Farewell Momoishi, We Hardly Knew Ye

Last week, my office held an enkai to bid farewell to our old friend Momoishi Town and to welcome the new kid on the block, Oirase Town. From what I have noticed, there are generally two types of enkai. The first entails a small party where the five of us who work in the Momoishi board of education gather at the confusingly named “Drive-In” Chinese restaurant and observe my supervisor getting really drunk and telling dirty jokes. The second kind is a much larger affair, involving everyone from the local bureaucracy and generally features a more elaborate meal. Also, my supervisor gets really drunk and tells dirty jokes.

Since I missed the end of the year enkai, this past week’s soirée was only my second experience with a full-scale office party. As you can see below, the meal served was quite elaborate, to say the least.
Things that I could actually identify were the sashimi in the upper right corner and the half lobster in the upper left corner. Things I could not identify were the shelled creature next to the sashimi and the mysterious seafood substance under the plastic wrap (which was cooked using the contraption that it sits on top of). As if this wasn’t enough, we were also brought additional, freshly prepared foods throughout the evening, including soba noodles and seafood tempura. By the end of the party, I felt as if I had eaten the entire cast of Finding Nemo twice.

Unlike at the other enkai I had been to thus far, everyone in attendance was required to make a speech. I eventually found myself standing at the front of the room, nervously shifting my weight and trying to determine what I could possibly hope to convey using my limited command of the Japanese language. I think I ended up saying something along the lines of “We are all sad because Momoishi is a good town. But Oirase will be an even better town!” Judging from the drunken cheers that followed I would say that most in attendance were satisfied with this rousing “speech”.
After the speeches had all been made, it was time for the sake tasting contest. Three unmarked cups of sake were set out and the contestant had to sample all three in order to find a specific brand. Above we see my supervisor, well on his way to discussing gentlemanly pursuits, gesticulating wildly (possibly in order to somehow assist his sense of taste). They called me up there as well but since I obviously know nothing about sake, I was charged with picking Sapporo out of a line up that also included Kirin and Asahi. Guess what? They all tasted exactly the same. I still won a handsome consolation prize of a ruled notebook though.
One of the things I really enjoy about the big enkais is that it affords me one of my few opportunities to speak with Japanese people close to my age. The two straight-up gangstas pictured above are both delivery boys for the Momoishi town office. Although I usually see them passing through our office a few times a week, they have never worked up the courage to so much as make eye contact with me. However, if you get a few beers in them and force them to sit next to me, they’ll eventually start daring each other to try to strike up a conversation with me. Then, after chugging a few more beers, one of them actually will. From the two brief conversations I’ve had with the pair, I have determined that their primary interests are NBA basketball and American hip-hop. It so turns out that the guy on the left only listens to West coast hip-hop while the guy on the right exclusively partakes of the East coast variant. While most Americans would probably agree that this distinction no longer carries much relevance, these two guys took the coastal rivalry very seriously.
The guy on the other side of me taught me that this is the correct manner in which to represent the continent of Africa with one’s hand. I did not know that. Afterwards, he proceeded to get really wasted and decided to repeatedly rub his face against a box of cake.
Towards the end of the night, some guy (who I always assumed was the mayor but apparently is not) invited me over the drink with him. “Do you know the mayor?” he asked me. I replied that I did and then inquired as to whether he was going to remain mayor following the advent of Oirase Town. “Now, there is a challenge,” he said, before producing two election advertisement cards from his coat pocket. I personally prefer the second one that finds the mayor pumping his fist in front of a Dragonball-esque backdrop of action lines. It seems to ask the viewer, “Who are you going to depend on to defend Oirase Town in the event that a group of bumbling aliens arrives and attempts to bore us to death with episode after episode of boring dialogue?”