Rainy season rages on, and with it a serious lack of photographs. Everyone in the country is currently suffering from a slump in enthusiasm, myself included, because all day we are pelted with rain and boiled in the humid air. I’m not sure how much longer I can take living in an oven. If I start displaying signs of madness I want someone to put me in a freezer for an hour.

Anyway, throughout last week and this week, I have been saying “goodbye” to all my various classes at Junten, as well as the four different adult classes. Each class had a different, unique way to say farewell before sending us on our way;

My Junten Parents Class (PTA) decided to throw a large party in the English centre at the school. Bearing in mind this meant having to shut down access for all students to our office, I was quite surprised that the school were happy for us to have the party there, but I think the PTA might hold a lot more power than people realize. They’re like the mafia, except they replace arranged murders with cups of coffee.

The Wednesday Lunchtime class, limited by their number of members and time, decided it would be best if we just had a normal lesson. I say normal, they provide lunch for us every week and I swear they were trying to kill me with the amount of bread I was supposed to get through. Then as it was the last lesson I did a pretty boring “Everyone remember what we’ve done and don’t forget me and send me chocolates” speech, and everyone was very sad. Then it was back to Junten to be assaulted horribly by bad English students. Oh well.

Our Wednesday Evening class, the most advanced class of the four, threw a big party at an Izakaya, where they gave us these stunning pictures of us that one of the members had drawn, and everyone had signed. I don’t currently have access to a scanner, so you’ll have to make do with a dodgy photo.

We had a great time at the Izakaya (Japanese pub/bar/picnic), and everyone said goodbye. Weirdly, I went along to their lesson with Lynsey two days ago, and we said goodbye again. So really they said goodbye to me twice. That’s right, I broke their hearts twice. I’m a terror.

Finally, the Monday Evening first took us out to an Izakaya, then the following week took us on a two hour all-you-can-drink party ferry. I wish I’d taken my camera now as I doubt anyone is going to believe my description of this, but basically loads of surprisingly middle-aged Japanese people dress up in traditional clothing, then “dance” to “music” on a boat which is circling around the Tokyo bay in the freezing cold. I can’t really go any further than this without bringing to light some terrible memories that I’ve successfully repressed, so I shall stop here.

Tomorrow morning at some horrible hour (6am) I will be going to Japan’s famous Tsukiji Fish Market. Going with me will be my camera, so no excuses here!

Related posts:

1. The Goodbye Speech
2. Plan for April
3. Swapping Cards and Spotting Ferns

I quite enjoyed the performances because the students who were doing it wore these cool costumes and it’s pretty impressive when they all move together. That said, the less well behaved students would refuse to get into it and grudgingly threw their limbs around but it’s hard appreciate a dancer when he has a look of pure boredom on his face. Nevermind.

I’ve decided to just post a few photos here today, as most of them are the same but with various different poses and groups of students. Enjoy!

So there we have it. This concludes the four-update write up of the sports day, one of the strangest events I’ve ever bore witness to. Tomorrow I shall tell you of my amazing trip to Oiso, a town not too far from Atami, a place I visited and wrote about way back in October.

Related posts:

1. Junten Sports Festival Pt 2
2. Junten Sports Day 2008
3. Sports Daze

Saying that, it wasn’t much of a surprise. Due to the way the teams were organized, the white team got all the clever people and we got all the sportsmen. Not that I’m saying people who play sports are dim. Not that I’m saying I’m still bitter about not making the hockey team in upper sixth. No, really. Stop shaking your head…

“But Mike how can you possibly justify writing this update?! It’s so short!”

I honestly have no answer to that, so here are some extra photos to distract you whilst I escape out the window…

The chivalry, moments before descending into the Valley of Death to run each other through with bayonets steal hats.

One of the better skipping teams. Not as good as our champion English class, however. So there. Notice the white headbands, which means they were not on my team and therefore were rubbish.

Because when you think of physical competition, you think of Elmo & Spiderman dancing around in circles like they’ve just drunk three liters of paint thinner.

How could I not finish with another photo of Darth Cheerleader? Here he is in all his glory. His shirt reads Daasu Beeda and is written in the script used for foreign words, so it’s meant to say “Darth Vader”. Glad to see the evil overlord is finding work in his old age.

