Observations

While dining out last night with my hubby and a couple of friends, we saw a complex action performed by a older sushi chef at the restaurant. He began arguing in what I assume was Japanese, with the other sushi chefs while pointing at a man seated one table over from us. Then he started shouting at the customer, again in Japanese. He came striding out from behind the sushi bar, still shouting and pointing at the customer, marched up to the man and quite literally slapped him upside the head! To our amazement, the customer took the blow, refused to even look at the sushi chef, muttered a few words of Japanese, then unintelligible English. The only part of the conversation we understood was the customer saying something about calling the cops. No one really did anything. Either none of the other customers caught what was going on, or we've become so desensitized to even mild violence that none of us really registered that we'd just witnessed an assault! A man that we presumed to be the manager gently led the sushi chef away while the woman seated at the table with the customer who'd been smacked sat looking quite mortified.

A short while later the sushi chef returned to the sushi bar, continued creating perfection in the form of some of the best sushi I've ever had the pleasure to indulge in, yet also continued (in Japanese) angrily expressing his displeasure. The customer got up and went to the bar (this was when we realized he was drunk, and must have seriously offended the sushi chef at some point), came back to his table, went to the bar again, came back again then sat down. The manager came out and spoke to the customer and he finally left, his embarrassed dinner companion following in his wake.

Hubby and I thoroughly enjoy observing people in public. They rarely fail to entertain. We've seen situations that would make a person blush, there have been times when hubby has felt it necessary to intervene on behalf of another person being abused, examples of genuine humanity when someone has reached out and offered help to a person who was struggling. A sushi chef slapping a customer on the back of the head however, that was a new experience.

Witty quip of the day: When your companions get drunk and fight, take up your hat and wish them good night. - Japanese Proverb. Too bad the sushi chef didn't keep this in mind.