Yet Another Valid Reason To Bring Hooch To Class

Bonenkai

According to my embryonic Japanese it translates to something along the lines of “Forget the Year Party.” Not fully grasping this concept as well as I thought I should, I flipped open the dictionary:
Bonenkai – year-end party.
Example:
Clueless Foreigner:“I know that kai means a meeting; what does bonen mean?”
Adroit Japanese Local: It means “forgetting the year.” The idea of bonenkai is that one should have a pleasant time and forget unpleasant memories of the year.
Clueless Foreigner: I see. So you eat, drink, sing, and dance.
Adroit Japanese Local: Yes, and people often display their musical or theatrical talents at the party.

… but wouldn’t that only create more unpleasant memories that one would have to forget, hence completely defeating the object? I crossed myself, prayed to the gods above (and below) that there would be no talent pageants with sixty-year-old Japanese women in frilly pink tutus, or ESL versions of Shakespeare soliloquies and then agreed to attend.

Teachers generally arrive to work around 8AM. Some arrive earlier. There are some teachers who are there when I arrive and remain after I leave. In my ardent quest to create personalities for these ID-less droids I have decided that they either hate their wives and sleep at school curled up under their desks resting their heads on rice sack pillows with the occasional romp to the pachinko parlor, or they are simply wax figures who sit behind a desk and rely on the movement of the sun to bring life and color to their pallid faces. In any case, as the ‘party’ bus wasn’t leaving until 600 I certainly wasn’t going to stay the extra two hours twiddling my thumbs in anticipation. I went home and returned two hours later.

They were all exactly as I left them. It amazes me that they’re willing to devote about fourteen hours of their day to their job with the same people surrounding them all the time.

The event was to take place at the local spiffy hotel. There are but two “spiffy” hotels in the town and therefore every year it alternates. You know, to spice things up. The shuttle dropped off a load of teachers, myself included and we headed inside.

I am given a slip of paper with a picture of a very distraught looking Japanese woman bent over doing something I can’t quite make out. I show it to another teacher confusedly: “Hammer throw. That’s the hammer throw.” Oh, of course. The seating is arranged according to sporting groups. Being completely sports illiterate, I am lost. Where does the hammer-throw fall? Weightlifting? Sports where you throw things at people and are awarded points?

I am directed towards the track and field table. My supervisor happens to be placed there as well. I sit down. He looks tired, disgruntled, beyond exhausted and has an obvious thought bubble with a pint of beer floating above his head. The evening starts with the traditional Japanese “KAMPAI!” – the British/American equivalent of “CHEERS!” and the Irish equivalent of “Sláinte!”

In between bites of Chinese food I chat with my supervisor about various things – until we are interrupted by teachers who, up until now, I believed thought me as consequential as pocket lint.

“NICOLE. FOR A LONG TIME I HAVE WANTED TO SPEAK TO YOU. ASIAN BEAUTY. PLEASE EXCUSE ME. HOW OLD ARE YOU?”

Just a wee bit of beer brings people out of their shells in Japan and turns them into something not unlike sycophantic, deceitful lunatics. I had read all about it in the JET manuals, been warned on several occasions but still placed it in my mind as hearsay. We have not been sitting there for very long. The man could not have had more than a glass of beer – but this makes him bold as a coyote in a henhouse – he continues to chat with me armed with a beer bottle which he uses to fill up my glass whenever I take the slightest sip, or the heat in the room evaporates it a drop. If the glass isn’t completely overflowing it’s unacceptable. No doubt he’d be very popular at frat parties.

We proceed to have a very strange conversation – not because we are talking about the mating patterns of chinchillas or something equally as random and arbitrary, but because it is the exact same conversation I might have with one of my fourteen year old male students. In fact, if I close my eyes I begin to think that I am, in fact, talking to one of my fourteen-year-old students.

“YOU ARE VERY YOUNG. DO YOU HAVE A BOYFRIEND?”

So this is what office parties are like. I feel so grownup. Yet, at the same time it’s as though I am back in eighth grade reading a note passed from the “cute boy” in the class two rows over. I hardly think it is fair that he is asking all the questions so immediately shoot back the same inquiries to him. He is forty-two and no, he does not have a boyfriend.