There we are then. The world’s shortest update. I have another two planned, so keep your eyes peeled and your brain sufficiently shut off to wade through another one of of Mike’s wacky stories.

Related posts:

1. Junten Sports Festival Pt 1
2. Junten Sports Festival Pt 2
3. Sports Daze

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!

Related posts:

1. Junten Sports Festival Pt 1
2. Sports Daze
3. Junten Sports Day 2008

The day started with an unbearably long welcoming ceremony, which included a couple of songs played by the school orchestra, whilst the students all sat in rows and visibly cooked in the sun. I find it worrying that the school thinks the best way to get excellent athletic performance is to lightly toast the athletes, but I’m no sports coach. Then one of the most senior students came and gave a motivational speech and everyone cheered and felt very happy. Except me. I felt fairly marinated.

Once the serious part of the day was behind us, it was time to show off. The entire school is split into two teams – the red team and the white team (the colours of the Japanese flag, incase you forget which country you’re in). As you can see above, 3-3 class and 3-5 class were on the red team, whilst 3-6 and 3-4 were on the white team. I was on the red team, incase you’re wondering. The first order of the day was to have various students from each team dress up in crazy clothes and boost their team’s morale. I think that was the idea anyway. All they managed to boost was certain members of the staff’s blood pressures, based on the amount of time it took for a bunch of kids to dance to some bizarre J-pop.

The white team opted for the power rangers, with lead singing from a student who clearly liked Gary Glitter a little too much. As for my team…

We decided that the best way to strike fear into the hearts of the opponent was to have Darth Vader wear a tanktop and lead a dance troupe made up of cheerleaders, ninjas, girls dressed as Spiderman and girls dressed as Elmo from Sesame street. I have to be honest, I was not asked for my opinion as a member of the red team, but if I had been I would definitely have suggested we do a routine that involves going to the nearest psychiatrist.

Bizarre starting ceremony behind us, it was time for the class 4×400 relay. The English department did not fare well throughout this entire event. In every year of senior students, we have one class who receive extra English lessons. Even though all three classes were all on the white team, I couldn’t help but root for them, which is why I was quite upset by the results;

1st Year: Last place
2nd Year: Disqualified
3rd Year: Last place

We’ll stick to conjugating verbs, then…

By now it was blisteringly hot, and the air was utterly dry. The soil from the ground was blowing up into everyone’s faces and making everyone unhappy. It would take a fantastic event to pacify everyone. That event came in the form of the steal the stick from the opposite team game, one of the events I forgot to mention yesterday. (Mainly because I didn’t know it existed).

Basically, this event consists of a whole lot of girls from the white team and a whole lot of girls from the red team trying to steal as many large planks of wood from the centre of the arena as possible. When one pole was picked up by both teams simultaneously, a tug of war would occur, with more and more girls joining in until the writhing mass of limbs eventually crossed one of the goal lines. After four rounds, the score was tied between the red and white teams at two each.

I was confident by now that this day could not possibly get any more bizarre, but I have slowly learnt that things can always get weirder. Next up was Hat Thief game I mentioned before. This event is called Kibasen in Japanese, which roughly translates to “Horseback Duel”. I was pretty close with my analysis yesterday, although the game was much more violent than I could have imagined. The kids decided to replace tactics with swipes to the face of the opposition, which is a fair tradeoff, I suppose.

This event was the last event before lunchtime. I will write about the afternoon in a separate update tomorrow. Throughout the day, the Yosakoi performances took place, which were incredibly impressive and deserve their own update too, so you’ll have to wait two whole days to hear about them. Can you bear it?!

Related posts:

1. Junten Sports Festival Pt 2
2. Sports Daze
3. School Festival

Tomorrow is Junten’s sports day. I’m sure you’re aware of how a sports day works – you turn up at a sports ground instead of school for a day, do a bit of running, then forget about it and go back to not working in lessons. We’ve all been there, done that. Well, things are slightly different in Japan. Both Thursday and Friday saw Matt and I heading to the school’s other campus to “practice” for Sports Day. In reality, the event is not a competition at all, but a publicity stunt. This means that not only is it a practice, but it’s a practice of how to have a sports day, not practicing the actual events. I estimate I have spent twelve hours at the sports ground, and I have seen about thirty minutes of sports practice. The rest is spent learning where to stand, what to say and how to listen to the school orchestra. I kid you not.

