Thursday, November 27--Thanksgiving...Again

Happy Turkey Day! It’s very strange to be a minority population celebrating a holiday while the world around you marches on, oblivious to the occasion.

At least for this year, I decided not to tackle the logistics of preparing a traditional Thanksgiving dinner in my mini kitchen, so I made reservations for six of us at the Officer’s Club’s Thanksgiving buffet. The drive to the base was surreal. Everywhere, Japanese were carrying out business as usual. People were running to get to the train station on time, delivery trucks were making their daily produce drops at the local stores, restaurants were full, postal workers were making their rounds on their scooters. So different from the U.S., when most everything shuts down on the fourth Thursday in November--you’re lucky to even find a gas station that is open on Thanksgiving Day. Entering the gates of the base was like crossing some huge cultural chasm. We went from normal hustle and bustle to ghost town in the time it took to scan our ID cards. Very few cars were driving the streets, the parking lots of the exchange and commissary were deserted, and only a handful of people were walking around—a scene we’d normally expect to encounter on Thanksgiving, but such a drastic change from what we’d just driven through only seconds before.

Dinner turned out to be wonderful. All of the foods you could possibly crave for Thanksgiving were beautifully prepared and presented, and we were free to stuff ourselves to bursting. Unfortunately, there were lots of people waiting for the privilege to do the same, so our grazing time was cut short. After a little more than an hour, while some of us were contemplating thirds or fourths, the host interrupted our conversation and informed us that we could only stay another fifteen minutes--our table was needed for another party. I can’t complain too much—the abrupt exit ensured I did not fill a plate with more food I would later regret, plus there was the satisfaction of knowing I did not have to spend the next couple of hours washing the dishes that normally accompany such a huge feast. We simply paid the bill, crossed back over that cultural chasm, and continued the Thanksgiving celebration at our house with a game of poker!