Enkai time!

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Now, we'd all been told that it is traditional for your town or village to throw you a welcome party, or Enkai, soon after you arrive at your new place. For some people I know they had their party on the first night, for others they are still waiting. I was lucky, my office was very thoughtful and gave me a few days to settle in first and they told me in advance it would be on Monday.
Now, I'd done some reading up on Enkai etiquette. It sounded like a lot of the time they are very formal and there are set rules e.g. the more important the person they get served first, don't pour your own drinks - let some others pour for you. Luckily I asked my supervisor if I should wear a suit and he assured me no, it was a relaxed BBQ, so casual was fine (phew!). It was round one of the two houses owned by the head of the board of education. I found him a bit scary at first, but he was very relaxed, friendly and welcoming into his home and I got to meet his lovely wife and daughters (who are in their early twenties and thirties). Most of the people from my board of education office were there and my school principal and vice principal. Everyone was very relaxed, laughing and joking (even if I couldn't understand the jokes, the atmosphere was universal). At first I felt a bit odd as they had prepared a special table for me full of food as they knew I didn't eat meat. It was resplendent with vegetables, fish, sushi, riceballs - enough for about 10 people or more and all for me as the others had a meat BBQ. The food was delicious and they kept encouraging me to eat, eat and eat some more - so I was just about ready to pop - but it was useful to soak up all the boozee! Beer was flowing from a big keg, they'd brought proper Japanese Sake for me to try and I'd not had it before (yummy but very potent!) and at one point they even gave me some Japanese whisky as they know us Brits like a tipple of the strong stuff. One of the daughters gave me what I thought was a fruit drink, but I now think was actually a pineapple alcopop......needless to say I had a fun evening, but my head felt like a Rhino was charging around it the next morning and I was glad when my supervisor dropped me off early from the office in the afternoon so I could sleep!

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