Bonenkai 2: Drunken Co-worker Boogaloo

Last night was the bonenkai for the Taiwa JHS staff. This was a BIG DEAL, with endless planning, overly fancy handmade cards...

It was held at a large, fancy hotel in Matsushima (3rd prettiest view in Japan). The hotel was hosting tons of bonenkais that night, most of which appeared to be for other elementary and junior high school teachers.

A large number of people were spending the night at the hotel, so when we first arrived we went to the rooms to hang out before dinner. Everyone was very excited to start drinking (except those driving home or pregnant). As each person came into the room where we were hanging out, they were given a glass and we toasted them, saying "o-tsukare-sama desu" (literally "you must be tired") which means thanks for your hard work. There was something odd about sitting around on the floor of a fancy hotel room with my mostly middle-aged coworkers drinking beer--like some weird prom-gone-wrong.

Then is was time for the actual bonenkai. Sadly, I don't have a picture of dinner because I didn't charge my camera batteries. In many ways it was similar to last week's--there was a nabe that was boiled while we were eating. It was oyster nabe because Matsushima is famous for oysters. There was also a large, raw oyster, sashimi, other things....again things I didn't recognize.

The event was nomihodai, meaning all-you-can-drink. The Japanese custom is to pour drinks for each other. This meant that I have no idea how much I drank because my glass was never more than half-empty. Sometimes you'd have to take a few sips just because somebody would want to fill your glass but it was completely full! I was sitting next to the maintenance guy, who was drinking shochu with water. I also gave it a try (which seemed to excite the people around me). It tasted more or less like vodka mixed with water. Not bad, but not good either and I decided to stick with my beer for the rest of the night.

Things got interesting when two male teachers (including one of the English teachers I work with) came in wearing dirty Santa dresses ready to MC silly party games. (Pictures will be posted here after another teacher emails her's to me). The games pitted the teachers of each grade against each other. Highlights included a cup-o-noodles and a container of red pepper being passed around. Each person could give 1,2, or 3 shakes of pepper onto the noodles. When it got to 100 shakes of pepper, the person who it landed on had to eat some. And there was a relay race with 4 stations. The first was to eat a cup-o-noodles. At the second leg, participants had to eat something and chug a beer. The third was chugging a glass of green tea. And the final leg of the relay race was to eat a container of yogurt through a straw. Somehow I got suckered into this straw/yogurt business. My team was in 1st place up to the last leg of the race--but then nothing would come up through my straw!! So my team lost, but it was a lot of fun and everyone was amused.

At the end of dinner, I got a ride home with another teacher's mom. The car ride was amusing. My co-worker was quite drunk. And she spoke the most English I've ever heard her speak. (I always say that drinking is good for foreign language practice/fluency. In fact I said it in the car last night--or attempted to--in Japanese).

It was really fun and interesting to see my conservative, Japanese coworkers let their hair down and get really goofy. Too bad in the New Year it will be back to serious school-teachers.