Yongfook is a web producer and usability consultant based in Tokyo

The staff enkai alcohol intake / Japanese ability functionundrumbola

Much like the host body of Krang from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, my own brain lacks many of the simple functions necessary for me to perpetuate efficiently as a normal member of society. Unfortunately, I’m not as lucky as him to have a talking, megalomaniacal oversized cerebrum permanently wedged into my gut, controlling my actions and wreaking havoc on earth from an underground fortress of evil. That AND I don’t have his cool shades or shoulder pads.

As my brain gradually withers into a mushy brain bi-product from lack of use (the kind also found in taco bell burritos and in most baby-foods), apart from occasionally urinating at my desk, swatting invisible bats and ending all English questions with ‘frick shit bollocks?’, when I speak Japanese, grammar points and verb endings don’t always come naturally to me - especially seeing as I am still an intermediate learner. Often I have to pause for a few seconds in mid-conversation whilst wondering things like ‘crap, how DO you conjugate a transitive verb in the passive honorific voice with a nuance of being tired, in the middle of an ‘if’ clause, whilst talking in the 5th person about re-doing an action that had previously failed to a detriment, on a Wednesday in May, when there is light scattery cloud in the sky?’.

Naturally, this problem becomes rather enfunkified when alcohol is slotted into the equation, usually by way of beer and my mouth, at a staff enkai

Interestingly however, through my intense study - that is, drinking beer with my mouth - I have found that the relationship between alcohol intake and Japanese ability does not follow a simple negative correlation as one might think. As BA Barracus once said during an ill-fated career sojourn into teaching, ‘learn this, foo’!':

At 1-3 beers: The effects of this comparatively small intake of alcohol are beneficial, and twofold. One is that your confidence levels improve, much in the same way you might have a drink before chatting to some harlet at a bar, quaff a few shots of whiskey before a driving test or have a line of cocaine before performing complex surgery. The other is that your brain becomes lubricated enough for you to remember things that you previously could not - ‘by Jehovah’s Sandals! I have just remembered the Japanese word for lachanophobia!’.

At 4-5 beers: You will soon reach your plateau of Japanese conversational ability. The rate at which you have improved has slowed to a crawl, but you are still managing to conduct conversations that have a slightly opaque sheen of fluency.

At 6-10 beers: Sorry but it all goes progressively downhill from here with each consecutive drink. If you have a level of alcohol tolerance similar to mine, you are now a gibbering simpleton and everything coming out of your mouth is some incomprehensible hybrid of English, Japanese and spittle. Coupled with this is the fact that it is around this time that suddenly EVERY Japanese person in the building will start pulling English out of nowhere. Although some might just sit back with a cigarette in their face, shouting ‘this is a pen!’ with a shit-eating grin, many others will try to form coherent dialogue.

At 11-15 beers: At this point the only thing you can do is curl up into a ball on the floor whilst crying and proclaiming that you won’t move from this spot until someone brings you a Doner Kebab. Try as you might to translate Doner Kebab into Japanese, attempting a katakana pronunciation and even having a quick go at a makeshift kanji compound (dubiousmeatpapersandwich), no one understands you and they kick your face until you get up.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 6th, 2003 at 10:37 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.