The Ladies Luncheon

Last week at the mushroom party, I talked with a woman who has a garden space where we do.  She asked me to meet her and her friends for lunch sometime and we exchanged email addresses.  After emailing back and forth several times, she in Japanese and I in English, I thought she invited me to lunch for yesterday, but wasn’t totally sure. I didn’t know any details of the lunch, which is par for the course in everything I do here.  Directions would be difficult, so she said she would pick me up at the entrance to the university. She drove us to the “cabin” of one of her friends, which was an artist studio several blocks from her friend’s first home.

 

Besides me, there were five women who regularly get together, four from Japan and one from China, who lives here now.

It turned out to be a very interesting afternoon.  They each had prepared an introduction in English for me and I gave them my brief introduction spiel in Japanese. With the help of three electronic dictionaries, they talked with me in English throughout the lunch.  They frequently lapsed into Japanese, with everyone talking at once, but someone would always remind them to speak in English.

 

There was a lot of delicious food and it was one woman’s birthday.  With three candles on a cheese cake, she joked that she was only 3 years old. After she blew out her candles, another woman held a spoon like a microphone and the birthday girl gave a little speech, concluding that she was wishing for a horse.

 

 

 

 

 It was a very entertaining luncheon and I laughed a lot even though I didn’t always know what was going on.  They were amazed I could eat with chopsticks, something I hear frequently.  I was amazed by all the interesting things they do. In addition to studying English, they are also learning Chinese.  Individually they are a gourmet cook, a piano student, a hula dancer; they do gardening, cross stitch, shibori, stained glass, and oil painting.  I look forward to hosting them in my home soon.