What a crazy weekend! This weekend saw me experience my first Japanese school cultural and sport festival. My base school’s festival spanned for three days – Friday through Sunday. Working a 7-day week while being sick has almost killed me!
The school festival in Japan is like no other. It is the time that students seem most enthusiastic and energetic, practicing weeks in advance to ensure all their performances are perfect! It is far different to the organisation of South Australian school events. They even used Thursday morning as a practice run for the sports festival; practicing lining up, where to march, even their aerobic routine!
It was a great weekend in all. Friday began with student rock bands, a hand wrestling competition, singing and games. I was selected as an ‘exhibition’ piece for the arm wrestling competition, with the final winner versing myself. Thank goodness he was warned to go easy on me! I at least gave him a little run for his money ;) I also joined teachers in singing an Australian adaptation of ‘Country Roads’. It was really nice way to be able to participate in the festival activities. I even participated in a more casual tea ceremony, and had a photo with the beautifully-dressed students.
Saturday was for both second year and third year students to perform dramas, singing, dancing or the like. The aim was to be announced the ‘winner’ or ‘best’ home group for their year level. There were some amazing performances. My personal favourites included an on-the-spot painting accompanied by taiko drumming, and a Disney musical drama. I now officially have a new life goal – learn all Disney songs in Japanese!!
Along with these performances, the art students had a special exhibition of their best work. For my base school, their art course is very renown. This includes their dance teams too. They are one of the few schools to offer this course to high school students. Walking through and admiring these pieces was truly remarkable. I wish I could be half as talented as these students! I hope they go far. The same could be said for the dance students. Their performances were exceptional. As you would expect when you hear they practice, morning, lunch, afternoon and weekends!!
As Saturday drew to a close, a sudden change in weather came. This was something I’ve become accustomed to now in Japan – sunny and fine all day, thunderstorms next! With such a heavy rain pour, my supervisor informed me that Sports Day maybe cancelled, and in that case, Monday’s lessons would go ahead instead. I was not prepared for such impromptu classes and I therefore needed to remain behind to prepare emergency lessons in case a scenario did occur. Honestly, working on a Saturday past 6PM is not the best. But even worse was then traveling 15 minutes by bike in the pouring rain to get home! For no particular reason, although being drenched and terribly hungry probably contributed, I broke down. I’d had enough that day and of this stinking stupid weather!
Fortunately, the weather Gods must have been watching me this weekend and brought a beautiful and HOT day for the sports festival. The relief that I did not have to teach lessons was beyond words!
Sports festival was perhaps one of the highlights of the weekend. Being able to watch the students dress in their colours, support teammates and enjoy themselves, was great. There were a number of events I wish Australian schools would include in their sports days too!!
One of my favourite events was the 'Mukade Race' (or centipede race once translated). It involved teams of four being linked by the feet in a centipede-like fashion, and running to a powder box.
A team member must then fish out and consume a sweet from the powdered box, before making the journey back home. This poor team struggled to stay on their feet. It definitely left me in stitches!!
The best feature was having each team display their ‘grand performance’ – a 4-minute dance routine, both highly energetic and extremely synchronised! The amount of practice these students have committed was clearly evident.
Last night I was invited to have yakiniku (a Korean-style barbeque) with the PE staff. I was a little concerned when the staff ordered and the waitress then asked if I could eat it. Their response, ‘she will eat whatever, it is a challenge!’ That can never be a good sign!! So, I tried a variety of meat, including tongue, stomach and liver. While I’ll easily give liver a miss next time, the others weren’t too bad! I even enjoyed a Japanese beer, which to my surprise wasn’t that bad either.
It was a tiring night for me however, having to continually translate conversations from Japanese to English and vice versa. Yet, I feel I learnt more Japanese on this night than I had all month! We even discussed taking a snow trip together in February. The teachers seemed pretty keen to teach me some snow boarding, haha!!
And after a very jam-packed, enjoyable and exhausting weekend, I am glad to have a day off today. But there’s no rest for the wicked, and I’ll be back to teaching tomorrow…
Will do my best to talk soon,
Matta ne!