The events themselves are somewhat…different, too. Instead of the typical 400 metes or javelin, there are a host of bizarre games that focus less on physical prowess and more on, well, hitting other people. Here is a handy list with names I made up;

• The Big Pole Game consists of each team separating into halves; one half is attack and the other defense. 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.
• The Skipping Game requires each class to get twenty six people jumping over a skipping rope at the same time, while the two tallest boys in each class spin it. This is actually a lot harder than it looks and requires quite a lot of teamwork to go well, which is probably why the vast majority of the classes never get more than about 6. At the actual sports day, a staff team will have a go as well, which I will be a member of, and I expect no less than 300 consecutive jumps. Keep watching the blog to find out how many I do. (Once I’m out of hospital)
• Hat Thief involves three students forming a tripod for another student to stand on, then running around trying to steal the hats off the other team’s heads. Not much to say here – this is basically a big fight with the added danger of…er..hats?
• Yosakoi dancing is a traditional Japanese dance, well summed up by Wikipedia here. Loads of kids all do the dance together, with each year group doing a progressively more difficult dance. I don’t think this is a competition but it looks quite cool when they’re all going at once.

My job tomorrow will be photographer, so I hope to do quite a nice update soon with lots of lovely photos. Sorry for the lack of them today.

Related posts:

1. Junten Sports Festival Pt 1
2. Junten Sports Festival Pt 2
3. Junten Sports Day 2008

Warning: It was recorded at a high volume. Turn your speakers down!

[audio:listeningtest.mp3]

Miyashita-Sensei: *A load of Japanese about me and Kento.*

Mike: Look at these photos.
Kento: Oh, they are nice photos. What’s this?
Mike: It’s my father’s school.
Kento: Wow! Is he from America?
Mike: No, he isn’t. He is from Japan. He was in America when he was a junior high school student, so he is an English teacher.
Kento: What’s this?
Mike: It’s my friend’s cat.
Kento: He’s so cute. Is this your friend?
Mike: Yes, she is. She is my good friend. I met her in America. She is from Japan. She is a musician.
Kento: What’s her name?
Mike: Her name is Utada Hikaru

This was meant to be the ‘harder version’, although apparently the students found the exercise pretty easy. I think they were just so shocked it was me on the tape that they actually listened harder than they normally do.

Anyway, that’s my sixty eight seconds of fame over. Back to normality, I guess…

Related posts:

1. English Mistakes 1
2. 24/7 English Teaching TV? Dull!
3. Plan for April

Both male and female kimonos have approximately thirty thousand layers each, which means they take quite a long time to put on, and if you’ve never done it before it’s impossible. Which is why it’s lucky I had two lovely ladies to help me. They did it at a shocking speed which rivals me getting up in the morning and chucking on a shirt and tie. If they had done it any quicker I’d just dump my whole suit in the bin and wear a kimono every day. As long as I lived in a perfectly flat place. Ah, gradual slopes, the mightiest of Japan’s enemies.

It took about twenty minutes for us to get kitted out fully, which includes carrying a little fan and wearing these wooden flip-flops that fall off every two steps. But simply getting dressed in them was not enough! We had to walk outside to take photos, which was a poor excuse for “possibly bump into students whilst wearing hilareous costume that doesn’t fit”. The joke was eventually on them, as the only people who saw us were the office staff, and nobody believes them anyway. Working near fax machines sends you crazy!

Having been sufficiently embarrased, and filled with a new hatred for stairs and wooden slippers, it was time for us to remove our kit and let the Thai students have a go. I have to admit, it was kind of fun wandering around dressed like that, although I’d be interested to see anyone run for a bus in one of these. Sadly we had to go, so we didn’t get to see the results of the dressing, but I was send this photo, which suggests everyone had a great time. Hurrah!

