by this time my Japanese had been improving steadily over the past few months and the amount of topics I could discuss confidently had dramatically increased.

Mr. party foul needed an apron

The November enkai was held in the same fish restaurant my welcome party with the BOE had been held in and thus I at least felt confident about the menu and knew how to cook the food. The night turned out to be very interesting as it continued and I learned a lot about my co-workers. Mostly life drama but that’s enough to keep me invested in their personal lives for the next while. A few major things happened that I don’t think would have been possible if I hadn’t invested the time and money in this long standing drinking tradition the Japanese hold in such high regard. One, my colleagues adopted me as a member of the Yamaga middle school family. I now have a big sister, two big brothers and a mother in my ‘work family’ and they have made it their responsibility to look after me and make sure I don’t do anything stupid (like electing to run a marathon in my first real winter?!). There were also a lot of fun events though too, like when I put the live shrimp on the grill and it jumped back into my lap... then my ‘brother’ did it and it jumped onto his head. :-)

Also, I found out Japanese people get much more open after a few drinks - to the point where they spill other people’s secrets and are very touchy (which is awesome!). I had heard rumors of this phenomenon before and saw it with the exchange students in college but it wasn’t such a big change from their normal selves. Here, these people put on such a severe front at work - even between each other not only superiors. When they drink though, the walls come crashing down. It’s a nice change but kind of makes these drinking parties necessary.

The fish grill

December came more drinking parties but these being the most extreme form since, as they are aptly titled “忘年会” forget the year, they are for the purpose of wiping your slate of all the hard work of the past year and getting completely trashed. I had two of these - one for my middle school on the 10^th and one for a select elementary school on the 22^nd. Both, surprisingly, had fugu (blowfish) which is not only a delicacy but has the chance of killing you since it’s poisonous. But oh lordy is it delicious! I told some Japanese friends I had it - twice - and they freaked out because apparently it is such a delicacy that they haven’t even eaten it. I feel so special!! Granted it did cost me a lot... enkais themselves are a lot of money but each of my bounenkais (forget the year parties) cost me a hundred bucks. :-(

Giant clams!

The middle school one was ... enlightening. Some of the younger male teachers dressed up in costumes and there were many party fouls since it is Japanese tradition to make sure no glass around you is ever empty so people were pouring drinks for each other but getting a lot on themselves. Someone even managed to spill tea all over my lap. Of course, the Japanese solution to a party foul is to take a huge shot of sake if you’re the offender so since the art teacher fouled 4 times he was very quickly the most drunk person in the room. We also played a question/trivia game with questions about events that had happened over the past year around the school - luckily none of them involved me. I did win twice though which really made me feel amazing in the Japanese department! Once the trivia was finished, we did secret Santa and I got some lottery tickets. Unfortunately, I checked the lottery yesterday and I didn’t win. Then for some reason they do a toast the person who’s birthday is nearest (the happened at both of my enkais) and it was the vice principal. Someone had to serve him his cake though and I got elected to be the victim - I mean hostess. Everyone just kept saying “feed him like he’s your dad!”

Elementary school was much the same with eating blowfish sashimi (very raw with no rice but absolutely delicious!) and a lot of drinking. We played bingo at this one and everyone won a small prize. I also managed to make some friends since they also invited the preschool teachers from next door to the school and a lot of them are young and live near me. Yay! We ate more at this one though since the restaurant also made nabe (a kind of big vegetable soup eaten communally) and tempura with the blowfish once we finished with the raw bits.

Karaoke after party

After both of the bounenkais I decided to continue onto the nijikai (it’s like the after party - usually karaoke) and had a blast. At the elementary school one some of the teachers demanded I teach them American ‘sexy dance’ (namely how to move your hips in a fashion that doesn’t resemble a seizure) so I did. Kind of embarrassing until I remembered that everyone was going to forget a majority of the night in the morning. They were good students despite the stumbling!

So I guess this all really boils down to a few key points. 1. Drink with your coworkers if you ever get a job in Japan (I actually didn’t drink alcohol at either of these parties because my stomach was still healing so don’t use that as an excuse!). 2. Get all the juicy gossip and true opinions of your job performance from these parties. 3. Enjoy yourself - you only live once right!