So we went out, for the funzies. There was me, this Danish guy, a Spanish guy, and maybe 5 Russians.We had just sat our entrance exam; the results of which would indicate which class we would end up taking. I was stressed about it (i'm always stressed about something), and so afterwards i felt like a drink.
So we went looking around town for somewhere for a drink. We went to a place called Rabbit but it was full, so we tried another place. The place we ended up drinking in was a little bit pricey but was very good. It makes you feel really cool drinking and smoking inside a bar, it feels so indulgent. I guess doing this was normal in Australia 30 years ago, but to me it felt like knowingly breaking one of your parents rules as a child, and knowing that you would be excused for it. There was a point in my life where i wanted to be a journalist; if i ever become one i think i would have to chain smoke at my desk, just because that's what you do if you're a journalist in my mind.
We got talking, i remember the conversation turning from Chinese language to Russian literature. It struck me that everyone at the table was in Japan because some guiding passion had taken hold of them and dropped them here. After law for a few semesters; i had completely forgotten that people actually enjoy study. I still have nightmares about Torts A. We all did a self intro of why we were here and what we were doing. Japanese language came up a lot, as did literature, as did manga. I explained i was here for the judo. I think i instantly became that weird guy at the table; but after a few drinks i didn't really mind all that much. There's something about moving to another country; your reputation feels so disposable. I explained that Judo was probably one of the best things i had ever done, that it gave me a direction in life, and that the best judo i had ever done was when i was so hungover i could barely speak. They humored me.
After a few drinks the Russians and the Spanish guy went home. I stayed out with the Danish guy; we got talking back in the Rabbit bar/restaurant ( ? not really sure how to classify drinking places in Japan). It turned out he could speak several languages, amongst them Chinese, English, Danish, Icelandic, and Japanese. He'd probably forgotten more vocabulary in foreign languages than i was ever capable of learning. He told me of an economic concept called the "sunk cost fallacy" where when if you invest an amount of capital into something expecting returns, only to find that it doesn't pay off; often people conclude that the most optimal reaction is to keep investing more capital. This is because people feel a connection over the prior capital that they invested, and that by giving more they increase the chances of getting it back, as opposed to cutting their losses and running. In practice it doesnt make a lot of sense. The saying "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing multiple times expecting different results"encapsulates it nicely.
He was explaining to me that this concept helped him understand his attachment to his study of Russian. He could have cut his losses at any time, left and started devoting time to another language or pursuit; but continued on due to a feeling that somehow the more time he gave to his study the better he would be.
It summed up my Judo training pretty much perfectly. There has been several times where i have wanted to quit, but didn't because of the thought that all of my time that i had invested would be wasted if cut my losses now. I trained 1 throw for 6 months, and in that time probably got worse at it, but stuck at it out of a sense of entitlement to the rewards that must be proportionate to the effort expended.
Anyway, so we were drinking in Rabbit, and he got talking to three Japanese women in the booth next to us. The tables were tightly packed together to make space, and were separated by translucent curtains. It turned out his Japanese was pretty good, he had spent a year on exchange in Kyoto. I tried to follow the conversation as best i could, but it was properly beyond my level. Meanwhile, one of the women wasn't sitting on the bench, but was kneeling next to it, next to me. While this conversation was going on she kept staring at me. It was really unnerving, like being stared at by a dog that has reason to expect you might feed it. What made it all the more stranger was that her head height was underneath me because she was crouching. It really did feel like being stared at from an animal or something. It was very flattering and all, but caught me off guard.
And that was about it. We had a few more drinks and went home. There doesn't appear to be as many alcohol laws here as there are in Australia, so you can finish up whenever it suits you. Everywhere in our area was shut by 2 though, so we stumbled back to the dormitory.
