culture shock

This post is half rant and half culture shock. Being that Japan's workforce is mostly male, they go out for tsukiai and settai. Both include drinking and eating.

Most times tsukiai is amongst co-workers or friends, kind of like "pau hana time" (happy hour) in Hawaii.

Settai is when you take a client out for drinks. Sometimes settai includes taking client out to raunchy areas for their "pleasure".

Can you imagine that most men do not eat at home on the weekdays? For me, I'm okay if Satoshi eats out during the week, saves me time in making something for dinner, but the part that kills me is the "last minute" gathering. These usually include no phone call. Thank goodness, I'm not waiting for him to come home to eat with me...some wives actually do! Can you imagine waiting until 11 p.m. or later to eat dinner and then finding out that your husband ate out already?

The thing that I don't understand is why the men and women here drink to the point where they cannot walk. Maybe it is because we have public transportation like trains? They don't have to worry about driving a car to get home? I've seen people stagger, then throw up all around the place...not pretty. (sorry if you were eating while reading this...)

People fall asleep on the train. Miss their stops. Catching a train late at night smells like a brewery. Everyone's faces are red from the alcohol. Plus, the trains are packed, everyone trying to make it home before the trains stop. I think that this is the time when chikan (molesting/fondling) occurs. When you are packed liked sardines, have alcohol in you, it is bound to happen...sigh.

Having a hangover the next day cannot possibly be too productive for you at work.

So, the other night, Satoshi had a welcome party for some of his new staff. I went to bed before he came home, but wasn't "fully sleeping"--sub-conciously I was waiting for him to come home.

At about 1 a.m. I woke up and realized he hadn't come home yet. The trains stop at around this time, so the only way to come home would be by taxi.

Finally, at about 1:30 a.m. I hear a car pull up. Someone staggering up the stairs. It was Satoshi.

This is what he told me the next morning...He fell asleep on the train, missed his stop and had to catch a taxi home. But, he didn't have enough money to pay his fare, (the price of the taxi goes up after a certain time), so he had to come up, look for some money then go back down to pay.

(You should know that when he lived at his parent's house in Kyoto before we were married, he once overslept his stop and found himself at the end of the line in Shiga prefecture! I guess that would be like needing to get off in New Jersey from Manhattan but finding yourself in Washington D.C....or something like that.)

Anyway, he was in the midst of changing his clothes...then fell asleep on the floor. Lights on. I know this because I got up because the lights were on, turned the lights off and then shut the door.

Why did I shut the door? Satoshi's snoring, especially after drinking is so loud, you can hear it even with a walkman on...trust me, I still use my walkman to try to drain out the snoring, but can still hear it! He said I should just get used to his snoring, to think of it as BGM (background music), I call it more like BGN (background noise)...sigh.

So, the next morning, he complained of a headache, loss of appetite...he smelled like a brewery...blah!

I shook my head and let him suffer with his hangover. Even if it is for his company, even if it is for communication purposes. To drink yourself to the point where you are sick, is kind of...well, stupid!

I guess it is part of the culture I will never understand.

While I'm on the subject of culture shock...I never realized how fast pre-fab houses can go up.

At 15:45, I checked on the progress of the house building next door. They had the wall frames up and were working on the 3rd floor.

In the meantime, I made dinner (loco moco) and we ate at about 16:30 (early) because Satoshi had his German class.

At 17:30, I checked on them again because it was quiet. They already had the roof up. Scarily too fast...