21 January 2008
Enter the 合コン(Goukon)
This Saturday, I had the pleasure of attending a Goukon, an arranged gathering of male and female intended to precipitate some sort of courtship scenario. My friend coordinated the entire event, whereby myself and four Japanese friends of mine went out to dinner with a like-numbered group of Japanese girls. Needless to say, it was a very Japanese experience.
I met my friends and we proceeded to the rendezvous with the ladies, and my companions exuded confidence that this was going to be a successful night, perhaps even culminating in a full evening's companionship. I was unconvinced, not of my own skills are parley with the fairer sex, but with the whole charade. When we met our four counterparts, my first impression was that they were all quite attractive, that their sense of fashion was purely Japanese (read: bewildering) and that this was going to end with everyone going home alone. How right I was.
We walked to the nearby restaurant where we were the sole patrons. We sat comfortably at a corner table and were arranged in a, in retrospect, completely unremarkable boy-girl seating arrangement. I was sitting in the middle and could easily converse to all four of the ladies. We had an endless supply of drinks - perhaps Japan's greatest contribution to its foreign guests, and a full course of food which was about as vegetarian friendly as Hannibal Lecter's House of Ribs. Our discourse was equally quotidian and I knew my friends and I were in dire straits when the girls started to saunter over to the bar to refill their drinks and then sat down to banter with the bar staff for extended periods of time. Still, the drinks flowed freely and at the end of our evening, I considered the experience as a whole, a positive one.
And so we returned to the station where we had greeted our female companions, bowed respectfully and went on our way. No one seemed to be disappointed by the result, and I was in no way mystified by the outcome. The night was still young, however, and so I left my compatriots and headed downtown and the night truly began with a night out with the usual suspects...
I met my friends and we proceeded to the rendezvous with the ladies, and my companions exuded confidence that this was going to be a successful night, perhaps even culminating in a full evening's companionship. I was unconvinced, not of my own skills are parley with the fairer sex, but with the whole charade. When we met our four counterparts, my first impression was that they were all quite attractive, that their sense of fashion was purely Japanese (read: bewildering) and that this was going to end with everyone going home alone. How right I was.
We walked to the nearby restaurant where we were the sole patrons. We sat comfortably at a corner table and were arranged in a, in retrospect, completely unremarkable boy-girl seating arrangement. I was sitting in the middle and could easily converse to all four of the ladies. We had an endless supply of drinks - perhaps Japan's greatest contribution to its foreign guests, and a full course of food which was about as vegetarian friendly as Hannibal Lecter's House of Ribs. Our discourse was equally quotidian and I knew my friends and I were in dire straits when the girls started to saunter over to the bar to refill their drinks and then sat down to banter with the bar staff for extended periods of time. Still, the drinks flowed freely and at the end of our evening, I considered the experience as a whole, a positive one.
And so we returned to the station where we had greeted our female companions, bowed respectfully and went on our way. No one seemed to be disappointed by the result, and I was in no way mystified by the outcome. The night was still young, however, and so I left my compatriots and headed downtown and the night truly began with a night out with the usual suspects...
