Undo Kai - Sports Festival!

Since the first day of the 2nd Term (Sept 1st), schools across Japan have been practicing hard for their sports festival. Chris and I have had few lessons to teach (in C's case, none last week) as the students are all extremely busy working on the individual events of the festival, as well as all the transitions between activities, order of events, etc. Families attend the festivals, and if they are involved in the PTA, they may even participate in certain events. Typical of the Japanese culture, order and perfection in the presentation of the school's festivals are almost more important than how the competitions turn out.

Last Saturday, we went to the festival of one of Chris' schools, Sakuragawa Junior High. It took place on the track field, and families basically camped out all around it, sitting on tarps and putting up huge umbrellas. No one wears sunglasses here (too reminiscent of the Japanese mafia, the Yakuza, or so I've heard...) so umbrellas and sun visors are everywhere. Anyway, we got to sit under the teachers' tent with a great view of the action. After what seemed like endless speeches from the Principal, team captains, and random old men (we think they were PTA....?) and a solemn salute to the Japanese flag, things got underway.

The festival lasted all day, and featured such events as sprinting, tug of war with huge rope and bamboo poles, relay races with inflated waist-high colored balls, beanbag toss into baskets on high poles, and the Samurai game. This was one of the most-anticipated events, involving one boy (the "Samurai") sitting on another boy's shoulders with his legs held up by two others. These boys represented the Samurai's horse. Then all the units ran into the middle of the track and the Samurai tried to knock each other off their "horses". No punching or kicking was allowed, but it was still pretty barbaric!! Seeing puny 7th grade boys being wrestled down by huge 9th graders was hard to watch - still, American football's no better. The day also involved the 3 teams (named Galaxy, A Fixed Star, and Comet) doing a cheer routine before each event they competed in.

The elementary school festivals are happening in the next few weeks, and they have some different events. Instead of waist high ball relays, two teams form semi-circle lanes around the track, and try to get huge, 5 foot tall inflated balls pushed down their lane, around a cone, and back up the lane again. There are also dance routines (some humorous, some more traditional), marching bands, and special obstacle relay races where the runners have to grab a card along the way, which tells them which obstacle they have to face: running under a long net, jumping several times through a hula hoop, or running around a standing baseball bat 5 times with their forehead on the handle.

These festivals are all oriented towards building school spirit and team efforts. It's been really fun getting to see these public school traditions!