Another Night Out

Nothing too special on this post. Just another story of another Saturday night out.

I went with a couple of friends to an international party in Nagoya. These parties are designed to meet people, and they are fun to go to because they have such a friendly atmosphere. Everyone goes there with the intention of meeting new friends, so everyone you talk to is so friendly.

The bad thing is that, because it is international, it can also attract a lot of Japanese “English leeches”. Or, as a friend of mine put it, “these things become just a huge English conversation lesson.”

It might sound like a petty thing to complain about. Of course I don’t mind speaking English, but I don’t enjoy the feeling that the other person is talking to me only because they want to practice their English. Those conversations also get really boring fast. They often focus on things like what my favorite colors are, or how many people I have in my family, or other equally fascinating topics.

Of course if you can maneuver past the English leeches, there are also a lot of Japanese girls who come to meet foreign guys, and I like talking to them. Not cheating on the girl back in Kyushu, but it is just a good feeling to bask in the attention. A good boost for my fragile ego I guess.

After the party we bar hopped for a little bit. We went to a British bar. I met an Australian, and when I told him I was from Michigan he became very excited. He had dated a girl from Michigan for two years and had spent a lot of time traveling the state. We talked about Michigan for a while. I expounded on diversity of Michigan.

“See the thing is,” I said, “as you know from having traveled in Michigan, it’s a very diverse state. Detroit is nothing like Grand Rapids, which is nothing like Ann Arbor, and the Northern part is something entirely different. But it’s very hard to explain this to Japanese people. No matter how many times I say Michigan is a state, they still are thinking like it’s a city…” This whole issue has, I suppose, become a pet peeve of mine since I arrived in Japan.

We moved on to an outdoor beer garden. We met a crowd of young Japanese guys, about our age, and they invited us over to all table. They seemed thrilled to have us sitting with them, and very eager to make friends.

This kind of thing happens all the time in Japan. However, as my Canadian friend later pointed out, it’s always hard to tell if these guys genuinely want to make friends or if they just regard us as a source of amusement. For instance, we had hardly sat down when one of the Japanese guys leaned over and asked us in his vulgar English, “How much Japanese pussy have you fucked?” This sort of awkward question seemed more designed to make us an object of the joke than to genuinely strike up a friendship. My friends handled it well, laughing it off and turning the question back on them.

We were considering staying the whole night in Nagoya, but we heard that there was a party going on in a bar in Gifu and so we headed back to Gifu for the end of the night.

When we got to the bar, I ran into someone I hadn’t seen for a while. “I don’t think I’ve seen you since the night of the big fight at ‘Bottom’s Up’, I said.

“Yeah, I remember that,” he said. “That was a nice move when you grabbed the bar stool.”

“Really? You saw that?” I said. “You know that night was months ago, and this is literally the first comment I ever got on that bar stool grab. I was beginning to think no one had seen it.”

“No, I remember it,” he said. “That guy was charging forward with the bar stool and it looked like someone was going to get their head smashed in, and then all of a sudden your arm just shoots out and grabs the stool.”

I shrugged. “It didn’t really solve anything. The guy just plunged back into the fight anyway.”

“Yes, but without the bar stool. You stopped the situation from getting worse.” Amazing. All these months I thought the act had gone completely unappreciated. Now that I finally got the few words of praise I had so long craved, the whole night seemed worthwhile. I hate to admit I’m this kind of person, but any good deed almost seems worthless to me until someone else acknowledges it.