December started off with the first weekend being consumed by the Japanese Language Proficiency test. The test was on a Sunday and including commuting to the test site, pretty much took up the whole day, save for a celebratory dinner at a shabu shabu place with Jon and Sarah. I even received a “congrats on surviving the test” present from Sarah. She had found advent calendars at an out of town mall and picked one up for me. So I got to be six years old again, eating the chocolates one by one. Although, to be honest, I was using the thing to countdown to the release of Final Fantasy XIII (Dec. 17th) as much as I was using it to countdown to Christmas. Jon had reserved a copy and Sarah and I promised to translate/interpret the game as he played. This pretty much sucked up all of our spare time until Sarah’s family got into town for the holidays, forcing us to take a break.
The day after the game came out my work had its year end party, the Japanese word for which literally means “forget the year party.” It was at a really swank place in a super formal setting upstairs. Everyone had their own personal table/tray and we all sat in a U-shape, with our seating arrangements decided by a number we pulled out of a hat as we walked in. We also each received a bingo playing card, and we ended up playing a rousing game of bingo as we ate, with the winner getting to select a food prize from the list. After hitting four in a row, you had to stand up until you actually hit BINGO.
It took an absurdly long time to finally hit BINGO, meaning my food was piling up as they brought out more. Thankfully, I finally won and ended up picking some sort of “black pig” meat as my prize. I’ll be getting it at the end of January, so I’ll let you know how it is then. The whole time the hostesses, dressed in kimono, were making sure we were always with a bottle of beer and warm sake. And my section chief sitting next to me made sure my cups were always full.
I also ended up chatting with the division chief, who normally doesn’t say a word to me. Apparently with a little alcohol, though, he gets pretty chatty. He told some story about how a particular phrase originated from a player on some 1970s Japanese baseball team, and then went off on a huge tangent that was difficult to follow. So difficult that he even lost himself, as at the end he summed it up with “Well, what I was trying to say is, I think chemistry is a good career choice.” Seeing as he is my superior and then some, I couldn’t dare to eat while he was chatting with me, so I got even further behind on eating my food. Before I knew it, people started heading out, and I still had a couple dishes and dessert left. I quickly scarfed down the remaining food and hurried out. I later found out that in the hurry I had left my digital camera next to my seat. I got worried when I ventured back the next day only to have the guy at the restaurant say nothing had been left behind, but thankfully the guy from my work who organized the party had picked up and gave it back to me the next Monday. An unexpected bonus was that it was snowing when I left the party and it continued to snow through to morning. Thus, before starting a marathon session of FFXIII, Jon, Sarah, and I decided to a have a bit of a snowball fight. Hearing about the huge storm and UW snow day, and the Bascom Hill snowball fight left me longing for some winter fun, so it was perfect timing.
Although the Christmas music starts playing in Japan as absurdly early as it does in the states (and quite possibly earlier since they haven’t caught on to “Thanksgiving” yet), it never quite reaches the same feeling. For whatever reason, be it the lack of Salvation Army bell ringers or whatever else, there isn’t the same sense of goodwill. Now this could just be because Japanese people are so polite year-round I don’t feel the difference. In any case, something was a little off. A majority of the songs played are of the more romantic variety, and their interpretation of Christmas is a bit different, naturally. There are a few uniquely Japanese “traditions” for Christmas. First off, Christmas Eve is considered a romantic date night for young couples. Another popular institution is that of the “Christmas Cake.” You can start reserving these things in November, and it is apparently a big deal. Even more odd is the fact that they are completely shocked when I tell them there is no such concept in America. One girl in capoeira was so shocked that she just kept repeating “But why? Why wouldn’t you eat cake? It’s so delicious! Why? WHY? WHY?!!” …this continued for about five mintues, at which point I wished to be rid of the sense of hearing. Then there is the tradition of eating Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas. Whatever marketing genius at KFC brainwashed the masses into thinking the western world eats fried chicken on Christmas is a genius. I sincerely hope he/she is enjoying early retirement, because they earned it. What a freakin mastermind. Anyway, not only is KFC making money hand over foot during the holidays, but other companies, including local supermarkets, are selling chicken legs on Christmas. And wow, when we stopped in our grocery store, they had the hype train going strong. There were probably about 5 people whose sole task was to scream at the top of their lungs about how you should pick up some Christmas chicken. One especially over the top employee was clapping his hands constantly as he shouted, just to be a dick and make more noise.
After picking up some last minute food items at the store, we headed over to our friend Erin’s place near Nishi Gifu (west Gifu) station, affectionately referred as the anus of the Tokaido train line by a few of us Ogaki JETs. Anywho, that does not reflect at all on Erin, who is awesome, and hosted a Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve. Everyone brought something (me, the cheesy potatoes, I’m a one-trick pony, what can I say?) and as should be for a holiday dinner, there was entirely too much food. About 15 or so people showed up, and it truly felt like the holidays with all the smells floating around…and the eggnog probably helped, too. It was a nice mix of JETs and Japanese folks, although I felt a bit bad for Erin’s father-in-law, since he only spoke Portuguese. Gah, I REALLY need to get going on learning Portuguese properly. Just when I thought the food train was to end, a slew of 5 or 6 desserts hit, and I’m not one to turn down sweets. I wanted to try them all, so I was literally eating a fudge brownie sundae as I left. It was awesome.
That being said, I still thoroughly missed the proper family get-together and was extremely grateful to receive care packages from various family members. The highlight certainly being the homemade cookies, closely followed by the Oaks Meltaways, candy canes, and the Trader Joe’s truffles. Me? Sweet Tooth? No idea what you’re talking about.
The actual day of Christmas involved me going to work, unfortunately not in a Santa suit as originally planned since the store apparently already switched over to New Year’s mode when I went to buy the suit. Rock and I, who both had no plans for the evening, decided we’d rather not bum around our apartments lamenting our lonely situation, and took the train to Gifu to hit a couple bars looking for other foreigners with nothing to do. Our first attempt, Bierhall, was quickly abandoned. We opened the door to see an empty place and a desperately hopeful bartender. We quickly shut the door, which I felt a bit bad about, and moved upstairs to a rugby-themed bar named Scrum. There was one person in the bar. Better than none, so we decided to kill some time there. We chatted for awhile, and then Rock checked down at Bierhall again, where there were now a few people, so we moved down there. A girl from the UK was there with her parents who were visiting for the holidays. (Note to visiting family: Don’t worry, I will not take you to some foreigner bar while you’re here.) Then a good group of her English language students (all adult Japanese people, mind you) came and when ended up having a good group of people and some nice conversation. We then went out for a bit of karaoke before finally catching the train home. It was a very random Christmas, but relatively interesting and infinitely better than wallowing at my apartment. And let's be honest, being in Wisconsin for Christmas means there is about a 50% chance you wind up at a bar, anyway.
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