KONNICHIWA!
Ryan Rowe
Monday, November 22nd, 2004, 1:27am
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

I got a random email from my classmate Jerry Yonenaga tonight, inviting me to an impromptu Japanese dinner party in one of the nearby residences.  I hesitated about whether to go since there's a mountain of work do this week and I've also got a whole lot more to to catch up on.  I should probably be working right now on one of the half-dozen academic tasks I have to take care of.  But I remembered some advice Jerry had given me a few weeks ago about an affliction in Japan where people die from working too hard.  It's a recognised phenomenon which the government actually compensates for and has social programs to alleviate.  It's known as karoshi and approximately 10,000 people die from this in Japan every year!

One of my colleagues from the York Consulting Group, Jessica Mizushima, was hosting the party.  She's of Japanese descent, but was born and raised in Peru.  So there was a really interesting mix of Latino and Japanese people at her place when I showed up for a late dinner at 10pm.  Jessica served up a shabu-shabu dinner in a nabe pot and it was really nice to sit back and enjoy a little culture with a cold can of Labatt.

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