What entertains you?
Hi! Recently, I’ve been kind of reflecting and realized that half a year has gone so fast. Next month, we’ll be holding our second shain soukai 社員 総会 for this year.
So for this post, let me talk about it lightly, my impression about it and specifically my favorite part of it. Shain soukai or General Assembly or General Meeting of employees, which we do twice a year is one of my favorite events in Atrae. Why? Because for me it’s just exciting, it’s the time when we all get together as a whole team. First, we gather formally in which presentations and giving of awards are done.
Then we go to ni jikai or after party, then san jikai (third party) then yon kijai (fourth party) — We have dinner, we go to karaoke, we play billiards and darts haha it’s endless drinking parties. But I like it because it is when I see my colleagues let loose and show their other personality!
My colleagues, they’re hardworking and they’re naturally diligent. That’s why when I see them let loose a little bit while holding drinks at parties, when I talk to them with their happy red faces, that’s kind of interesting for me.
Alright, so going back to my favorite part of shain soukai which is called engei 演芸 or entertainment show! I had my first experience of shain soukai last year, and since it was the first, I thought I wanted to take part in the entertainment show. You know in the Philippines, when we say “show”, we perform! We showcase our God-given talents. Apparently, we’re a big fan of singing and dancing. We’re not ashamed of doing so and that’s our kind of entertainment show.
So, I thought I wanted to give a dance number at the time. Luckily, I have a male colleague who’s also into dancing so I grabbed him as my partner along with my four more colleagues who are supportive enough to participate as well. I chose to perform the final dance of “ Dirty Dancing ” one of the greatest movies of all time.
We prepared for a month, we discreetly met up at a park near our office to rehearse, and even rented a dance studio twice for our final rehearsal!
On the day we performed, it turned out as something new to them but perhaps not that interesting… That was totally fine though. It was one fun experience, most especially I enjoyed dancing with them. I came to realize that there’s a difference between engei for Filipinos and for Japanese!
Eventually, I learned that engei should be funny in order to entertain your audience. By funny, I mean it should be something comical! It has to make the audience laugh their heart out. That’s when you get the loudest applause.
Then last April, I gave it another try. I sang to the tune of “ Kiss Me “ by Sixpence None The Richer . I sang but not seriously. Thanks to my engei partner who played the guitar for me. We made a Japanese version with funny lyrics, it was his brilliant idea. And finally, we could somehow make the audience laugh and got a little bit more applause. I wasn’t able able to keep a photo of it though.
Well, that’s how different entertainment show is for us. I find that difference interesting and I finally got used to it. I’m looking forward to our soukai next month!
That would be all for now. I’d like to know your kind of entertainment too. Thank you for reading! :)
