kanpai

as per usual when i go to one of these things, i sat on the Fukuoka bus watching the suburban sprawl fly by and wonder why it is i'm going again. as much as i sometimes wish there were more social support for people in the outlying areas, i always end up drinking too much, awkwardly sitting by myself and contemplating the fact that the vast majority of these people are not my friends. in all fairness, someone from GEOS became one of my best friends i had here. but she was a rare exception in every sense of the word.

but what would the point be now, i wondered to myself in a sleepy state on the bus. i have real friends in Beppu now, i don't need these things as a Thing to Do anymore, that is i have enough of a social life outside of GEOS that i don't really need to go searching for one-night drinking buddies at some lame company bonding thing. but i had been feeling in a rut lately, and i thought this would give me a chance to revisit my early days here, the tenuous bonds that forge there, the drunken games of "i have never" that go forgotten the next morning along with most people's names in our memories. yeah, that might be worth the sitting and pondering and watching the room spin.

at the beginning of dinner, Tom (one of my trainers) took on the task of proposing the kanpai. the gangly Englishman was already a bit drunk as he lifted the glass to toast. "if this is your first year-end party with GEOS," he announced, "basically the purpose of this party is to get utterly pissed and forget the year. it's behind us. let's wipe the slate clean. kanpai!" the glasses clinked and the foamy beer coarsed down our throats and Tom's words sunk in. forget the year. Tom's cool, but i had always sensed a sort of quiet desperation in him. he told me once that he had initially resigned after 14 months, like me, but ended up taking it back and accepting a promotion. that was 5 years ago. now, here he is, telling us all to forget everything that had happened during the year. surely he meant only work-wise (after all the company is going under), but i can sense such a sadness in him that he wants to drink away everything, everything until he wakes up hung-over in London wondering why in the bloody hell he would have a dream about living in Japan and devoting his life to a company he hates.

as expected, the night consisted of beer, Chinese buffet, me proudly telling my triumphant story of exit to anyone who would listen, getting drunk, breathing in enough secondhand smoke that i might as well just take up the habit, the rancid meat topped with cheap kimchee on revolting slimy rice that is Yoshinoya, and generally feeling like i don't belong.

i do remember sitting at the bar at a place called Dark Room, alternating conversations between some Northern Irish guy whose name i can't remember for the life of me anymore, and Sheffia. Sheffia's one of the people who have been here for an awfully long time, like Tom. unlike Tom however, Sheffia is making her exit in a week. she told me all about how living in Japan can erode a woman's self esteem--not a man's so much, mind you, but a woman's. i wasn't sure what to make of that. "if you are a woman, and a gaijin in Japan," she said, "you are nothing."

i can only hope that what Eleanor Roosevelt said, that "no one can make you feel inferior without your consent" is true in Japan as well.

and that was the GEOS year-end party. wiping the slate clean, forgetting the year, and uniting with one another in our borderline alcoholism and collective hatred for the entity that brought us freedom and yet shackles us. kanpai.