“YOU ARE YOUNG. WHAT ABOUT HIM??”

He gestures to my supervisor sitting next to me who is engrossed in his beer, but undoubtedly listening to every exchange that is going on next to him. His eyes widen in fear. I look back at the teacher and shake my head, “Dude. He’s my supervisor. SUPERVISOR.” He doesn’t understand so turns to get a translation. He turns back to me and grins, his molars and gums revealing lumps of metal that I had never noticed before.

Eventually he tires of our conversation, excuses himself and turns to go find someone else whose glass isn’t quite teeming over with alcohol.

No Japanese party would be complete without organized fun where everyone wins a prize. It’s game time. In my place I find a Bingo card. The next 20 minutes are spent playing a rousing game of bingo where I get to practice my speedy comprehension of numbers in Japanese. I feel as though I have walked onto the set of a Japanese game show. There is the appropriate burbling-electronic-slot-machine-music that is played in between each and every number, and every digit is announced in an unnaturally charismatic voice.

My supervisor explains to me that it doesn’t matter in what order people win – there’s a huge table full of equal ‘Christmas presents’ to choose from. The Japanese company party conception of a goody bag leaves something to be desired. I finally manage to nab a Bingo, am heartily congratulated at the gift table for my ability to hear and recognize a number and am given the gift bag of my choice. As I walk back to my seat the congratulations flow in and I am given a standing ovation. “Hooray! The meddlesome foreigner can understand some numbers!!” I have a sneaking suspicion I could have claimed bingo after one number had been called and I still would have been paraded around as a numerical-comprehensive genius.

I suck at choosing my reward. From the bright red sack I pull out some sort of navy blue handkerchief that one uses to wrap up a bento box, a bright blue plastic Little Mermaid mirror compact, a box of tissues and, to top it all off, a hand-sized broom. Someone needs to introduce them to Oriental Trading, where, even if you fill the goody bags with crap it’s at least amusing crap like glow-in-the-dark, animal-on-swing pencil toppers or ridiculous pocket watches that blare eight different electronic Christmas tunes whilst lighting up like a mini Vegas. Seriously, a broom? My supervisor looks amused by the look of dismay upon my face. I ponder wrapping up the broom and re-gifting it to him for his birthday.

The night winds down after a few more electrifying games of true or false and I am left in the predicament of how to get home. My supervisor timidly suggests that I will be able to get a ride home with someone else and succeeds in pawning me off on the nearest available teacher, a woman who I swore didn’t like me all that much. She is vaguely going in my direction and also driving home another teacher who appears to be a bit sloshed.

Upon seeing that I have joined their return party home, the sloshed teacher decides he needs a cup of coffee. “Do you want another drink, or shall we go home?” he enquires. I agreeably reply in namby-pamby Japanese fashion that either is okay and he declares we all need a cup of coffee. We head back inside.

I spent the next hour or so chatting over hot chocolate in Japanese to this teacher while the rather stern, somewhat skeptical, but nice woman sits next to me occasionally joining in the conversation. Between my flailing Japanese and his broken-English-combined-with-mime-antics we are able to have a fairly decent conversation ranging in topic from the benefits of short skis to his days at college to his study of chemistry to how the majority of his students hate it.

As we go to settle the bill he declares he has the speed and heart of a samurai and will not let either of us contribute.

On the way back home he grasps the two front seats and leans forward in the middle to chat. For a moment it feels as though we are that group of three friends, driving home after a party. He boisterously confesses that tonight he speaks English, but tomorrow it will be completely different – he will not speak any English… because it is terrible.

And it is true - The next morning everyone reverts back to his or her usual stale role. Only under the influence of a beer or two do they ever allow their English to freely run amok. By this logic I have decided to start bringing a couple of bottles of bourbon to my classes everyday. If I can’t get these little weasels to speak some English maybe a bit of moonshine will do the trick.

A belated happy new year to everyone. Pictures and bits about Hong Kong and Kyoto to come!

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Published:
1.9.07 / 6pm
Category:
amusing incidents, what i call life, culture