Last night was the Oyama Senmaida sanaburi – a celebration of the safe and successful spring planting. Since I helped out with the planting, I earned an invitation. I decided to go becasue I spend a lot of time working with everyone, but we only superficially know one another. Maybe I’d get to know people better.
But when I sat down on the shuttle bus with 18 other people all chatting away in Japanese, I wondered “What did I get myself into?” Could I manage 6 hours of freewheeling socialising with them? The reality of it sunk in I felt like I was way in over my head.
But it turned out to be a delightful opportunity. Our destination was Satomi no Yu, the upscale onsen bathouse in Tateyama. I love a good long soak and it’s always better with friends. You peel off shyness along with your clothes at the onsen. I chatted with all the ladies as we moved from pool to pool – mostly listening, but also adding to the conversation from time to time.
Mariko and Junko and I hung out in the rotenburo long after everyone else had dressed and gone upstairs. Junko is recruiting me to dance in her annual ballet performance – Sato Mai – and I am seriously considering it. I’ll go take some lessons with her and give it a try. Mariko has just moved to the area to work full-time at Oyama Senmaida. She and I have a range of things in common, from wanting drive backhoes to similar taste in foods.
After two hours of bathing and relaxing, it was dinner time. This is the spread that awaited us on the table, but it was just the beginning. There were many more dishes; it was so much food I could not finish it all.
I sat myself at the farthest end of the longer table so that people could choose to sit near me or easily avoid it. Inoue-san selected the seat to my left, but the two people across the table were the last to arrive. They were among those who I hoped to sit with anyway, so it worked out great for me.
Like every Japanese party, nobody started drinking or eating until there had been a speech and a toast. No-nonsense senior members of the NPO gave short and sweet proclamations of thanks. We raised our glasses then got to eating.
Waiters lit the sukiyaki nabe dishes and brought chawan mushi and braised pork. Everyone tucked into the feast, but never stopped talking. Conversation was all over the place with bits English found to fill me in when I looked confused.
I held my own as best I could, especially when I had to quickly figure out the fine distinctions between the English words “exchange” and “trade” and explain them in Japanese. That was a challenge.
What I landed on was that trade is between parters of equal status or for items of equal value – two baseball teams trading players or friends trading recipes. Exchange might be more uneven in status or value – like a customer exchanging a purchase with a store or people exchanging exchanging business cards – and the word is a bit more formal. But trade and exchange have basically the same meaning and no one would ever misunderstand if you used one instead of the other.
And now that is how everyone in earshot of that conversation will think of trade vs exchange. LOL.
We also discussed heavy equipment – apparently Hara-san has driven some massive backhoes. Hara-san (giving the toast in the photo above) was looking snazzy in a blue striped shirt. I usually see him seriously engaged in work tasks, but last night when he smiled, I realised he was a very handsome man back in the day.
When dinner wound down and everyone had packed up their leftovers, Kawasaki-san led us in the closing ceremony of this sanaburi – a single big clap all together. Then we piled into the bus for the ride home. I was thoughtfully dropped at the bottom of my driveway so that I didn’t have to walk back from Oyama Senmaida in the dark.
I think I have found my tribe here. Six hours of socialising was a pleasure.
