Accidental Tourist: Suddenly it all makes sensei

A Western woman in Japan finds a bit of sake and song go a long way

I carefully parted a wooden sliding door. The light was dim, the air thick with grilled chicken fat. Glasses clinked, voices shouted. Heads turned surreptitiously to catch a glimpse of the new foreigner.

Before reaching our table, I had to do the obligatory shoe removal; the soles of my feet felt unsteady on the slight roughness of tatami. I was nervous. Would I hold my chopsticks the right way? Would I make some awful gaffe?

I pushed a cloth curtain aside. My colleagues were sitting at low wooden tables, cross-legged on the floor. A waitress distributed menus, her head lowered. Everyone began pouring beer.

"Kanpai!" - Sensei Udo had a Japanese-American twang and acted as de facto interpreter.

The school nurse, Yoko, downed her beer in about 10 seconds - and the next after that. The whole night, she kept saying to me, "Try this. Just a rittle."

Or, "This one more sweetie than other. You must try." And try I did: fried lotus root, fried chicken liver, fried whole garlic cloves. But when the fried cow stomach and pig foot came round, I declined.

The PE teacher with the Bruce Lee body ordered me a bowl of "mountain potato". "Don't worry, no like natto" he said.

When it arrived, I prodded it with my chopsticks. It had seaweed bits on the top and a texture with an uncanny resemblance to natto, a fermented-bean dish that has an uncanny resemblance to mucous. My palms suddenly became moist and the chopsticks slipped between my fingers. I struggled to pick up the slimy, grey "delicacy" in my bowl.

Yoko launched into another round of "Try it, try it, try it!"

I braved a couple of mouthfuls before quietly gagging into a serviette.

"Try this. Cowpiss," instructed Yoko.

"Try this. Japanese wine,sake. You know sake?

A bottle, covered with Tippex-ed Japanese scribbles, materialised on the table. The words "happy birthday" jumped out at me. The waitress poured.

The sake warmed my gut and, in a bout of booze-fuelled confidence, I asked, "Oh, it's your birthday today, Udo-sensei?" The words came out in broken Japanese. They laughed. The PE teacher high-fived me.

"No, it's from last year. We haven't finished it yet. Strong stuff. You want?"

I tried a bit. It seared my throat. I swallowed, gasped. They laughed again.

"So, you must have had a good birthday party, drinking this?"

"Yeah, it was good party! Two teachers, how you say . vomit? Other teachers late for school next day."

When the dinner came to an end, I pulled out a few thousand yen notes. They all shook their heads and waved their arms. "No! No! This is welcome party for you." I felt a little awkward, yet flattered, and stuffed the money into my back pocket.

"You want to go karaoke?" asked the PE teacher. Yoko's eyes lit up. "Let's karaoke and have heart-to-heart time," she said.

We drank more, ate more. Bowed. Sang. Laughed. My drink was continually topped up. At around 2am, Yoko asked me to sing Hey Jude.

"I rove Beatles. Prease sing it. Prease! Try it!" She pushed the mic into my hand.

"Ok, Yoko. I'll sing Hey Jude for you."

The staggering level of alcohol in my system made singing to strangers a little less embarrassing. The lyrics somehow swam into my head and out of my mouth. Everyone drunkenly swayed to the song, while Yoko rested her head against the PE teacher's shoulder, her eyes closed. I felt like part of the gang and less of an outsider. "So this must be 'heart-to-heart' time," I thought.

Outside, there was a quiet, warm drizzle. We stumbled, giggling into the town's humid summer stillness. Just before we reached my apartment, we turned our heads skywards, in spontaneous unison, and looked at the Milky Way. - © Ang Lloyd is a Johannesburg-based journalist