Once again, I shall be blathering on about Japanese drinking culture. Today’s lecture is all all about the….gokon.
A “gokon” is a fun Japanese custom for young single people, essentially a group blind date. A guy approaches a girl he likes, then they each invite three or four single friends of the same gender as them, for a little party. “Go” means combination, and “kon” comes from “konpa” (”party”). So gokon means “combined party,” as in two groups of friends mixing together.
It’s quite a nice concept I think, and cuts out the awkwardness of solo dating. The Japanese are famously shy and retiring, so having the company of your pals makes dating significantly less nerve-wracking. At a gokon, even the most timid soul can meet a member of the opposite sex without crapping their pants or developing a stress ulcer. Also, for the girls, it’s a much safer alternative to having a date on your own with a total stranger, who may or may not be the reincarnation of Jack the Ripper.
There are other perks to the gokon method of dating. If none of the girls or boys at the gokon take your fancy, you can just get drunk, play party games, or chat to your friends. Plus, if you do plan on getting serious with anyone you meet at a gokon, you know in advance what kind of annoying friends you’re going to have to put up with in the future.
I, myself, was once persuaded by a friend to attend a gokon. He had taken a shining to a girl who worked in the Subway sandwich shop he went to for lunch most days, and he asked her out. The girl proposed a gokon, with three other girls from the shop, so my friend dragged me and two other curious mates along.
We all went to a funky sci-fi-themed izakaya called Dementia, or something like that. As is customary at gokons, the girls all sat along one side of the table, and the boys on the other side. Apparently it’s normal at these shindigs for the two groups to whisper among each other about who they’re keen on, or even email each other on their phones. “I got first dibs on the one on the left. Hands off!” I wasn’t aware of this custom at the time, and thought the girls’ conspiratorial behaviour was quite unsettling. What were they plotting? I was getting quite paranoid.
One major setback that we hadn’t was anticipated was that only one of the girls could speak English and none of us guys could speak Japanese, which meant the conversation was about as absorbing as reading the back of a shampoo bottle. Doh! This was a grim turn of events for someone who enjoys a little flirtatious wordplay. There was only one thing to do in that situation. Drink!
In the end, my gokon experience was pretty uneventful, and no coupling happened (that I know of!) but I’m in favour of the gokon system in theory. If you and your friends are single, you could do worse than setting up a gokon. Just, whatever you do, don’t coyly approach a stranger and suggest a “gokan” because “gokan” means “rape.” This pronunciation mistake, as I have learned from experience, does not go down well at all.
The other night, after another barnstorming booze binge, I clumsily fumbled with my keys outside my tiny apartment, trying not to piss-off the neighbours, before tumbling through the door. I’d had a debauched and hedonistic night with my friends in a string of bars, including a karaoke place which had a selection of novelty costumes for its patrons to wear. A mental time was had by all, and I’d used my phone camera to capture my pals and myself in various states of drunken abandon, jiving and singing in schoolgirl uniforms and the like.
Someone begged me to share these hilarious pictures over the internet, so I decided to send them from my phone to my PC, so I could stick them on Facebook. With my drunken sausage fingers I selected “ME” from the list of contacts on my phone and sent the pictures to my computer email address. Hey presto! Isn’t technology wonderful?
With hindsight, I should have waited until I was sober before attempting this minor act of technological wizardry.
When I later checked my email, the photos hadn’t arrived. Upon examining my phone I realized where I’d gone wrong. Thanks to the alcohol-induced blurred vision, I hadn’t mailed the pics to “ME,” I’d mailed them to “MIE,” who is my landlady. Mie is a rather reserved middle-aged woman, who is constantly nit-picking about the correct separation and disposal of rubbish, and other such matters. Quite what she thought when, at four AM, she received a picture of me dressed in a much-too-small monkey costume and guzzling from a pitcher of beer, is anyone’s guess but I’m expecting the eviction notice any day now.
Oh well, it could have been worse. I could have been trying to send naked pictures of myself to “Adult Friend Finder.” That would have led to all sorts of confusion.
The Italian restaurant below took my interest not because they spelled “Italian” with an “R”, but because its name is not Italian but English, and it has nothing at all to do with cuisine (unless they serve kitten pizzas.) Apparently the Japanese obsession with all things cute even infects the restaurant industry!
The stories I’ve written that consistently get the most hits are one about a penis-themed festival in Kawasaki, and one called “beer and bikinis” about Japanese beer posters.
This is largely down to people Googling the word “penis” or the word “bikini” and then finding my site. Now, I can see why people might be drawn to something called “Beer and Bikinis,” as they are two very fine things, but the story isn’t so great. To compensate, I made a much better post featuring lots of women in bikinis holding foaming glasses of beer but, bafflingly, no-one ever reads that! I’m curious to see what happens as a result of me writing a post called “penis and bikinis.”
Today is Valentine’s day. In Japan this means men are lovingly showered with gourmet chocolates and gifts, and women get absolutely nothing at all. Yes, the roles are entirely reversed, like in some weird parallel universe! At home I’d be lucky to get anything more than a card on February the 14th, but that’s not the case here. When I was working for a conversational English school, Japanese housewives and schoolgirls would indulge me with boxes of expensive chocolates and home-made cakes. While this is brilliant news for me, it’s an utterly crap day for Japanese women.
The concept has been freakishly warped en route to Japan. March the 14th is “White Day,” which is when men, in turn, are expected to buy presents for the women who gave them chocolates. By then, of course, there’s no risk involved! A guy can give a gift to a girl, safe in the knowledge that she is keen. There’s no embarrassment, rejection or hurt pride (unless, of course, you’re a Japanese girl.)
