Japan Is Doomed

You knew after my incredibly wordy June that it would take me two weeks to write anything in July, right?

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!

Gap Year, Teaching in Japan

Throughout the Junten Sports Day, various different classes and year groups of students performed Yosakoi dances. Yosakoi is a traditional Japanese dance and is typically performed by quite a large number of people (usually 20+) at the same time. Although we only saw about three or four performances, it’s really quite a large and complex thing so if you’re interested, you can read more about it here.

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.

Gap Year, Teaching in Japan

As Nate pointed out, I forgot to mention which team was the victor at sports day in this update, so without further ado; The Red Team won! Hurrah!

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.

Gap Year, Teaching in Japan

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!

Gap Year, Teaching in Japan

On Thursday, I wrote about the warm up for the Junten sports festival. However, after posting it to the site, nobody reminded me to wear lots of suncream, and as a result I am now incredibly burned, all along my arms and on the back of my neck. Serves me right for worrying more about taking nice photos than staying safe, I guess. Curse you new camera!

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?!

Gap Year, Teaching in Japan