Yongfook is a web producer and usability consultant based in Tokyo

Last night I ate raw whale blubber at an enkai. This is yet another Japanese food that I will file under “not real food”. Whale blubber is food for polar bears and tiny scavenging birds who feast on the carcasses of dead things on beaches. Since raw whale blubber is raw, it has no taste. This is in keeping with the trend of raw things having no taste thus negating nearly all motivation for me to eat them. I attempted to preach this nugget of common sense to a Japanese lady sitting next to me.

“Do you eat sashimi?” she asked. “I’ll eat it, but I don’t enjoy it” (shocked beyond all conceivable belief, eyes bulging) “But why? Its delicious!” “It has no taste” “Yes it does, if you put it in soya sauce”

Short of slamming a brick into her face at 1000mph, I couldn’t think of a suitable response to this; my entire argument against eating sashimi SOMEHOW perverted into a hollow rationale FOR eating sashimi. I nodded and agreed.

The rest of last night was standard enkai fare. Drink until they wrench the bottles from my hands, then off to karaoke to bash out some classic 80’s hits mercilessly raped by the karaoke version’s cheesy muzak-like plink-plonk sensibilities.

And so I returned home and woke the next morning, to throw myself into the breach once more.

I wonder if my kids ever notice when I am disgustingly hungover on days like today when I trudge into school eyes half-closed, looking visibly on the verge of regurgitating whale fat and without my usual sheen of faux-genkiness.

Quietly sitting at my desk, rocking very slightly backwards and forwards whilst being careful not to projectile vomit all over my keyboard, I awaited the beginning of the school day. Today was Elementary school - the hardest day of the week as it not only requires me to be on level gazillionfillion genki for 7 hours (HELLO DAIKI-KUN! Yes LETS shake hands DESPITE the fact you have just removed your finger from your nose! Look at me! I can juggle! I can dance!! I am crying inside! I want to puke! Hahaaaa!), but it is also a full day of lessons as I only visit once a week. Todays Elementary school visit was no different from any other:

-8yr old kids who punch me in the balls. -The weird kids who are eternally silent and look like they are doped up to their eyeballs. -The cool, super-bright kids who have obviously been learning English outside of the classroom. -A kyushoku that seems to be 90% mayonnaise. And by the way, cucumber is not a fricking fruit and does in no way compliment the taste of orange and peach. Keep it out of the fruit salads you fools! -Random gardening chores with kocho-sensei. -Forgetting my cigarettes and finding that, at around 3pm, I am absolutely climbing the fricking walls. -Soccer games where I quite obviously perform MUCH worse than the youngest kids there.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2003 at 10:35 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.