Yesterday, I got as far as lunchtime at sports day, and so far we’ve had mounted headwear theft, the Power Rangers showing their support, and children fighting over logs like angry beavers. I’ll get this out the way quickly; lunch was very normal and not worth writing about. Throughout the rest of the day there were quite a few Yosakoi performances which I will write about tomorrow.

With the hats sufficiently stolen and lunch devoured, the kids prepared for the next event in the baking heat - the tug-o-war. Of all the events (except possibly the relay) this was the most normal of the events, with your pretty standard “pull harder than the other team to win” rules. However, one poor team of boys lost their footing and ended up falling over each other, and they still managed to beat the white team. Haha!

Just as I was getting bored at how mundane the day was turning, we were told it was time for the Staff tug-o-war. This was quite exciting as I hadn’t really done anything at all. Except it wasn’t really the same event. Whilst the students had taken part in a simple 1v1, we were going to participate in “The Cross”. Basically, you have four teams instead of two and they all pull in different directions. You end up each time with two winning teams. The teams consisted of;

1. The Teachers team, including myself.
2. The Parents association, including Matt.
3. A selection of students from the red team.
4. A selection of students from the white team.

Sadly, the teachers team was opposite the red team, making it impossible for us to win with them, so in the end we decided to cheat and side with the PTA, leading to a 2-1 victory once we sorted out our tactics. The prize was one of those pens that has four colours in it, and mine turned out to be lucid pink. At least I won’t lose it.

Eager to get back the insanity of the morning, the sports day organizers outdid themselves with the next event, which I previously wrote about, the big pole game. As I wrote;

The goal is to have your attackers push over a great big pole that the other team are defending. The rules are, well, nobody knows as nobody ever follows them. This is basically a big fight with the added danger of big poles.

Simple, right? I’ll let the photos speak for themselves;

It was pure insanity and can only be described as a fight. Anyone who harps on about tactics and planning is lying and should be thrown over a fence. I don’t even want to know how the organizers begin to justify this event as it is just a fight. These two photos are the best I could get without being swept away into the mass of overexcited Japanese boy.

After a couple more Yosakoi performances, it was time for the last event - the group skipping. There was a teacher’s team for this as well, but I was suffering a little from the heat and missed it, but as I understand they got 19 in a row, which is impressive considering they hadn’t practiced at all. The winning student team, one of our English classes, clocked up 58 in a row, and the school record is 62 so they did a great job.

At long last, around 4.30 or so, the day was over. I was burned all along my arms and neck, tired and still incredibly confused. The kids were exhausted, which made it even crueler to make the listen to incredibly boring speeches whilst sitting on the dusty floor in the burning sun, but whatever gets them into university, I suppose. Afterwards I headed to the obligatory staff party before heading home and falling face first into bed.

I’m sorry this update and the previous one have so little about why the Japanese sports day works the way it does, but I have a valid reason for this; nobody knows. I’ve asked quite a few staff members, and every time they either shrug, or mutter something and then slowly back away, staring me straight in the eyes and chanting “Foreigners can smell fear!”.

Yosakoi update tomorrow!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 19th, 2007 at 12:40 pm and is filed under Gap Year, Teaching. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.