Monday night party

Last night I had to go to an enkai (work related drinking party) for my apartment...it was the dumbest enkai ever, and I've been to about a dozen enkais by now. It was basically a guy telling us all the rules that I don't understand or follow anyway...and that next month we have to wake up at 5:30 AM twice to move some boards around and cut some grass. I tried to express my disapproval but couldn't...

After the enkai a teacher gave me a ride into town where I met Martin, Debs, Judas Priest the Buddhist Priest, Yuki and Mieko at Kimamaya (a little izakaya near Lion Dior). We had some drinks and eventually got into some decent conversation (everyone spoke good alcohol-enhanced English other than Yuki).

Judas Priest the Buddhist Priest (Hiro) had some interesting things to say that made me think...he'd been to England a couple times but is afraid of America because he thinks everywhere in America is dangerous due to there being 'guns everywhere!'. I had to explain to him that there are certain areas of my country where there are lots of people with guns, but many of them just happen to be kind of stupid, and shoot each other a lot. But they wouldn't shoot him, I said...

Then he reminded me why some Japanese people view America as a place where around every corner there would be an angry screaming racist person pointing a gun at them...in 1992 a 16-year-old Japanese exchange student in Louisiana named Yoshi Hattori was trying to find a Halloween party but mistook the address. He knocked on one door and then another trying to find the party...but instead it was answered by a paranoid gun owner who thought the boy was an intruder. He yelled 'FREEZE!' with his handgun pointed at him, but the boy didn't understand, probably thinking he said 'please' which in Japanese translates to 'doozo' which also means 'come on in'. The boy walked towards the man and the man shot him in the chest and killed him.

It got lots of press in Japan and I think it has permanently skewed their perception about being safe in America.

Also, I had to explain the Wendy's finger incident to him and why people in America work so hard to sue everyone else (there are also sue con artists in Japan and elsewhere, but we all know how sue happy Americans are).

Otherwise, I learned a little bit about his buddhist sect (he practices Sotoshu buddhism, a kind of Chinese influenced Zen buddhism that's heavy on meditation), and he talked a bit about why he swears, drinks, womanizes and adores heavy metal even as a follower of a strict doctrine that doesn't allow these things. In his own words, "I know that the Buddha says 'no', but I can't help myself!" he said as he chugged down a draft beer. We talked a bit about the new pope and compared between both religions how young people just aren't keen to follow religious-based social rules these days...and how electing such a conservative pope was definitely a step backwards in that respect, in dividing the church even more.

All in all it was a fun night, played some darts and then I made the long walk home cuz it was a nice night...about 40 minutes. Got to bed by 2 AM and had a long day at Mizusawa Junior High today, but had a fun day with the kids. A few of the boys are giving me a hard time about my NBA team the Portland Trailblazers not making the playoffs. I had to hit them over the head with the plastic squeaky hammer more than a few times...