Tsukuba Monogatari: 26th post
Yokota-san, who had been in one of the first groups trained in the U.S., attended my send-off. Yokota-san may have been a classic example of style-switching gone awry. I was never able to determine whether his abrasiveness was innate or a misguided effort to adopt a more Western style, and all efforts to get him to modify his style were in vain. But I liked the guy.
Yamazaki-san arrived and, perhaps conscious of his recently diagnosed ulcer, made a point of sitting at the same side of the table as Yokota-san but at the far end (i.e., as far away as possible). I had always known about the Japanese using seating arrangements to acknowledge hierarchy, but trust Yamazaki-san to come up with his own twist.
Koizumi-san arrived late and took the remaining seat, which was directly across from Yokota-san. I wondered if I should warn him. Engaging in an argument with Yokota-san (and if one engages, an argument is unavoidable) is rather like being attacked by a pit bull. I could just see his jaws locking on the hapless Koizumi-san, the happy terrier.
But terriers are fast, and we managed to enjoy the evening despite one near-spat over The Company’s performance appraisal system, deftly averted by myself and the speedy Koizumi-san, working in tandem like sheepdogs. We ended the evening with a toast to the upcoming holiday season.
“Seating.” Courtesy of Yuichi Sakuraba. Licensed under cc by NC 2.0
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