Howdy
everyone, time for another update in the land of the rising sun. I continue to
learn more and more about the Japanese education everyday but last weekend
offered some really interesting and new insights when I was invited to one of
my schools’ taiikumatsuri or sports
festivals. At first, I thought that the schools’ sports festival would be
something roughly comparable to a track and field day such as I encountered
back in my time in elementary school. However, the Japanese sports festival was
actually something quite different. The festival consisted of the students
playing a variety games, virtually all of which were focused on teamwork and
group efforts. Thus, instead of events that celebrate individual athletic
achievement such as the 200m dash, pole-vaulting, or shot put, games such as
tug o’ war and three legged races were the norm. Adding to the theme of group effort and teamwork, the sports
festival, somewhat strangely, consisted of synchronized dance routines to Japanese pop music (often called J-pop), which leads me to believe
the translation “sports festival” is a slight misnomer. Nevertheless, the festival was quite a lot of fun to watch and quite enlightening on how group values are hammered in at Japanese schools.
Still, there were a few events in which students competed as individuals such as an obstacle course of which I was apart of. During my portion of the obstacle course,
the students had to beat me in a game of janken
(Japanese version of rock paper scissors) in order to pass to the next
obstacle. On an interesting side note, janken
carries a lot of weight in Japanese schools from what I’ve seen. Indeed, many a dispute is resolved
and many a decision made via janken, which means that almost all of the students have the remarkable ability to play the game
at lightning fast speeds that I ne’er thought impossible. Suffice to say, a
significant amount of students were able to obliterate me during the obstacle
course. Unfortunately, I have been told that I am not allowed to take pictures
of my students and post them on blogs, Facebook, etc. so I can’t provide any
pictures of the sports festival.
After the
sports festival was finished, I was invited to yet another enkai (office
party). This enkai, however, differed
in that we started off by going to an onsen
(a public bath or hot spring). As those who enter an onsen are forbidden to
wear clothes, the group separated between the males and females. After getting
used to the fact that I was surrounded by a bunch of nude middle-aged men, I
daresay entering the onsen was one of the more relaxing things I’ve ever done. After the
onsen, the whole party came back together for dinner, which was a delectable
selection of various sashimi (raw fish slices), miso soup, grilled shrimp,
rice, and as always, plenty of beer and sake.
 |
| Delicious! |
Although I thoroughly enjoy
enkais (good places to bond and have fun with my fellow teachers) I must
confess that I hope there won’t be any more for a while. Enkais are absurdly
expensive! This last enkai set me back a good 7700 yen or about 98 dollars!
The day
after the enkai, I went to a festival called the Lion Dance that was being held
in the city of Tsubata, about an hour and half south of my home in Noto-chou. As I
mentioned in one of my previous posts, Japanese festivals are really intense, and this festival proved to live up to that promise and even raised the bar a
little bit. In this festival, pairs of dancers took turns dancing in the middle
of an intersection with various weapons such as spears and katanas.
 |
| The Spear Dance |
Surrounding
these dancers at each corner of the intersection were groups of Japanese men (all very drunk of course) carrying a large dragon float. Each of
these various dragon float groups would then take turns crossing different
corners to beat the ever-loving crap out of the other groups. Indeed, the level
of violence was so intense that at one point, I literally saw one guy jump up
and side kick another guy right in the stomach. Fascinatingly, however, as soon
as the dragon float retreated, all of the fighters would more or less stop and
start hugging each other.
Thinking about if this type of festival were to happen in the States, I can only imagine a full-scale riot ensuing. At the end of the festival, however, the participants were not in the process of rioting as many of them had ended up like this gentleman here:
 |
| Vanquished by the Festival |
As the day after the festival shenanigans was a public holiday (Respect for the Aged Day) several JETs and I went to an island on the Noto peninsula and did some swimming. Once more, the water was ridiculously warm, the surrounding area stunning, and the atmosphere serene. The swim was made especially magical by an abundance of fish that would leap very high out of the water to catch mayflies.
 |
| JETs on the Beach |
In terms of work, things are starting to look up in one of my junior highs at least. It seems I can get a lot student’s attention by shouting vocabulary words at the top of my lungs and by using an array of goofy voices and impressions of celebrities. This always seems to do the trick in terms of catching their attention and after that, they seem much more apt to participate when I need them to.
On a sadder note, come October, a new Japanese law will come into effect that is basically the SOPA law that was defeated in the States several months ago. Since the wording of the law is very vague, it is entirely feasible that I could get arrested and fined for watching videos on Youtube. As I already don’t have access to Spotify, Netflix, and Hulu over here, this news certainly comes as huge blow to my spare time. Time to watch ALL the Youtube while I can!
Anyway that’s all for now. Not too much happening this weekend except maybe a trip to Kanazawa this Saturday for dinner. Talk to y’all later and I hope to see some of you on skype soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment