Cross-cultural communication （77）　

77) Party at the French Embassy
At the end of 2017, I attended a party at the French Embassy in Hiroo, Tokyo. When I was the director of Kido Clinic, I was asked by the French Embassy to undertake visa health checks for people traveling to France, and I was working as a kind of advisor to the embassy, but this party was not related to that. I had been the consulting physician to Air France since 2010, and this party was related to that. That year, Air France was celebrating the 65th anniversary of its flights to Japan, and the commemorative party was held at the French Embassy. I was one of only two Air France doctors in Tokyo and Osaka, and I received an invitation and attended the event.

The French Embassy is located in the embassy district of Minato Ward, one of the most prestigious areas of Tokyo, and the grounds are not small. They cover 25,000 m2 (2.5 ha), which is almost double the size of the American Embassy, which covers 13,000 m2 (1.3 ha). In front of the French Embassy's party venue, the Ambassador's official residence, there is a large lawn garden and a forest that surrounds it. I think that the extraordinary vastness of the French Embassy's grounds is derived from France's position in Japan at the end of the Edo period. As you know, at the end of the Edo period, the Western powers, including the United States, led by Perry, who arrived in Japan on a black ship, were all eyeing Japan's interests hungrily. Of these, the only country that was taking a unilateral stand in favor of the Tokugawa Shogunate was France. This French strategy was shattered by the Meiji Restoration, but the site of the current embassy must have been acquired during the period when it was taking a stand in favor of the Tokugawa Shogunate.

Well, about 200 guests gathered in the spacious reception hall of the ambassador's residence in the vast grounds of the embassy, and the Air France 65th anniversary party began. Of course, with so many people, the food was served buffet-style, with many small dishes served in cocktail glasses on several tables. As you would expect from a gourmet country like France, all of the dishes were delicious. But more than that, the wine served at the embassy, especially the champagne, was all top quality, and it was worth coming just for that.

The most exciting event at the party was a fashion show showing the changes in the uniforms of Air France cabin attendants over the past 65 years. Professional Japanese models paraded down the center of the reception hall, while young French men cheered and jeered. The Frenchman next to me, who looked like an embassy worker, asked me seriously, “I'm going to ask one of those girls out later, so could you teach me how to pick up young Japanese women?
So, in this way, an unusual night in Japan in a foreign country passed by.

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