Golf in Japan

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Host father and my dad are pretty much the same...retired, love baseball, love golf. I've been to the range a few times with host father, and since its winter break, time to hit the course. It's warm enough in Tokyo to play 365 days a year. The course was about 1:20 away from the house in Tokyo in Yamanashi-ken. Set in a valley, the course was very hilly but in nice shape for december. Greens were well kept but the rough had died out. I was pretty rust but actually came away with second prize of a king crab and box of beer because of a very odd open format tournament for hte first nine holes. Handicap was based on 4 holes and score was taken from the remaining five. I messed up on the right holes and got a crazy high handicap. The crab was delicious.

Golf was a great time. We played with some other guys from host father's company. It was good to be around and here the Japanese male pattern of speech for a day straight because speech patterns change considerably by age and gender. So on the topic of gender, the golf club is typically a chauvinistic arena no matter which country. But in Japan, this of Japan's most chauvinistic side. Now that's not a bad thing, it just an element of their culture. Japanese patriarchal society has its share of detractors but they should learn to shut it because as far as the Japanese population goes, no one seems to mind. Men play an assertive role and women are more submissive. There are some serious, rigid, culturally defined barriers that can be broken in practice, but as far as feeling and atmosphere goes, the society is pretty genderized.

When we pulled up, there were little middle-aged japanese women in hats and headscarves to great us as we unloaded are bags. They then drove us and the bags to the club house. We sat down to breakfast and then did the man thing of stretching and grumbling before heading out. There was a caddy who drove a 5 man cart with our bags on it. I walked and so did host father but they other two primarly road. The caddie was pretty young and the fawning over the older Japanese men kind of made me a little sick. Because I was a guest, I got the same treatment. It's just not something Americans are used to accepting or expecting.

After the first nine, we took a long lunch break (apparently the norm). Drank beer, ate sushi or hotpots. Second nine went down the same way. After the round, everyone hopped in the bath (norm at Japanese country clubs). They should bring these over to America after a round of golf. Imagine a big hot public bath at the end of Mohansic after having your ass handed to you by the course. On the way home stopped at a yakiniku place (of course) and ate large quantities of red meat, beef tongue, more beer. Host mother would not have approved. It was a big Japan man-fest. A little disturbing to an outsider who is not used to this behavior as a norm. But it is an accepted norm by many, many Japanese.

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Comments

[mom]

TRophy
this is great! love that you won beer and King Crab. What a terrific prize for you, especially. xoxox