Monday was our first large work dinner party - these occasions are very important in Japan for group bonding and because the social rules are relaxed enough for people to say things that need to be said. This particular dinner happened under the auspices of blessing our machine shop.
The Mechanical Engineering staffs from both KIT and KTC have an annual ceremony where the machine shop is blessed by Shinto priests - praying for the safety of the shop and the occupants thereof in the coming year. It was interesting, despite the fact that the audience spent a lot of time in long bows, and were therefore more able to observe their shoes than what was going on. Not necessarily optimal for our first Shinto ceremony.
First, an enormous bottle of Sake was opened to entice the protective deities to come down to hear our request that they protect the machine shop. A tree branch with white papers or something tied to it was waved over some machines and a representative from each group (KIT students, KTC students, lab workers, KIT teachers, KTC teachers, etc.) placed a small branch similar to the large one on the altar as an offering from each group to keep us safe while working on the machines in the coming year. There were also fruits and vegetables and other bottles of alcohol as offerings on the altars. A lot of clapping was also involved at various points - I think the kami might have ADD or something and need loud noises to keep their attention. After the ceremony, we went to a fairly traditional Japanese restaurant for dinner.
When you get off the bus at the restaurant, you check both your coat and your shoes before entering the dining hall. This dinner was very traditional for Japan, though thankfully it featured chairs instead of low cushions. Lee and I were seated at the table with the presidents of both KTC and KIT, which put us in pretty exhalted (and non-English speaking) company. The first few courses were already on the plate, which was covered by a paper with a pretty design printed on it. They had some speeches which are of course largely wasted on us, before getting to a toast or three involving the plum wine already on the plate.
Finally, the eating commenced, and beer and sake are brought out by the case. The beer glass is smaller than many juice glasses and a sake cup is about triple the size of a thimble. This is a good thing, because in Japan you can't fill your own glass - you fill for people around you and they fill for you. The trend is to be both generous in quantity and numerous in times pouring. Which means we had a bunch of sake and beer. Neither of which are our most favorite, though the beer is very light and dry and not bad and sake the sake was okay too.
Food-wise, there was crab, which is well prepared in that they cut open the crab legs for you instead of making you crack them open. There was also some pretty good soup, some sushi, fish ovaries (tasty, but my stomach churned), a huge snail or something, a bowl of green soba noodles, and a bunch of other things that I don't even remember. They kept on bringing dishes out, about ten different dishes in all. We ate everything, though it would have probably been better to have not known about the fish ovaries. It was a very enjoyable evening.
I mentioned that I'd taken a lot of pictures at the beginning of this post. I don't have any from the ceremony or the dinner. Therefore, please accept this picture of a giraffe. If the reference is unfamiliar, you may or may not want to click on this link.
edited to make the picture fit!
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