The Enkai

The enkai is a sort of business party where all of the teachers get together, have dinner and drink copious amounts of alcohol. I was really excited about this event because i had heard some interesting stories about enkais from some of the other ALTs. One of the English teachers here at my base school organized the event and put a lot of effort into getting most of the other English teachers to come to my welcome enkai. The dinner was held at Biwako Hotel, it's a fancy hotel on the shore of Lake Biwako in Shiga Prefecture. Seeing as I live right on the boarder of Kyoto and Shiga, the lake is not very far from my town.

The night started pretty strangely. I was killing time in the Starbucks waiting for my ride to the hotel when i noticed 3 foreigners sipping lattes and chatting. As i was on my way out i decided to ask them if they were English teachers. They all were. One of them worked for Nova, JETs rival company which went bankrupt a few years ago. The other worked for Interact, another big English teacher contracting company, and the other guy worked for a private English organization. They were very nice and most of them had been in Japan for over 2 years. Knowing that I got a sweet placement in Yamashina and Kyoto city and knowing that i got into the JET program, probably the best paid and most reputable company, I like to brag a little. I know it's not usually my style but sometimes when you are laying claim to your territory playing a dirty is understandable.

So eventually I made my way to the hotel with four other teachers. The menu was already selected so food was waiting for us when we sat down. In total, there was 7 Japanese English teachers and myself. Now, as I just said, I'm not one to brag but I am capable of holding a few drinks. One of the teachers who spent some time in America in his college years, leans across the table and tells me, "Do you drink everyday? I heard that you enjoy drinking. I drink everyday at every train stop on the way home from work." This comment is problematic in the US and if we had been in the US i would have given him the phone number to the local Alcoholics Anonymous and offered to accompany him to his meetings and be his sponsor. That's how serious he was. He than said, "When I'm around westerners I have a tendency to drink to play catch up with you guys." Another concerning statement, had we been stateside. At around the same time, the other teachers all look at me and smile, then they do the kanpai(cheers) and drink. I take a sip of nasty, flat, watery beer called Yebisu(a beer praised by many to be the best beer in Japan) and everyone else chugs half of their pint. At this point I knew i was in for an interesting evening.

The food was rather plain, not much to report there. Sweet fish sashimi, mizo soup, white rice, the usual. There was one dish which was stranger than strange. I cannot remember what it was called in Japanese but it was a warm mushroom and egg pudding. Everyone loved it, so I had to love it, lest I be shunned and dishonored. It had the consistency of warm, runny jell-o pudding with chunks of mushroom and unagi, eel. It was not aweful but it was not good either. It was rather odd. As the meal went on, more and more bottles of sake came out. Which was fine, I enjoy sake and I have done my share of sake drinking in the past. Each sake was different and delicious in its own way. Some dry and pungent, others sweet and smooth like fruit liquor. This was by far the best experience of the evening. If only the Japanese enjoyed as much variety in flavors and styles in their beer as they do in their sake, this country would be an even better place.

I used to enjoy the different flavor that Sapporo and Kirin had back in the states when I was drinking heavy wheat and barley beers. But now that I am here and all they have is the same tasting light rice beer. There are four main companies that make beer here in Japan: Sapporo, Kirin, Suntory, and Yebisu. They are listed in that order according to my personal favorites, Sapporo being the best. In all honesty, I cannot even taste the difference between the latter three. If I were to make an analogy to american mainstream beer brewing, Sapporo would be the Samuel Adams while the other three would be Bud, Miller, and Coors(all clumped together because I am not even going to waste my time classifying the subtle differences between various flavors of urine). That being said, I would probably sacrifice an adorable little lamb to the beer gods if i could get my hands on a Double Bastard Ale in all its hoppy goodness. I really need to find a microbrewery soon, i might go crazy. But I digress.

All in all, the enkai was fun. Everyone was pretty drunk, except our driver. It was fun to see these people in another atmosphere than the classroom. The most memorable part was the adorable woman sitting to my left, she had probably twice as much alcohol as me,(she weighed probably less than half as much as me) and she was giggling and swaying as we walked to the car. Very fun to watch.