Everyone loves a corporate do

Happy Advent, everyone - hope you're enjoying your daily fix of chocolate (or your sense of moral superiority if you're one of those people who doesn't believe in Cadbury's Advent calendars).

I thought I would share my afternoon's activities with you. Picture the scene - we're in a rather upmarket hotel's basement function room, there are tables but no chairs spaced through the room, and lots of young people with name badges on that I couldn't read because they were in kanji. It was the end of year party for Kitazawa scholarships - which are provided by an electronics company and are for Japanese university students who get a bit of extra money each term in return for being academic, going to good universities and being generally presentable.

The food was very good but continually unexpected. I say 'continually', despite its sounding a little awkward, because there was a definite time sequence involved. To start with, flames were lit on candles underneath silver-coloured platters, but there was no food. We stood and listened politely to endless speeches (in rapid-fire Japanese that I had no hope of understanding) and I, at least, looked over longingly at the food table and wondered when we would be set free on it. Magically, between glances, it became laden with delicious posh buffet dishes. There was fried rice with interesting grains in it, chilli prawns, something that tasted like chilli con carne on croutons, a deconstructed salade nicoise, baked salmon, dark glazed pork with peppers and more. Just when you'd tackled most of what was on offer, a stack of bowls appeared, with little red watering cans next to them. These turned out to be bright green cold soba noodles flavoured with green tea powder, seasoned with condiments including spring onions and wasabi and dressed with a soy-based broth (which is what was in those watering cans). Not everyone's idea of a good time but I love them. Then, after a suitable pause for a quick trip to the bar for a glass or two of wine, sushi trays were delivered to each table. There had been little red trays with a small well to one side since the start of the meal, and it turned out these were special portable sushi receptacles, complete with a place to put soy sauce. The Japanese students next to us were very surprised at our ability to eat raw fish: there's often a presumption that Westerners won't be able to cope. After that, a pancake stand magically materialised over the other side of the room. The first mouthful of the crepes revealed that not only were they frying pan-fresh, they had put in a good slug of Grand Marnier as well. By this point, several of the older Japanese men present had rather red cheeks, and could be heard laughing heartily as they back-slapped each other. To top it all, just as we thought everything had finished, dainty little mousses arrived, in a variety of flavours. Most impressive, I thought.

In amongst all this imbibing of food and drink was the microphone, which was in constant use for the whole event. I have yet to learn when it's necessary to listen politely and look like I understand, and when it's OK to talk amongst ourselves - this must be something Japanese kids are taught in school or something, as they could all sense when to ignore the speaker and when to listen reverently. Every so often, the speaker would say something (often along the lines of 'yoroshiku onegai shimasu' - roughly 'pleased to meet you') and would bow, at which point the whole room bowed back to them. There was an awful lot of clapping as well. Then came the point at which I managed to make out the word 'igirisu' (England), at which point I started to worry a little. Sure enough, the other Daiwas and I were prodded onto the stage with Okuyama-san, the director of the Tokyo office for our programme. He got out his sheet and started giving a little introduction of each person, at the end of which he paused, the person in question bowed and everyone else clapped. I was fourth in line so thought I had this down. When it got to my name, though, Okuyama-san leaned over so he could read my namebadge (we've met many, many times already, and he had a sheet of paper with my photo, name and one paragraph profile in his hand...!), said that I had gone to Oxford in an unsure-sounding voice, then segued straight onto the next person. I was very confused and did a half-bow, and there was an awkward faint ripple of claps before people gave up and listened to the next introduction. Very odd.

Not quite as odd, though, as the organised fun that followed the food. I had noticed the presence of 'gemu' (games) on the schedule, and sure enough, games there were. The first one consisted of lots of people standing on stage, and each being given a slip of paper. They then had to perform an action, and (as far as I could make out) one person did something different, and was the odd one out. There was a complicated points system contingent on who spotted which person it was, and what they were doing instead of the mainstream action. After that, there was an 'IQ test', with puzzles that the people on our team dutifully showed us but which were full of Japanese we couldn't read. They tended to be maths-based, though some were more like riddles, I think. Points were earned from that as well, depending on whether you guessed the answer before anyone else. At the end of the tournament, if I can call it that, our table came in last place, surprising nobody! Right at the end, there was a rock-paper-scissors competition, for which the prize was allegedly a Nintento DSi! I had to go soon after that but was given a big wall calendar as a farewell gift. All in all, a lovely event, but full of things I didn't quite understand...