Silk River

Kinugawa, Silk River, is his name. I can never remember the Kanji symbol for the first part of his name. But Kinugawa was a primary fixture at the party for the Kawaragi teachers last night. Our party was at a traditional Japanese restaurant in south Nishinomiya. It is very near Koshien stadium in the Imazu neighborhood. Chrissy and I rode our bikes. Luckily, I had gained permission to bring my beautiful bride to the party. Usually Japanese attend work parties sans spouses.

The Japanese restaurant has rooms where diners eat in privacy. The floor in this restaurant was raised with a tatami floor. The table appeared to be the height of a coffee table, but the floor was cut beneath. Once you sat on the floor, you could dangle your toes in the trough under the table. It was actually quite comfortable. Our room had two long tables with about 15 people at each table.

The dinner cost 3500 yen per person and included all of the food and drinks you wanted for two hours. Being vegetarian, several Japanese teachers spent much of their time finding different foods for Chrissy and me to try. We had great tofu, rice, and veggies.

Chrissy was also a smash success. Japanese tradition dictates that you never pour your own drink. You pour drinks for others. Much of the night, many of my fellow teachers would walk over to our part of the table and say, “I like drinking beer.” And holding out their empty glasses for my beautiful blond, blue eyed girl to pour them a drink. Then they would sit and chat with her for several minutes. It was mostly guys, but one of our favorites was the Japanese teacher, Ohta. She is an absolute doll! She slid down the table to talk to Chrissy. Ohta claims not to speak English, but she does so, well.

While talking to Chrissy, they discovered that they both love their books. Ohta asked Chrissy if she had read “Anne with the Red Hair.” In the US that book is called “Anne of Green Gables.” They ended up having read several books in common. Ohta invited Chrissy over to learn how to make Sushi. They spoke during much of the dinner.

All through the dinner the PE teachers would stand and give a speech about the successes of Sports Day. Kinugawa made several speeches. He would stand in the middle of the room and yell at the top of his lungs, “Summi masan, Summi masan!” Or Excuse me. Then he would make some boast or statement, or tell someone to tell another story of the day’s events.

At the end of the dinner, a waiter said we would have to leave soon. All of the teachers rose to give their last goodbyes. One young PE teacher, who had had a bit to much beer, offered to farewell dance for us all. An older wiser, more sober PE teacher next to Chrissy yelled “. . . nugoo. . .”

Some things are easy to translate. He obviously asked him to take off his shirt to perform the dance. I had just translated as much to Chrissy when the young PE teacher whipped off his shirt. Three other young male teachers were his back-up dancers, only they kept their shirts. All four of them proceeded to dance the Hakka, the New Zealand warriors dance. At the end of the dance, all of the teachers called for an encore, but the principal stepped forward and pointed out all of the things they had performed wrong in the dance and made them perform the dance again. Finally after four performances of the dance, each louder than the first, the party was over and we all gathered in the street.

Ohta made the mistake of asking Chrissy if she liked karaoke. Talk about drawing an ace! Chrissy was down right giddy when she said, “I love karaoke.”

It turns out the karaoke club was right around the corner. Ohta, Chrissy, and twelve of the other teachers rented a karaoke room and sang the next two hours away. Karaoke rooms are just that. The rooms are set up for various sizes of parties. Our room was one long table with one long bench seating all around the periphery and a TV screen at one end. The Karaoke workers run drinks up to the room to keep the patrons singing. Chrissy pointed out to my benefit that the Japanese are very supportive while I was singing.

Nights end before midnight in Japan. The trains last run ends at their terminal station soon after midnight. You catch your last train before you midnight or you find another way home.

At 11:00 we straggled out of the karaoke building. Silk river and much of the crew were in the street continuing the party. Chrissy and I had a great evening, but we had a long ride home across Nishinomiyia. We said our goodbyes and were home before midnight.