Saturday, September 27--Dinner Party

We’d been looking forward to today for a couple of weeks now. Not the wading through a bunch of junk and asking, “Where in the world is this gonna go?” Although we are secretly enjoying that too, because it means we finally have our own stuff again. No, Yasuko, the friendly neighbor across the street had arranged a dinner party in her home for us and the two other American families who live on our street. It was our first chance to go into a Japanese home, eat home-cooked Japanese food, and visit with our new neighbors.

We were scheduled to arrive at the neighbor’s at 4:00 p.m., but just as we were getting ready to put our shoes on, she called and asked us to wait until 4:30 because she wasn’t done cooking yet. So, after another 30 minutes of shuffling stuff from one room to another, we walked across the street to her house. She ushered us into the living room, where we were told to have a seat on the couch. Our host produced icy cans of Japanese beer (gulp—neither of us are beer drinkers, but we didn’t want to be impolite, so we cracked them open. I nursed mine for the next five hours and finally finished it off…Jim gave his to Aaron.) On the coffee table in front of us was an absolute feast, so beautifully prepared and presented it should have been featured in a magazine. There were nine of us there (two American couples, a single American, and two Japanese couples), and food enough for three times that many. I don’t know the names of everything she prepared, but I tried everything I was offered (Mom, you’d be so proud of me!). There were fried pork rolls, cups of rice topped with shredded beef or shrimp, an egg and potato casserole, shrimp and green bean tempura, edamame (young soybeans boiled in the pod), potato salad, sausage-stuffed eggplants, marinated mackerel and cucumbers, homemade bread, and a fresh fruit salad with Japanese pears, grapes, and persimmons. We had second helpings of many of the dishes, and even thirds of a few.

The evening’s conversation was interesting. There were the expected mini-conversations in English between the Americans and in Japanese between our hosts and the other Japanese couple, but for the most part we tried very hard to communicate across cultures. One of the other Americans had just begun Japanese lessons, so he was eager to try out what he had learned (he brought his dictionary along to help), and Yasuko was a great translator. Her husband, who claimed not to speak English, is in fact very capable, and told many stories of his job as a financial reporter (his English is just a bit rusty because he uses it far less often now that he is retired). The other Japanese couple spoke less English, but seemed to understand a great deal. They had questions for us about America, and we had questions for them about Japan. It was a great learning experience, and we Americans are already talking about hosting a dinner of our own to reciprocate. I hope that we can continue to build our relationships with the neighbors, and possibly develop friendships that will endure even after we return to the States.