During my training sessions for the JET Program, I was told over and over again the importance of protocol and first impressions in Japanese culture. There was a strict set of rules for every social interaction imaginable, from exchanging business cards (receive the card with both hands, positioned lower than those of your superior’s, and do not put the card away immediately) to drinking (wait for everyone to drink together, and do not pour your own drink.) I had a chance to practice my approach to these new Japanese situations during my training, but I was worried that in real practice, I would fumble and offend someone horribly. After my first week teaching in Japan, I was invited to an “enkai”, or formal party, and thus came my first chance to use what I had learned

The enkai was scheduled on a weekday after school. At the end of the school day, while all the other teachers stayed on campus, I was told to go home and return at five-thirty and to ride a bike. I had driven to school, and assumed that my instructions were given to prevent my driving drunk home. My orders to go home also gave me an opportunity to change into a suit. Although I had worn a shirt and tie to school, suits are the standard work wear in Japan. Even the train conductors wear them. In my JET Resource Manual, it was suggested that suits be worn to enkais and formal ceremonies. So taking that advice, I put on my only suit and rode my bike through the rice paddies and along the train tracks back to school. It was the first time I’d ever ridden a bike in a suit.

A few of my ALT colleagues in town had told me about their welcome enkais, how they’d gone to restaurants in town that had been quite good. I expected that I’d be doing the same. When I arrived back at school, however, I was met by a teacher at the front gate, who then motioned for me to follow her into the school. We proceeded through the hallway on the first floor, and stopped at a door where it appeared most of the staff’s shoes were arranged neatly. This must be a very special classroom for everyone to take off their shoes, I thought. But instead of entering a classroom, I opened the door to find myself in a fully furnished apartment. The staff was busy preparing food for the party. A group of teachers was in the kitchen washing and cutting and vegetables, while another group was setting the table in the living room. There was a patio area past the living room where another group of teachers was grilling fish on a barbeque, and smoke from the barbeque rose past the ivied wall that separated the patio area from school’s main field.

I wondered whether students knew that this place existed.

The frenetic scene before me was not the solemn and formal welcome enkai I expected. What’s more, I was the only person in formal wear-most of the other teachers were wearing Addidas and Puma sweat suits. One of the PE teachers pointed at what I was wearing, and after some consultation with my English teachers, I learned that the teacher had said: “too formal, relax.”

The party began with a toast from the kocho-sensei, or principal, and everyone drank their first sip of alcohol together, in the fashion described in my JET manual. The glasses were tiny, about the size of my fist, and it puzzled me how anyone could get drunk from such a tiny glass. I began picking at the food, which was placed on large plate in the middle of the table, and I remembered reading in the JET manual how one should turn one’s chopsticks to the wider, unused end when taking food from a communal plate.

Apparently, some of the teachers around me had taken an interest in the way I was using my chopsticks. I was seated next to one of my English teachers, who translated what her fellow teachers asked me. “Why do you use your chopsticks like that?” she asked. I replied that I had learned to turn my chopsticks from a textbook, to which she said, “It is unnecessary with familiar people.” I had been working at the school for less than a week, and hearing those words was reassuring.

As the evening progressed, more and more teachers came to talk with me. Each came with a bottle of beer, and each insisted on refilling my glass-which was how the logic of the small glasses became clear to me. With beer and time, the staff and I became friendlier, and when my English teachers left the party before the rest of the staff, I wasn’t worried about fumbling socially or offending someone horribly.