The Japan trip is a "team-building" exercise for Pingles and her colleagues from Hong Kong and Singapore. Her boss was along as well and she kept telling me "you're gonna meet my boss" which sounded like "be very afraid" to me, for some reason. During our first breakfast in the hotel lobby he was sitting at a nearby table. Pingles said "hey, my boss is here, wanna meet him?" I glanced over - he looked just like the Chinese actor John Lone, pictured below. We chatted cordially for a few minutes about our dinner the following night. I said something like "we'll have some drinks" to which he replied "yes, we'll find out about this tomorrow." It was a strange reply and I couldn't help but...
....imagine this John Lone, the one from "Year of the Dragon" where he played a gangster in NY's Chinatown. The next night I prepped for the big event: dress shirt, sweater, blazer. We were to eat six types of fancy Japanese beef on the 44th floor of a Shinjuku skyscraper. I was a bit apprehensive- this was Ang Moh show time. There were about 20 of us, seated at two tables - her boss at the other table, entertaining some clients from mainland China who'd come along for the trip. Just before the first beef course was cooked, he appeared table-side with a stern look on his face. "There are six types of beef to be served. Make sure you rank each one and remember which one you rank highest." I was the last person he looked at after he spoke.
The first piece of beef was served. It was incredible, but then surpassed by the second, which practically melted in my mouth. I figured they were serving them from lowest grade to highest and expected the third to be even better. Surprisingly, none was better than the second. We compared notes at our table and everyone was mocking me. "Number 2? Are you serious? No way, man." Everyone had settled on number 5 or 6 but I couldn't shake the memory of number 2 and I was sticking with it.
The boss was back, this time tipsier from many shots of sake. He looked over at me "Josh, what say you? What number?" I held up two fingers and slowly a smile spread across his face. "We can make a good team, Josh!" He then looked at the table "Number 2 is the BEST. A black label Kobe beef that is excellent! This calls for a toast." He was looking around for the sake bottle and a fast waiter grabbed it and began to fill everyone's glass. Pingles is a notorious non-drinker so I whispered to her "just down it in one shot and then show the empty glass, you have so much beef in you, you won't feel a thing." We all downed it and congratulated each other. The boss was now a happy version of John Lone. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Later in the night, the kicker was when the boss found out that both of us went back to the early D'Arcy days, prior to all the mergers. He chatted to me like an old friend. He told me a story about one of the old timers at D'Arcy whose favorite Christmas toast was "Fuck the French", which as you can imagine, I enjoyed tremendously. "Jean never drinks with us, I see you have quite an effect on her."
The sake was now taking full effect. "Josh, for what it's worth, you are a very lucky man." he said, looking over to Jean. I couldn't agree with you more.
5 comments:
What a good story! I was wondering how your meeting with the Big Boss would go.
Grams told me about this and I laughed when I heard you had to dress up. Not sure why you were so worried though. Her boss would've been a fool not to like you. Im really glad it went well.
Mach, I was the most dressed-up person there. Either it's that or a raggy pair of jeans and a sweat-top. No inbetween in my wardrobe.
Don't forget the old school orange and white Nikes, lol. Or have you retired those yet?
Sadly, the orange and whites were retired long ago. I can always get a new pair though...
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