Way Too Polite For My Own Good

In July 1991, I attended Canon's annual summer office party, held on the rooftop beer garden at the Odakyu Department Store in Nishi-Shinjuku, Tokyo.

A few weeks into my internship, I had already gained a reputation for being able to hold my liquor -- a skill whose social importance in Japan should not be underestimated. Even though some Asians -- like my father-in-law -- apparently cannot produce the enzyme that metabolizes alcohol, leaving them unable to drink booze, drinking plays a very large part in Japanese social life, and "strong" drinkers, as they are called, are held in high esteem. Although being able to hold your liquor may be a virtue in some circles in the US, our history of religiously-inspired opposition to alcohol consumption has made alcohol use somewhat less than universally acceptable, and before I went to Japan I thought that calling someone a "big" drinker carried a veiled accusation of alcoholism. But alcohol use does not have a stigma in Japan, and people like my father-in-law are somewhat ashamed -- or at least very inconvenienced -- by being unable to drink. Being labeled a "strong" drinker in Japan always struck me as a bit ironic, since I had always considered myself a lightweight, notwithstanding that I was a founding member of a drinking society in my senior year at Harvard -- a fact that only enhanced my drinking cred in Japan.

My colleagues entered me into the beer chugging contest, which I learned when my name was called over the PA. I duly won the first round, which meant that I had to participate in the second round. But, while waiting for the second round to start, I drank liberal amounts of sake along with my colleagues, so that by the second round, I had a pretty good buzz going. To this day, I still believe that I finished my beer the fastest of anyone in the second round, but in my state, I forgot to raise the glass over my head to prove it. I did not get to proceed to the third and final round, which was probably just as well. I did not stop from drinking more sake, however.

At 9:00 p.m. sharp, the party ended. Because all Japanese restaurant reservations last exactly two hours, all Japanese parties do, too, although an after-party, the nijikai (literally, the "second gathering"), usually follows. When someone asked if anyone knew a place to go for the nijikai, I -- who had been there only for a matter of weeks at this point -- piped up that I knew the perfect place, a German-style beer hall near Shinjuku Station. No one else knew it, so I led the way.

Upon arriving at the beer hall, I immediately ordered an enormous tankard. But, I was already feeling a but queasy and, after drinking a quarter of it, I felt even moreso. When one of the women whose dorm was on the same train line as mine announced that she was leaving, I decided to go, too. We bid the others farewell, walked the short distance to Shinjuku Station, and boarded the Yamanote Line for Shibuya Station. The side-to-side swaying of the train hurtling down the tracks toward the first stop, Yoyogi Station, made me feel even worse, and shortly after the train departed from Yoyogi, I knew that I would not be able to keep the contents of my stomach where they were. Somewhere between Yoyogi and Harajuku Station, it started coming up.

Being terribly embarrassed about throwing up on a train in such a nice, clean and orderly country like Japan, I did the only thing I could think to do: I cupped my hands and threw up into them. Then I rode the rest of the way between Yoyogi and Harajuku with a stinking pint beer, sake, chicken, squid, crackers, cheese, bile, stomach acid and god-knows-what-else in my cupped hands. In the days when foreigners were still relatively rare in Tokyo, I must have been quite the amazing sight: a white gaijin sitting on the train, with puke all over his white dress shirt, holding a pint of puke in his hands. I waited until we reached Harajuku Station, got off the train, threw the vomit onto the tracks, and wiped my hands on some discarded newspaper.

My colleague, who was very worried about me, got off the train too, got me some water, and waited with me for a half-hour or so until I was able to board the train to Shibuya Station. But after arriving, I knew I could never survive the hour-long trip on the Denentoshi Line back to distant Fujigaoka, Yokohama, plus the fifteen-minute up-the-hill-and-down-again walk to my dormitory. I borrowed some money from my colleague and found a taxi. I am sure that this was the driver's worst nightmare -- a drunk gaijin covered in already vomit who was likely to throw up again in his cab -- but I was already in the cab by the time he realized this, so he was out of luck. Fortunately, I did not throw up in the cab, but I did have to ask the driver to pull over once so I could throw up again, which I think he appreciated. Not all hairy barbarians are actually barbaric. The ride also cost me about $100.

The irony of being afraid to vomit on the train was that, as any Japan-hand will tell you, people in Tokyo throw up on the train all the time, without much embarassment at all -- a natural consequence of Japan being such a hard-drinking country. Riding on a commuter line to the suburbs at 9:00 or 10:00 p.m., when the salarymen are heading home after drinking with their colleagues, there are so many drunks on the trains that the problem becomes how to avoid getting puked on. Subway platforms are covered in vomit late at night. But, by morning, it's all been cleaned up, so you'd never know it was there -- unlike New York, where people throw up in public less frequently but the vomit can feed roaches and rats for days before someone with the power or will to do anything about it notices its existence.

I drank too much on many more occasions during my years in Japan. But I learned not to enter any more beer-chugging contests, not to mix beer and sake, and to drink within walking distance of home whenever possible.