Farewell Enkai, Hayakawa

I'd had many enkais (dinner parties) before, but I'd never bothered capturing one on film. In the Japanese school system, teachers are rotated in and out of schools on a fairly random basis. The teachers themselves have no say in the matter - it's all decided by the prefectural board of education bureaucrats. So it can be pretty emotional when the teachers are forced to leave their friends and school behind. Especially when one of the teachers had been there for 8 years. Be sure to check the movies out on the movies page.

The dinner party itself, though, was standard fare for one of these hotel enkais. The hotel itself was one of the best in Japan with a gorgeous onsen (in theory... I never got to see it), nice rooms, and good food. A typical Japanese dinner has more courses than I can count, but each course is usually less than 5 bites. The food is arranged beautifully, because the looks are more important to the taste. And some of the stuff served was gross, although I ate everything. The good stuff I ate two servings; the teacher next to me was totally drunk so i snagged his good stuff since he was happier with his sake than the food.

The pre-enkai warm-up had the female teachers going to the female room, and the male teachers going to the male room. Drinks were poured. Snacks were consumed. We waited for dinner.

The enkai has several stages: first the introductions, then opening remarks by the principal or highest ranking person, then maybe some by the #2 in the room, then the pouring of kanpai drinks, a kanpai, then we eat. During the eating, the teachers rotate around the room, sitting in the inside of the aisles where they can pour drinks for the person in front of them and vice-versa. Then they do some mini-kanpais. Depending on the person, if your drink is already filled you either have to chug it ALL, or if they're nice they'll just top it off with a symbolic drink. They like making me chug, but I wasn't drinking tonight.

The socialization here is more important than the eating, really. Somewhere in the middle after everyone's had something there are usually some activities. This time it was giving presents to the departing teachers. Every single one of the female teachers was crying. One of the teachers was crying so hard they had to sit down to do the present thing and she took forever because it was so emotional. I've found that Japanese will cry fairly easily, but they really do hide their real thoughts most of the time. Maybe crying is an exception. If you watch the videos, listen for the crying and the really bad karaoke coming from the next room. It made for an interesting contrast. There's also the "count-the-bows" video; both teachers were crying at the time.

Anyway, we then finished up dinner and had some more speeches. Two of the male teachers were obnoxiously drunk and making huge scenes with each other. You can catch some of it in the videos since the pictures came out blurred. Then there was a final "raaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy". Using my name as an example, the cheer, used elsewhere as well, goes something like this: raaaaaaaaaaaay. raaaaaaaaaaaaay. (short for 'hooray' perhaps) TO-O-MA-SU. (then we pick up speed and clap) ray ray to-o-masu ray ray to-o-masu. The drunk teacher did this cheer for every departing teacher. I can't tell if the principal was mad or not.

Then we all left the room, leaving beer bottles, sake jars, whiskey glasses, and a million dishes for the waitstaff to deal with. We all retired to the men's room for more drinking (this is pretty standard. if we weren't in Hayakawa where there aren't any stores/shops/bars, though, the normal next-step is to go barhopping). Teachers wander off on their own to hit the onsen and then come back for more snacks and drinking. I left them at this point, but usually the women head off to the women's room for chatting, the men talk and drink some more, and then everyone falls asleep and wakes up for a nice Japanese breakfast.

And that's what I've found to be a typical Japanese enkai. The only thing normal that was missing were some weird games, bingo, and/or karaoke.