The enkai

Lights will remain dim and sounds muted in my apartment this morning in honor of the passing of my first enkai and in the hope that I will survive the ensuing hangover (another first).

It just figures that it would happen when I'm alone and in a foreign country. I woke up this morning with vertigo-- well, it was kinda fun to watch the walls spin for awhile-- and wondering how I'd gotten a cold and the flu overnight. It didn't take too long to figure out that I was fine as long as I didn't move and, from there, the cause.

The enkai was everything that I'd thought/hoped it would be, with a little somethin' special in the way of a local delicacy and a pleasant lack of groping by male co-workers. Enkais, for those of you without backgrounds in Japanese office social politics, are basically office drinking parties at a restaurant during which people can let down some of the barriers they carry throughout the day, get drunk, and say what the really mean. The next day at the office or, in the case of last night, the following Monday, anything... shall we say, out of character... that was said or done is forgotten and never mentioned. This particular enkai was a welcome party for me, and as the guest of honor I got to sit across from my supervisor's boss, which I think translates as our section chief, and chat it up with the head honcho.

A slight tangent on the subject of drinking... my supervisor had asked me a bunch of questions during the initial drive from the airport to my apartment (well, we did have nearly 2 hours to kill), including whether I ate fish or not, if I could use chopsticks, and if I drank alcohol. I said yes to all three, and he seemed particularly impressed that I drink. Given the Japanese's low tolerance for alcohol and women's slight frames, it's somewhat uncommon for Japanese women to be able to drink a lot. He was sufficiently impressed to mention the fact that I drink at nearly all of the 7 schools we went to visit. I suspect, as a result, there will be more enkais in my future.

I was told to prepare a speech for last night's enkai, or at least brush up on my self-introduction, but my co-workers were kind enough to let me do it after a few rounds and some delectable sushi, after which I probably would've tried to sing The Star-Spangled Banner if they'd asked me to (hey, I've been able to practice with the Olympics going and American peeps winning so many gold medals. And it's not just me-- you watch, the camera usually gets a close-up of the starred athlete mouthing the words). I think my Japanese improves after a few drinks, anyway.

There was one moment of horror, which was of course the Expensive Local Delicacy for The Honored Guest moment-- it's really not acceptable to decline, you have to at least try it. And at first, I thought that I'd lucked out. One of the pieces of sushi that I was given was topped by a slice of the local delicacy, a kind of shellfish that translates roughly to "turban shell" and in the wild looks like a giant snail in a shell like a hermit crab might inhabit. Upon inquiry as to what it was-- being sort of greyish with a darker lining around the edges, it was surely something that I'd never had before and I wanted to make sure it wasn't fugu, or potentially deadly blowfish-- a whole specimen in a shell was promptly produced, and I was given a toothpick to do battle with the beast and wrestle it from the shell. Oliver, a senior ALT who has been in my BOE (Board of Education office) for 2 years, was sitting next to me and generally watching my back. He said he was given the same thing at his welcome party and that it took some effort to remove the thing from its shell. Thus informed, I jabbed with vigor, but the toothpick's edge wasn't very sharp and I couldn't get enough purchase to even start to pull it out. Removing the toothpick and examining its tip (which at this point was a little bent), I made a comment about how difficult the turban shellfish was to eat, and then started thinking about how to ask for different jabbing utensils or at least a new toothpick.

Here comes the horrifying part (ready?): when I looked back to the shell, the flesh had retracted into the deeper recesses of the shell. The thing was still alive. And I'd just stabbed it with a toothpick. (Oliver assured me that his had been dead. I must be special.) I gave up my vegetarianism while studying abroad my junior year in part to experience the wide array of culinary experiences that Japan had to offer, and continue to eat fish and meat as much as for convenience as remaining open to new experiences, but in that moment, I regretted the decision. I wanted to smuggle the poor creature into my purse and make an extended bathroom break, during which I could dash out a convenient back door and carry the brutalized shellfish the 2 blocks to the harbor, whereupon it could be returned to its salty home.

As it happened, the thing retracted far enough into its shell that it was deemed inedible (the effort required to remove it was officially declared impossible, at least with my meager toothpick) and the plate was whisked away before I had the chance to implement my Shellfish Rescue Operation: Back Door plan. Instead, I was given artistically-arranged, chopped-up, and definitively dead pieces of turban shellfish. I rather hope that I'm not given the honor again. The texture was kind of like cartiledge (the Japanese described it as katai, or "hard") and the taste, while not unpleasant, got stronger the more I chewed.

Otherwise, it was a wonderful evening as, indeed, it was intended to be. Being the guest of honor, everyone was trying to make me feel welcome and happy. Their efforts went as far as having the afore-mentioned section chief, who sat across from me, giving a speech in English about how happy they are to have me in Tsushima and how they hope I'll enjoy it here.

Delicious tempura followed the sushi, and juice-swollen grapes and pieces of nashi (kind of like a pear with an apple's crunch... very, very tasty) rounded off the meal. We lolled around a bit in post-feast fashion and the men had their cigarettes (sadly Japan doesn't have the same no-smoking-in-public-places-or-restaurants laws that Maine does... the smokers did ask me if it was okay, but I didn't mind that much, and things are just different here). Then, we were all off to karaoke!

I was a little surprised because I didn't know that there was a karaoke place so close, but there was a tiny one was just down the road from the restaurant in downtown Hitakatsu. Good to keep in mind. Oliver and I sang a few songs in English, and our office-mates sang some traditional Japanese songs, which was all quite amusing.

Sufficiently stuffed, beyond tipsy, and entertained, the group broke up and I was driven home, soon afterwards collapsing on my bed in the triumph of surviving my first Japanese enkai.