Friday I wrapped up the second week of intensive English courses at Daikin. The last day was the toughest for the students, but the easiest for the teachers. Just like last week we put them through speeches, interviews and role plays, and just like last week my students did really well. I was really proud of them. We even had a Daikin executive drop by to watch a speech, and despite making everyone nervous it did have the effect of showing the students just how real this all was.
This week’s students were all men, and that made for a slightly different atmosphere in the class compared to last week. I really had fun with Hikaru, Fuyuki, Kengo, Shinya, Taka, Daisuke, Takayoshi, Yasuaki, Naoya and Naoki. We bonded during lunchtimes and after class as well as during the lessons, and I think it made the whole thing run much smoother.
Again it was sad to say goodbye at the end of the week, and again I had a feeling of satisfaction in a job well done. Hopefully I’ll have a chance to meet up with them in the future.
I turned in all my materials and headed out after the class ended, and then caught a train into the heart of Osaka to meet up for dinner with the students from last week’s class, and ended up having quite a surreal adventure.
Just outside of the main station (Umeda station) in Osaka I ducked into a McDonald’s to use the bathroom, but I ended up having to wait a long time. Three schoolgirls sitting near the door said hello and invited me to sit with them while I waited. They introduced themselves and I was surprised how nice they were considering their outward appearance – they had the hiked up skirts, tons of eye makeup and long painted nails. They were very polite, and we had a good five minute conversation before the guy finally left the bathroom, and I said goodbye.
After McDonald’s I met up with last week’s students outside of the huge HEP5 building (it has a ferris wheel built on top of the building and it is filled with pink whales) and after catching up a little we walked from there to the restaurant where we had a reservation.
The restaurant was down some stairs, and appeared to be tiny from the outside, but was actually quite big. We walked past a big board with names and reservation times posted, and then into the restaurant itself.
I’ve been to a lot of different kinds of restaurants in Japan, but this was something new. The room was huge – like a giant cafeteria, but the floors were all tatami mats and tables. It was filled with hundreds of young people (Friday was payday) talking and drinking and getting out of hand. It was an image of Japan that I had always had before coming, but as yet hadn’t actually experienced. The social game was being played all around, and it was fascinating to watch.
In the middle of the room stretching from the back to the front was the kitchen, like a huge island surrounded by drunken salarymen. We were led to a private room in the back, and we stretched out on tatami mats and started drinking and eating ourselves. It was great to see everyone again and hear about their training – they’ve been learning Japanese business etiquette from corporate trainers at another facility.
Some of the group were drinkers and some weren’t drinking at all. Others obviously didn’t have much experience with drinking – alternating between drinks like gin and tonic and matcha milk, then back to whiskey or beer. Chika was the only girl in the group since Miyuki couldn’t make it, and so Chika was posted next to me and assigned as my designated alcohol pourer (Japanese cultural point). After a while I was able to move around the table and take some of the pressure off of her – it was something that she wasn’t used to yet, but as a female company employee it will become something she does quite often in the future.
At the end of a couple of hours of drinking everyone was feeling pretty good and it was time to wrap up the evening. I tried to pay more for the dinner, being the oldest man there (another cultural point) but the students insisted on everyone paying an even share of the bill.
On our way out we bumped into another group of new Daikin employees sitting out on the sea of tatami mats and talked with them for a while. I could tell my group was earning prestige points because I was along with them at their party, so I made sure to greet everyone in the new group, and finally we headed out the door. Everyone said farewell to me at the door, and shook my hand before saying goodbye, and then I headed into the main building to go home. I was still just a little hungry, and so I made a turn into the huge maze of tiny restaurants and noodle shops underneath the Hankyu building. Each walkway is lined with shops with red lanterns and full of people eating shoulder to shoulder and drinking down beer like they were on a time limit.
I stepped into a promising ramen place and had a bowl of tonkotsu ramen, and found myself getting into a conversation with a drunk guy returning from the Hanshin Tigers game with his high school age daughter. He bought me a beer and talked for a long time until I had finished up my noodles and he had started declaring his daughter as “number one beautiful girl in Japan!” Check, please!
The ride back on the train was delayed because of an accident, so I was stuck standing in the corner with people pressing in against me from two sides. A very drunk lady standing immediately to my left fell asleep leaning against me, and I noticed people watching me carefully to see what I would do. My primary concern was my new suit and whether she was going to puke on it or not. Luckily she woke up one station before mine and staggered off the train without incident. At my stop a couple of drunk and frazzled salarymen got into a fist fight briefly, but they were so tired they quickly gave up on the matter and weaved away in opposite directions. Finally I got home around midnight, still buzzing from the alcohol and my feet killing me from two weeks of standing up in cheap dress shoes.
It was great – the kind of adventure that makes me really happy that I live in Japan – but I’m looking forward to a quieter schedule for the next couple of weeks.
