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?!

I apologise for the lack of recent updates. It is currently rainy season here in Japan, which of course means it’s far too humid and wet to do anything, including breathe properly, so as a result everyone is wandering around like zombies, myself included. Hardly in a position to write a blog!

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.

I was approached by Mr. Wada the other day, and asked if I wouldn’t mind lending my voice to the English speaking test for the midterms, which are currently raging for all students throughout the school. As I have been told I have a voice which makes angels jealous (or nauseous, I can’t remmeber which) I quickly took him up on his offer and recorded what can only be described as the best sound ever to grace human ears. But wait! There’s more! I’ve got a copy of it, and I’ve posted it below along with a transcript. The other male voice is one of our students, Kento, who lived in America for a few years. The female voice is another English teacher.

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…

Whilst the Thai students were visiting, we were given the opportunity to try the traditional Japanese art of Kimono dressing. There are men’s kimonos as well as the famous flowery pink and blue ones, and yes – we both opted for the men’s ones. Something tells me having both your foreign volunteer teachers crossdressing might cause the school some media problems. Not that I wanted to crossdress anyway. No really. Hey, stop looking at me like that.

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!

This happened a long time ago. I’m sorry I never managed to write about it, but I was only given the CD with the photographs on recently. Along with the Thai students, we were given the opportunity to try Japanese tea ceremony. However, before I start on that, I feel I should explain the worst pain in the world, ever;

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.