ぼねんかい - Bonenkai

It was Bonenkai (the hospital end of year party) last Friday night. There is no denying that May and I looked great. She wore a green dress that she had bought on Wednesday and I wore a red top that I'd bought the week before; Our hair was pretty; We had make-up on. All of these things were massive improvements on how we normally look at work – tired, uniform-clad and a little sweaty from all the bed-making. I think we surprised people a little actually. "Wow, they scrubbed up well, didn't they?" It turned out to be as formal an occasion as people wanted it to be - some of the staff wore suits, some wore jeans - so May and I felt nice and comfortable somewhere in the middle.

The party was at the hotel that is right next to the hospital. We pass it every day on the walk to work and it turned out to be very nice indeed on the inside. One thing I didn't like about the evening was that you had to pick your seat number out of a box at random, meaning you could wind up sitting next to complete strangers. That was half the reason for doing it, also there was a raffle at the end of the party based on seat numbers. It didn't really matter though because Kumiko-san arranged for May and me to sit with her at table 7 by talking a few members of staff into switching with us.

Once seated, the food promptly started to arrive, all of which was delicious. There were a lot of dishes that I didn't recognize, but that has never stopped me before from digging in and it didn't then. There was quite a lot of debate between a few of the doctors at our table over what the English name was for the meat in the soup. We had everything from 'seagull' to 'whale' put forward as suggestions. I think it might have been goose, but who knows?!


Part way through the meal, the performances started. Half a dozen or so of the departments gave a 5-10 minute performance and the senior members of staff had to judge the best for a prize of ¥50,000 (£214 – the same amount May and I get per month from the hospital). After the Kumamoto trip, I knew what to expect: Semi-nudity, group-participation and on-stage consumption of alcohol. Oh, and also wigs and cross-dressing. Needless to say, it was very entertaining. Mariko-san dressed up as a reindeer and threw a mango at a doctor in drag, with the aim of him catching it on a fork. He managed it two out of four times, in case you were wondering. Oka-san was up there, Nakashima-sensei and Imamura-sensei too. You would never think that such respected doctors are so willing to make complete fools of themselves in front of a room full of their work colleagues and friends, but apparently it is the complete opposite. Anyway, 4F won. I can't even bring myself to tell you what Imamura-sensei had to do to get the victory for his floor. *Shakes head in disbelief*. All I will say is that it involved a dominatrix. Enough said.

A sample of 7W's performance:


Yamaguchi-san (assistant nurse, 6E) came over to our table part way through the proceedings and gave May and me each a present: two pairs of tabi (Japanese split toe sock). I had yelped with delight at the inter-departmental volleyball tournament a few weeks ago when I had seen her wearing the most beautiful tabi I had ever come across. She obviously took note. You gotta love Yamaguchi-san :-)

Kumiko-san was very drunk by the time the party ended at 10:30. It was quite funny to watch her giggling to herself and tripping over her own feet. She asked us to forget this occasion in the future and although we won't be so cruel as to bring up her embarrassment again, there's no way I could forget her singing "All I Want For Christmas Is You" over a sobering cup of coffee in Mos Burger after the party.