Parties (aka. being invited because you are a foreigner)

I suppose now that spring is here, people have begun to leave their homes and get back into the social scene. Over the past week I have had a ridiculous number of “parties” to attend. Sunday brought about the social hour at Kiwi-boy’s Judo teacher’s home. Essentially, the judo sensei’s wife wanted all the English speakers in the area to come over and meet her English Conversation group. In exchange for a night of free food and drink, the conversation group would get free English lessons. The trouble with these kinds of events, is that my approach to attending a party is a bit different than the Japanese way of attending a party. Generally, I show up, nosh, chat, drink, and leave the second the party begins to die. Here in Japan, the land of overkill, a party usually works like this: you show up and are given a drink (whatever you do, do not actually sip the drink, until the toast…signaling the actual start of the party…usually about 15 minutes after you have been served the drink). Next, you wait patiently for the food, and begin the act of “socializing” (and by this I mean, do not think of this as a Japanese language lesson, because unless one has superior language skills, the Japanese people will only speak English to you…and by English I mean usually light, superficial conversations about the weather, hobbies, or where you have traveled). Then the eating begins (when I first came here, I was told that Japanese portions are about a quarter of the size of American portions…this is true, but there are about 800 more choices and things to eat in Japan, so stuff not only evens out…but the Japanese actually end up serving way more food.) During the meal and after the meal, there are more conversations about the weather…. then about 4 hours later, one is permitted to leave (the 4 hour mark might actually be the exact amount of time, that one has to endure for a dinner party….). Finally, I am allowed to go home…about 3.5 hours later than I normally would have left.

Imagine, I had 3 of these to endure last week (Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday)…by the time I hit foreign food night on Wednesday, I was so grateful to be in a room with a bunch of English speakers, where I had the option to leave after only 30 minutes if I chose to…of course I ended up staying the requisite 4 hours.