Cross-cultural communication （152）　

152) A moment at the Old Imperial Bar
In mid-April 2024, I arrived at Tokyo Station at 5:00 pm on Friday to attend the Japanese Society of Internal Medicine annual meeting in Tokyo. I was staying with my second son, who lives in Tokyo, for two nights, and we had planned to have dinner in the city center that night. When I contacted him, he said he had made a reservation at a restaurant for 8:00 pm. I thought of a hotel bar as a place where I could spend a couple of hours in the evening in a relaxed atmosphere. As one gets older, one gains such wisdom. During my early 30s in New York, my mid-40s in Paris, and my time as a practicing physician in Osaka, I had made it a habit to spend an hour or so in a hotel bar in the evening before social gatherings, simply relaxing and letting my mind wander.

After some consideration, I chose the Imperial Hotel. Bars in hotels around the world typically open around 5 pm. I arrived at the Old Imperial Bar on the 17th floor of the Imperial Hotel at 5:45 pm. Although it seemed to open at 6 pm, a young bartender greeted me as the first customer of the day with a polite, “Please come in, please. We'll get everything ready shortly. Please take a seat at the counter.” (Impressive, Imperial!) At 6 pm in April, it was still bright outside, and the cherry blossoms in the outer gardens of the Imperial Palace visible through the window were still in full bloom. As I was intently gazing at the Imperial Palace, the bartender said, “In about an hour, the lights will come on and the atmosphere will change, so please stay and enjoy yourself.” I was in a great mood and ordered a Kir Royal (a cocktail made with cassis liqueur and champagne), a classic French aperitif.

Then, the second customer of the day, a white man around my age, sat down next to me. He asked in an accented English, “What are you drinking?” I replied, “Kir Royale,” and since he seemed unfamiliar with French cocktails, I explained the recipe to him. From our conversation, I learned that he was a German businessman staying at the Imperial Hotel for a few days. He mentioned that he had visited the bar the previous evening and had tried a German version of the Kir Royale, a cocktail made with German fruit liqueur and champagne. He praised it highly, saying it was the bartender's special recipe for that day and that it was wonderful. He repeated this story to the veteran bartender who arrived a bit later. The veteran bartender replied, “Got it,” but then whispered to me in Japanese, “Yesterday's bartender was a bit of a perfectionist and had his own recipe, so I don't know the details.” However, when the cocktail was served, the German customer drank it with a satisfied expression, saying, “Yes, this is it.”

That's all for now. I've reported on a relaxed moment at the Old Imperial Bar in the Tokyo Imperial Hotel. In the French version, I'll write about the dinner with my son that followed.

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