So, in a curious twist on traditional romantic roles, the men take on the timid, submissive role, while all the boldness, risk-taking and chivalry is done by the ladies. Gotta love this country!
And they wonder why so many Japanese girls run off with foreign men.
What am I doing tonight? Well, my boss has decided to have a leaving party for a co-worker, and I have to go. On Valentines day of all days! Clearly he has all the romantic instincts of a nine year old misogynist. If I had called my ex-girlfriend in England on Valentine’s Day and said “Sorry, let’s cancel dinner tonight, I’m going out drinking with the boss!” I would have arrived home to find my clothes and belongings strewn all over the front lawn, shortly before having my balls ripped off with a pair of pliers. Evidently, Japanese wives are endlessly patient. And at least, if hubby spends the most romantic day of the year out boozing with his pals, it means the wife doesn’t have to spend all day slaving in a hot kitchen, baking chocolate cakes.
Ah, Tokyo, city of romance.
Hi! I’ve just published a very puerile and silly book about English teachers in Japan, which you can buy here, and soon on Amazon.com hopefully.
It’s basically a lot of raunchy and grotesque true stories, (some of which showed up ages ago on this blog) and it reads like a sort of offensive children’s book.
Before you ask, my real name isn’t Rex Chesney. I just made that up- if my boss happened to Google my real name and found out I’d written a book about English teachers getting wasted, puking and shagging, it wouldn’t be good, hence the pseudonym.
Here’s the blurb from the back of the book:
“The vast majority of English teachers in Japan are horny and hedonistic travellers, desperate to delay their adulthood by drinking as much as is humanly possible and shagging anything with a pulse.”
Outrageous, grotesque, and frequently hilarious, “Sensei-tional” is a collection of true tales about the misadventures of language teachers in the Land of the Rising Sun.
Rex Chesney has been teaching in Tokyo for several years and here he compiles the most jaw-dropping anecdotes he has heard from his colleagues or experienced himself. Stories of drunkenness, debauchery and ineptitude, with a cast of gangsters, stalkers, transsexuals and hyperactive five-year-olds.
When you are an English teacher in Japan, anything can happen.
Today I have been writing this blog for exactly a year, and there’s no sign yet of me running out of booze-related stories from Japan.
Just the other day I was reading about a programme on Fuji television that was broadcast in 1995, called “Drinking Battle Royal”, in which ten celebrities had to guzzle as much wine, beer and whiskey as possible in an hour. A good, wholesome, family show. Seven women ended up being hospitalized with alcohol poisoning! “We may not do it again for a while,” a Fuji spokesman said. Ha!
What a concept for a show!
Anyway, to celebrate my anniversary I thought I’d post some of my favourite Japanese Youtube videos. You may well have seen all of these already, but if not, enjoy…
First off, a demented TV show which combines aerobics with English study. Here, they teach viewers how to deal with muggers.
Next, a technically impressive but quite scary and possibly insane woman freestyle dances on the streets of Shinjuku.
Here’s some funny toilet humour from an old hidden-camera show.
Here’s a great video a friend of mine has made of Tsukiji fish market in the morning. He has a knack of making Japan look foreign and exotic to me, even after being here for six years.
(Or maybe it’s just because a lazy sod and I’m not usually up that early in the morning, unless I’m staggering home from an all-night booze-binge!)
I’ve recently happened upon a pretty good site called Buy Absinthe- link to homepage Buy Absinthe, which is all about the incredibly strong and supposedly hallucinogenic green booze favoured by Victorian poets and painters.
As an aspiring writer and generally bohemian kind of a character, I am drawn to this potent green elixir and I sometimes glug it to fuel my late night literary endeavours. This brain-scrambling concoction gives you a weird buzz, and makes wandering around the day-glo streets of Tokyo even more fun and surreal than before.
It’s an acquired taste- my first impression was of ouzo mixed with mouthwash, but I grew to like it after a few helpings.
Of course, Absinthe can be expensive and hard to get hold of in Japan, but you can order a variety of different blends for decent prices from Buy Absinthe Alcohol, and they’ll deliver it. It’s an ideal gift for the jaded drunkard who has drunk everything (such as me).
Epicurean absinthe purists wouldn’t approve of guzzling the green potion straight from the bottle just to get utterly wasted. According to the site, the best way to appreciate it is to place sugar on a spoon and gently pour the Absinthe over the sugar, then slowly pour some water over the sugar until it melts, and stir with the spoon.
(Sticking a funnel into your mouth and upending the bottle into it is not advised, then.)
There are almost as many traditions and rules as there are at a Japanese tea ceremony. I wonder if I could advertise my services as an Absinthe master and teach people how to mix the stuff. I could probably blag this after reading the site.
This site only sells the classy, good Absinthe. We’re told to buy the French and Swiss brands which stick to the original recipe, and avoid low-price bottles from Eastern Europe- the ones which are about 90% proof and have over-the-top, trippy labels with pictures of spaced-out hippies, and names like “Head-Mash Absinthe.”
You can even buy absinthe-spoons and fountains from Buy Absinthe Alcohol, and have a decadent, psychedelic version of a fondue party.
It’s obviously been put together by someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of Absinthe- there’s a comprehensive history of the drink, a list of absinthe cocktails, and various facts and trivia about the intoxicating green moonshine. Did you know…?
- It was invented in the 1600s by a French doctor who used it to cure ailments like period pains and rheumatism.
- It was banned during World War 1 because it was thought to make people lazy or imbalanced and likely to commit a crime? Yikes!
- It’s illegal to make or sell it in the US, but not to drink or own it. That’s a tricky rule to get around!
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Alcohol, Fun, Japan, drinking | Tagged: Dating, Gokon, Japan, Japanese, Party, Tokyo | 
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