I just got back from a few days in Japan. I highly reccomend everyone to visit as it's a fascinating country with great food, sights, and people. We spent a couple of days in Tokyo and then headed down to Kyoto, which is the country's cultural capital. Kyoto was nice. You can't throw a rock there without hitting some sort of temple or shrine. We had a great time just walking around the city visiting temples and castles. It was a great way to get a taste of traditional Japan. I'm a city person though. I'm most interested in seeing the big cities of Asia and interacting with locals, so for me Tokyo was the best.
A significant part of my mission on exchange is to establish contacts in Asia, so I checked in with a Japanese classmate from the UW to see if he knew anyone in Tokyo who would be interested in eating/drinking with a random gaijin. It just so happened that a few of his co-workers were interested in such an encounter, and so we arranged to meet for izakaya.
Our hosts sat us down in a restaurant that we never would have found as tourists, and began to review a menu that looked as though it may have had about a thousand items on it. I was instructed by Sakuto-san that we first were to order nama-chu, or a medium-sized beer which didn't seem so medium-sized to me, as our hosts took care of ordering food.
The first of the many small dishes of food that came out to the table was a platter of raw horse meat. I'd eaten horse before on my trip to China, so I was not so taken aback, but the expression on the face of the Canadian guy from Pepperdine who was traveling with me was absolutely priceless. Our hosts laughed at the pause we took when the horse arrived and we had a few pieces. It was quite delicious actually. After that there were probably another 15 dishes that came out, all delicious, along with bottles of sake and shochu. By the end of the two hour parade of food and drink I felt like I had great friends in Tokyo.
After izakaya it was time for the second party. We left the restaurant and walked a few happy blocks to a place called Kennedy House. By this time it felt like the language barrier that was clearly present at the beginning of the night had faded away. It's very interesting how this happens after a few drinks; I've experienced it a couple of times now. We arrived at Kennedy House to find an awesome 60's (or 6T's as the sign said) cover band. I was blown away by their Beatles renditions, and when they played the Beach Boys' Kokomo I almost jumped out of my chair. The finale was a well-known Japanese song called Cherry Blossom, which was sung with sign language by a women with an incredible voice. It was so beautiful. Seriously. I almost cried.
And that was the night.
Eating and drinking with colleagues and business partners is extremely important in Asia. No business takes place without first establishing relationships. I take experiences like this lessons in international business, and this sort of real cultural exchange is 100x more authentic (and interesting) than anything we experience back home in a classroom. Having been through this a couple times now it was very interesting to be able to pick up on the tradition and structure that is embedded into these sorts of events. For example, we were seated around the table according to our positions as guests and hosts, and then by rank. The younger Japanese at the table, who were referred to by the others as freshmen, never took a bit of food or drink for themselves without first offering to their seniors. When we exchanged business cards I knew to give and take with two hands while bowing, and to examine the card for a moment before placing it into my front (never back!) pocket. Watching my Canadian friend attempt to go through the whole process out of context really helped to show me just how much I have learned over the past year about Asian business cultures.
