Filling it up

It is party season here in Japan. In the past two weeks, I have drank more than I should... Goodbye parties, welcome parties, and let’s not forget the ‘let’s drink a bottle of wine in the park and then go for Nomihodais where a robot from the future will try and take your money’ parties.
So now that I am sitting at my desk and my liver is failing me, I feel it is my duty to tell you about a Japanese custom. When having dinner or parties, you cannot, under no circumstances, fill up your own drink. EVER. Usually, if the people sitting next to you are efficient, your glass will always be full. You need to be a good neighbour too. I have developed a sixth sense, I scope the table and look for glasses that are less than 70% full and BAM, I get up and serve people like a trained waiter. And when I get back to my place, my drink is full too. It’s a great system because it gets the party going and it’s super-polite. But also, it’s a bad system because you can be responsible for getting people drunk. My co-worker was sleeping before the end of the party because of my efficient service, and when he woke up, he looked like a cooked lobster with really really blood-shut eyes.

This is the conversation we had in japanese:

‘Are you alright?’
‘Pierre-sensei, you made me drunk’
‘Well I was just being Japanese’
‘Well maybe you should be more Chinese (?!?! I don’t get it, drunk talk, he was laughing)
‘...hmm... ok. You want another drink buddy?’
‘haggushsgavgagva’

And he fell asleep again... I win