Related posts:

1. Back To Work & Blog Stuff
2. Winter Testing
3. Japanese Tea Ceremony

During a formal event where you sit on the floor, Japanese tradition dictates you should sit in Seiza. To do this, “one first kneels on the floor, and then rests the buttocks on the heels, with the tops of the feet flat on the floor. The hands are sometimes folded modestly in the lap and sometimes placed palm down on the upper thighs with the fingers close together.” (Thanks Wikipedia)

What this little explanation does not explain is that unless you’ve been doing it for a few years, it’s incredibly painful. Especially if you have quite muscular legs and thin ankles, like me. In Thailand too they don’t sit in Seiza, so as a result everyone looked to be in varying degrees of pain. Here I am desperately trying to rearrange my legs into a less painful position. I actually have to sit like this during Shorinji Kempo so it wasn’t so bad for me, but I still tried to sneak in an easier sitting position.

Subtle like a bulldozer!

The actual ceremony itself involves everyone eating this really sweet, sugary kind of blob called Mochi, and drinking the green tea that was handed around having been brewed in a traditional manner. The reason for this is the tea itself is so bitter it could bring about the end of the world if left unchecked, which is where the sugary Mochi comes in. I don’t know, something tells me if people in England were told they have to spend 40 minutes to make a cup of tea, builders would take four times as long to get anything done.

I had a go at the actual ceremony itself, and although from afar it looks like you just pick up the big spoon thing and fill the bowl thing, there is a million different rules that I broke all at the same time. Notice the excellent Seiza in the above photograph. You couldn’t fit a piece of paper in between my legs there. Beautiful.

So, that was the tea ceremony taken care of. The Thai Students told me they all had a great time, which was nice, and I have to admit I too enjoyed the day, even just to try to understand Japanese history and culture a little more, although I think it only served to confuse me, and damage my ankles.

Related posts:

1. Green Tea Coke & Pepsi Shiso – Where Next?
2. Piggyback Dance Ceremony draws one performer
3. 2nd Year Japanese Studies At Sheffield

We kicked off at 3.30, with what turned out to be the main attraction of the day – the egg painting challenge. Having spent about an hour on Wednesday blowing the insides of eggs out, I was eager to see this be a success – the stench of those eggs still haunt my dreams and I wanted to see something justify the years of counseling I’m no doubt heading towards.

…so…many…eggs…

Anyway. After a quick explanation of the rules, the kids got to work on turning boring white eggs into what happens when a chicken goes berserk in a paint factory. We set a time limit of around twenty five minutes, but in that time some of the kids really did create some amazing work.

In the end, however, there could only be one winner. Well, five actually. Matt’s mother had brought with her from England a load of prizes for us to distribute, which made the competition a lot more serious when the kids realized what was up for grabs. Second place went to an egg which was meant to be Mr. Wada, and English teacher at our school. It came very close to winning, but in the end it was defeated by the egg on the right of this picture;

Before I go any further, I have to point something very important out. At every single party we’ve thrown for the school, I have in some way made myself look incredibly stupid by wearing a daft costume. Halloween saw me don my ghost outfit. Christmas saw Mr. Mike Claus distribute presents. What possible clothing atrocity could I have donned this time?

Moving swiftly on, then. After the egg painting challenge had drawn to a close, it was time for us to tell the kids what Easter was actually about. Well, that was the plan. Fortunately, we had an exchange student from Australia, and two returnee students from America and England to do all our work for us, while we I ate all the jelly beans.

To stop the kids getting sort of bored, we then played two very short games. The first one was a race – each contestant had to push their egg, using only their nose, a short distance. I am sad to say I only managed a 3rd place. More unfortunate was the fact that none of the girls would play the game, because they were wearing skirts. I’ll say no more. The chicken race game was more of a hit – run along a winding course with your hands holding your ankles. This time the girls could play, and it led us nicely into the final game of the day – the Easter egg hunt.

Because we had to very carefully ration our eggs, we decided to hide little fluffy balls all over the place. The kids had to first complete a crossword, then the hunt began. It tided us over nicely to 5.30, at which point the most fun game ever started – Operation Easter Cleanup.

The kids had a great time, and secretly so did I. As far as I know, this will be the last party we put on for the school, so it’s sad to say I won’t be wearing any more ridiculous costumes. Nevermind!

Yesterday I played soccer! A short update will appear magically in a little while!

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1. Tokyo Game Show 2009 – Pure Techno Madness
2. Plan for April
3. School Christmas Party Part 2