Unlike my previous entry, “I Almost Get into a Fight”, this story is not really that exciting. Well, I guess the actual event was really exciting, but my involvement in it was minimal. Actually it’s probably pretty pathetic that I’m making a whole blog entry out of it.
Anyway, it was Saturday night out, and I was bar hopping with a couple friends. We went to a local bar in Gifu city, which was called “Bottoms Up.” “Bottoms Up” was having a birthday party for the bar owner, who was turning 38. In celebration the bar was having what is known in Japanese as a “nomihodai” or “all you can drink.”
Nomihodais are common in Japan. You pay a set fee and then you can get as absolutely trashed as you want. It’s usually a great money saver if you are a big drinker.
The problem for me is I don’t usually drink. So it is really a bad deal for me to pay about 30 bucks just to get in the door, and then drink oolong tea the whole time. I’m not really sure why I do it actually, except the two friends I was with wanted to check the party out. I rationalize it by saying that, since I don’t like drinking anyway, I would rather pay 30 bucks and not drink than pay 30 bucks and drink. I’m not sure if that makes a lot of sense or not.
Anyway, it’s a nomihodai. Everyone is getting really drunk, and I’m in the middle of it all sipping my oolong tea, easily the only sober person in the bar. The bar owner himself gets so drunk that he passes out and is sleeping on the floor.
“Bottoms Up” is what’s known as a “Gaijin bar”. Sorry, that’s Japanese again. It means “Foreigner bar.” Of course that doesn't mean it’s exclusively foreigners. But on any given night, the population in the bar will be about half foreign.
Of course you would think that if there was any trouble it would be started by those unruly foreigners. But on this particular night the fight was started by a couple native Japanese people.
I’m still not sure what the fight was about. I heard a crashing sound and saw a bar stool had been knocked over. I thought someone had fallen off their chair, but then realized two Japanese men were wrestling and punching each other.
A bunch of people ran in to try and break up the fight, but then another fight seemed to break out between two other people. Again, I’m not really sure what happened. I think in the rush to break up the fight, a stray punch hit someone it shouldn't have, and then that person tried to hit back and a new fight broke up. All I could see was a rush of people and then more fighting. Like I said, I was easily the only sober person at this place, and you know how these drunken bar fights go.
“Bottoms Up”, like all bars in Japan, is really small and narrow. It’s not a good place to contain a fight. Everyone was getting shoved around. One of the glass doors was shattered when a couple combatants crashed into it. Then there was some screaming as a few girls got pushed into the shattered glass. Lots more people were trying to break up the fight, but from my perspective it was hard to tell who was trying to break the fight up and who was fighting. Again, it was a drunken bar fight, so I think at times the line may have been blurred between the two.
The bar owner, as I mentioned, had passed out long ago. There were about four girls who worked behind the bar, and they did their best to stop the fighting. On one hand they were rather small and petite and ineffective in this role. On the other hand they were all quite good looking, and I thought to myself no guy would ever hit them even if they got right in the middle of things. So in this way they were a calming influence. On the other hand, I think because they were so good looking a lot of people wanted to try and help them break up the fight, and the more people who got in the middle of things the more confusing it all got.
As I mentioned in my previous post about fighting, I’m no hero, and I was quite content to just sit at my bar stool, sip oolong tea, and watch it all unfold. I would make comments to the girl sitting next to me like, “Oh wow, isn't this exciting.” Or, “Wait, who’s fighting who now?”
One of the two Japanese men who had started the whole fight was sitting close to where I was. By this time the fight had moved on to other people, but he was obviously still fuming and obviously still mad at somebody. And then he stood up, grabbed a bar stool, and ran forward as if he was going to bash someone’s head in with it.
I don’t know how well you can picture this, but it was an ordinary bar stool, or maybe more of a bar chair, because it did have a back to it. It was made of iron, or some metal anyway. It had four legs all connected to the seat at the top, and then near the end of the legs there was another thin ring connecting them again. Do you know what I’m talking about?
Anyway, as he ran by me, I stood up and hooked my arm around the ring near the base of the legs. So, he kept going, but the bar stool stayed with me and slipped out of his hands. He paused briefly, and then plunged back into the fight anyway without the barstool.
But that’s not to say I had control of the barstool. I just had my elbow hooked around it; I didn't have a firm grip on it. So the barstool fell to the ground.
It all happened so quickly, so I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think the barstool hit anyone on its way to the ground. Nevertheless the people around me all glared at me. Perhaps they were just upset at the situation and just happened to be looking in my direction. But I was expecting someone to come up and say, “Good show Joel. Your quick thinking in a tight spot saved someone from having their head bashed in by a barstool, and stopped a bad situation from getting worse.” No one did. Even the girl I was talking with at the time, rather than congratulate me, decided the situation was getting too dangerous and ran into the bathroom to hide.
Even though I didn't think it was my fault, I decided to “do the Japanese thing” and apologize to the people around me anyway. Shortly after the police were called and the fighting eventually stopped.
“The bar owner’s really going to be in trouble,” someone said to me. “Look at him. He’s still passed out.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “This is Japan. If there’s one place that it’s okay to get drunk and pass out, it’s here.”
“But bartender’s aren't supposed to drink on duty. The police are going to say he lost control of his bar because he got drunk. This isn't going to go well for him at all.”
As the police arrived and started interviewing people, my friend said to me, “Come on, we better get out of here.”
“Why?” I asked. “We didn't do anything wrong. We don’t have anything to worry about.”
“Yeah, I know, I just don’t want to get involved.”
So we left the bar, along with most of the other people who were leaving at the same time. I was still half waiting for someone to congratulate me for the barstool incident, but I don’t think anyone else had really noticed. It was a small bar, so almost everyone there had some sort of battle story, whether being hit by a wrong punch, or being cut by the glass, or something. My little incident with the barstool suddenly didn't seem that impressive after all.
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