O-mikoshi after-party

You should read the post below this one first.

After the festival proper, we returned to the shrine. It was about 3:30 by now, a good six hours after arriving. And after a great deal of cleaning up, it was time for the after-party. This was to prove a very illuminating experience!!

The party was in the building on the shrine grounds, and loads of sushi and other foods were brought in and laid on tables. Everyone went in and sat down and got drinks, and so on. However, according to the etiquette of these things, nobody could start until everyone was there, everyone had a drink, and everyone had listened to eight or nine different speeches.

It was clear this was a significant community event, and there were lots of people giving speeches about how much money had been donated to the shrine, how everyone gave their best efforts, how each year was better than the year before, and how today we had guests even from overseas! In Australia, if people gave speeches they would usually wait until people had eaten, rather than while everyone is sitting, hungry, eyeing the food laid out in front of them.

But eventually we got the all-clear, and everyone commenced eating, drinking, and being merry. With, perhaps, an emphasis on the 'drinking' part. Pete and I were treated like honoured guests. Various important community figures came over to us and introduced themselves, or poured sake for us, or something. We met the local member of Parliament, as well as the custodian of the shrine. When they brought dishes of soup in, they made a beeline for me and gave me one first.

Pete and I only had a couple of drinks (it helps that I really dislike sake, and this was my third time drinking it that day; various people tried to pour us some, so I made sure to drink mine really slowly so I could legitimately decline, 'thanks, I already have some!').

Then the entertainment starts, and some older guys start playing traditional Japanese music. It's really, really great. The guys sitting at our table with us speak some English; I also get to practice lots of Japanese.

Suddenly, Pete and I are brought up to the front to give speeches. I am not especially nervous about giving a speech in front of 80 people. Mind you, I completely forget to introduce myself. I speak in Japanese. Everything I say is greeted with wild applause and cheering. I love Japanese people when they're drunk.

Pete gives his speech. He speaks in simple English. A fireman calls out, 'I LOVE YOU!!', immediately followed by 'I'M STRAIGHT!!' We both fall about laughing. I'm sure most of the audience have no idea why.

The traditional music resumes, and this time, some dancers wearing hilarious masks do some traditional Japanese dancing. Pete and I are invited to try. Even wearing a mask, I refuse to dance in front of 80 people, but Pete has no such qualms and cracks everyone up by doing disco and kung fu moves to the beat of taiko drums and Japanese bamboo flute...

After this, they haul up all the guys who carried the mikoshi for the first time (Pete is exempt). I don't fully understand this, but the guys have to introduce themselves, eat karaage (fried chicken), and then scull sake from the bottle. It starts to become surreal. The room is full of people in orange happi coats, cheering loudly. The guys on stage are sculling that sake at an alarming rate. We are concerned. They finish with a song and hastily devised dance routine.

The madness has not finished yet, however. Now a drinking game commences where someone goes to the front and has to scull from the bottle until it is taken away from them. Then they have to call someone else's name, and that person has to go up and do the same. Pete remarks that he has never seen adults drink like this; only college students. A lot of people are going red in the face. Half a bottle of sake is spilled.

I have heard that a lot of salarymen drink too much at parties with co-workers because of the social pressure to drink. Being able to drink a lot is a sign of manliness (I guess it's the same in most cultures...). After witnessing this party I can certainly understand that. If someone called your name at that party, with everyone cheering and calling out encouragement, it would be very hard to demur and say you don't drink. Pete says that every time he sees a drunk salaryman on the train now, he will imagine that he's been to a party like this one.

A guy starts to come to the front. I nudge Pete and tell him 'that's the local MP'. We both crack up because at the moment I say that, the guy is sashaying across the room, and proceeds to slug sake in front of dozens of drunken constituents...

Pete comments, truly, that he has 'never seen so much drinking with children present'. The children are in a kind of side room, and I don't see them at any point; I had assumed they had gone home, but after everything wraps up, they come out.

The evening finishes with more brief speeches, everyone standing and pretending to carry the mikoshi, and then doing a kind of conga line dance around the room, chanting 'seiya seiya'. Then the party is declared over, and with astonishing alacrity, the hitherto drunken carousers immediately start cleaning up the room, moving tables and running around with mops!

When we leave it's like we're leaving long-lost friends and we have to say goodbye several times to each person. You have never seen anything like the friendliness of Japanese people when they are in a group. Everyone tried to elicit promises from us to return next year, everyone asked us questions and welcomed us, everyone treated us with great kindness and really included us in the event. Despite the weirdness of the evening, there were so many really nice people in that neighbourhood. Even as we were leaving, people were pressing leftovers and drinks in our hands. I don't know if it's normal, or if we were treated special, but we didn't have to pay for anything the whole day.

So that was a very unique cultural experience for me, and one of my best days in Japan!