Sock It To Me, Baby

I've mentioned in here my penchant for diving face first into the whole Japanese culture thing - and why not. If you are going to Japan to vacation or live - or heck, visiting any other country than that which you are used too, you must immerse yourself into the culture.

Now obviously I didn't listen to my own advice completely, what with having gaijin (foreigner) girlfriends mostly for the first two years of my stay in Ohtawara-shi... it was a language thing, I tell myself.

Still... there are many interesting and fun ways to become more Japanese-like.

There's learning the language - hell, I can barely speak English - how am I going to learn Japanese?

There's getting involved in cultural hobbies: ikebana (flower arranging); bonsai (tree bondage); drinking; pachinko (arcade time-waster); trying to pick-up gaijin women (did that), and learning how to cook (nearly burned down the place the first time I made tempura)... wait! What was that one I said? Drinking?.... Hmmm.

The Japanese love to drink alcohol. Not at work - which is most of their day - but when work-time is over and they have a few moments to themselves with their co-workers, before they need excuse themselves to go back home to their wife and kids, or to their mistress. 

Yes, believe it or don't, it's a well known fact that most Japanese men have a mistress on the side. And, as long as the wife doesn't know who, things are okay as long as there is food on the table and the bills are all paid.

Now... personally, I never heard of any of my male Japanese cohorts heading out for a quickie. I did my best to associate with good people with good intelligence. And while that doesn't necessarily mean you aren't going to cheat, at least they should know better. Unless it's a cultural thing.

Whew! I need a drink.

While beer and whiskey were very big amongst the Japanese - especially as they wanted to be more Western, I wanted to appear more Japanese and got my swerve on with Japanese rice wine (sake). 

Now I wasn't such a knob that I'd order sake when out with Matthew or Ashley. Naw... I'd have vodka-based drinks or rum-based drinks. Sake was the alcohol of  choice when the Japanese were involved, as they enjoyed themselves a little bit more (in my humble opinion) when you drank a Japanese drink.

I've already recounted quite a few episodes of me and sake, but should you wish, please have a sip again, and another. And another. It tastes like water doesn't it?

Now wait a few minutes, while you keep drinking wondering if it's ever going to make you feel drunk - and that's when it hits you like an apartment building falling on your head destroying your brain, your equilibrium, and your ability to form compl sentenc.

By now, you are long past caring what your brain is trying to do (hide), and continue to pour sake into your gullet. You've usually only had enough when your brain shuts down for the night and you pass out.

Man, I love sake.

My convection oven/microwave oven had a setting on it to warm up: one cup of sake; two cups of sake, and; three cups of sake. Seriously. That's how you know the Japanese are serious about sake.

Should you ever find yourself in a situation where you have to drink sake, please don't be as stupid as I have been. Sake. Water. Repeat. Don't forget to urinate. Once you open up the gates to whizz, you'll be going all night. This will help you avoid a bad hangover - which, by the way, I never, ever had. That's right... I never had a hangover. I've done irrepairable damage to my liver and self-esteem... but never have I spent a cold morning in the drum.   

So what's this blog about? Well, actually, I just wanted to show off some of my lovely sake bottles and glasses via photographs.

Sake bottles, when taken from a glass bottle, and placed into a decorative decanter, those decanters are called tokuri.

Actually, the tokuri are used more in the consumption of hot sake. The tokuri, filled with sake, are set in a bowl of hot water - but it's only immersed a tad around the base. You don't want to get the neck hot or no one will be able to grab it to pour it.

Now here's something interesting - the Japanese using different counters when counting objects of various sizes or shapes. For example, a beer bottle and a sake bottle are similar in shape, and are much different from a cat, (neko), let's say. The cat (and other small animals) has its own counter, in this case, it's hiki. One cat is spoken as 'ichi hiki no neko')... So how would you say one bottle of sake? It's not 'ichi hiki no tokuri'. It becomes 'ippon no sake'.

Hmm... can you see why learning Japanese is a bugger? There are counters for flat things, round things - actually, there are pretty much counters for all nouns.  

To avoid confusion when you are ordering, hold up one finger and say sake! That'll get you on your way to a good drunk-on.

Anyhow... check out my lovely sake cups and bottles.

Somewhere not hungover,

Andrew Joseph

Today's blog is by Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels. I chose Sock It To Me, Baby because of the similarity between that phrase and sake it to me, baby. Pretty lame, I know, but I was drunk when I came up with the idea.

PS: Did you know that Winona Ryder took "Ryder" as a stage name, after seeing a Mitch Ryder album in her father's collection? I didn't which is surprising seeing as how I remembered to include that fact here.

PPS: I wasn't drunk. In Japanese, being drunk is called 'yopparai'.