Today is the day of J-List’s official New Year Party, and when we’re done with work we’ll all gather at an izakaya (traditional Japanese bar-restaurant) to officially mark the start of another year for our company. I write a lot about how you can understand Japan through kata, a word that can mean shape or mold but in this case refers to pre-defined social forms that everyone adheres to, and formal get-togethers like this are definitely important in Japanese organizations. While most companies might prefer to hold a Year-End Party in December as a way of saying otsukaresama deshita (“thank you for your hard work”) to employees over the past year, J-List is too always too busy filling hundreds of orders per day (thank you!) to do this. Instead we have our annual get-together in January as a New Year Party, when things have calmed down a bit. After we re-dedicate ourselves to covering the world with Japanese Kit Kat and ridiculously cute cat products from Japan, we’ll probably go out for a few hours of karaoke.
A scene from the 2013 J-List New Year Party (artist’s conception).
