My First Enkai and Karaoke

I started school at the beginning of September, but for the first couple of weeks we had the Sports Festival. So I didn't really do any work. I just lounged around, helped to build tents, broke a tent, learned a new dance from the students and got sunburn.

As soon as it was finished, the teachers whisked me off for an enkai. I'd been told what to expect during this and what etiquette and behaviour was expected of me and I think I did pretty well. I don't know if I got lucky and was placed in a generally relaxed school, but a lot of things happened that night that I certainly wasn't expecting....

First off, one of the teachers brought with him a video of the highlights of the festival that day and, as there was a TV in the room, we hooked it up and I listened to them laughing and taking the mickey out of the students that messed up or looked silly (which I thought was quite mean).

Then it got weird.

While we were watching the students on the video making human pyramids, some of the teachers began to wonder if they could still do it too. Before I knew it, in the middle of this elegant party room was a human pyramid comprising some of the older teachers and the (female) principal on the very top!

After these rather astonishing acrobatics were over (seriously! One or two of those guys had to be my grandmother's age!) we headed off to a little karaoke bar on the other side of town. It was a nice little place, kind of like a lounge bar and there was already a group of tipsy middle-aged men there howling into a mike. The teachers took it in turns to sing slow love-songs (from what I could gather, still not having much Japanese under my belt, but the videos looked pretty sappy) and persuaded me to pick something from the English section. I was torn. I was actually quite a good singer, but I'd never done Karaoke before, so I was torn between following the trend and picking a slow song like they had done and hope I sounded okay, or do something totally different and possibly make an idiot of myself. It was basically a choice between showing off my voice or throwing myself in and enjoying the party for what it was.

I went for the latter and did something that, had I been in Western company, would have meant committing social suicide. I sang 'Wannabe' by the Spice Girls. And I brought down the house!