Japanese Family Dinner

This week I spent two days at one of my elementary schools. After I was done teaching the first day, the school nurse confirmed that I would be back the next day and invited me to her house for dinner. At first I thought she was inviting me for the following day, but after some confusion I figured out that she meant to take me home with her after she was done with her work.

To tell the truth, I was too tired to really want to go to her house for dinner, but these opportunities don’t come up very often. Anyway, we went to her house, and I was still feeling disinclined to wait so long for dinner and socialize when all I wanted was a nap. However, her house was big and warm and very Japanese. I tucked my feet under the kotatsu (low table with a heating element underneath and a blanket on top) and admired all the Japanese knick-knacks on display.

At one point, her husband turned on the TV and we watched the ‘international news’. Here’s what I managed to get out of it: there’s something going on in Korea, something about China…possibly it was about China sending the US poisonous food?, something about Iran. It was very informative. Then they had a segment about 1 US news story that was shown 5 times to help teach people English. It was showing in Japanese, then in English with Japanese subtitles, in English with English subtitles, in English without subtitles, and again with English subtitles. I didn’t particularly care about Mike Huckabee before, and I certainly didn’t need to hear this random bit 5 times. The rest of the TV programming was equally odd. There was bio of Peyton Manning. Later, an American football game was broadcast (Baltimore vs. New England in case anyone care). But by this time, dinner was ready.

The school nurse, her husband, and I sat down to a huge spread…two different nabes (one oysters, one pork), clams, rice, a salad of sorts….later she got up and cut up some sashimi. Soon, their son came home from work and joined us at dinner. Just as I decided I was too full to eat anymore, their daughter came home from school. I had been told that their daughter was very good at English, but I was quite surprised to find out she actually was REALLY good at English (Apparently she used to attend NOVA before they went under). So I continued to sit at the table and chat while she ate dinner. And then their other son came home and sat down to dinner. All this time, the school nurse kept giving me more and more food…apples, persimmon, yogurt, jasmine tea…

I had a great time sitting around the kitchen table and chatting with this lively bunch. But it turned out that there was some confusion. The school nurse intended for me to stay the night and to go to school together in the morning. However, I had no desire to go to school the next day in the same clothes and without having gone home (plus I still wasn’t 100% prepared for my lessons). So eventually they ended up taking me home (about a 30 minute drive).

I didn’t get home till after 10pm. At that point I was too full to fall asleep. But I was in such high spirits after the evening of being social and lots of laughter (and of course food).