Sports Day

What a crazy day it was.

September 9th marked the culmination of the students 2-week (or in some cases more) preparation of their annual taikusai, or sports day. In the dim recesses of my mind, I recall sports day from my elementary school time with some distaste. Never a good sports athlete, it was my time to try to hide and be inconspicuous.

While there was no doubt more than a few students who must have felt that way yesterday, I was nevertheless audience to an amazing spectacle.

Let me give you a little background first, on the Japanese education system. Unlike in Toronto, where I had attendence taken at Homeroom before hurrying off to my first class (when I went), here, the students remain in the same room (their homeroom) the whole day, and the teachers come to them.

I won't at this time get into the disadvantages this kind of system has on the overall growth and learning of children. However, there are some interesting advantages here that pertain to sports day.

The first is that the homeroom becomes the de facto social unit for many of the students. This is not to say that they don't fraternise with other classes--they do, and quite often. However, by remaining in a single classroom, surrounded by the same peers, taking the same classes, having the same teachers, all serves to reinforce the unity of the classroom. We, as social animals, tend I think to differentiate ourselves from others by examining our shared experiences. Points of commonality serve to unify a social group. This is what we are seeing here.

The end result is a greater feeling of class spirit, reinforced by the occasional rivalry between classes of the same grade.

There are other aspects at work here too. Attendance at school assemblies is mandatory and strictly enforced. Such events end with the singing of the school song. While there are no doubt students unaffected by such displays of group unity, it is nevertheless an almost overpowering force. I might venture that most of the students, regardless of their personal feelings, must feel the sense of being part of a larger whole when some 1100 voices are raised to sing the school song in unison. Even if I didn't understand what was happening, I think I might still feel it. Needless to say, I feel something stir in me at these times.

Add to this the format of the taikusai. A day long event, the kids are placed, by homeroom, into one of 4 colours, and the two weeks preceeding the actual event are filled with afternoons of sports practice. The combination of competition, group inclusion, and an already strongly bolstered school/homeroom spirit brings out the passion in many of the students, and most especially those in a leadership role.

Ok, enough of the essay. Lets get back to what's important. Sports day was truly a spectacle for me. There were 4 blocks: shiro, white; suou, orange; shinryoku, deep green; and noukon, navy blue. I was part of suou, and on the day I wore a bright, neon orange polo shirt that our the teachers of our block had bought (me included) for the occasion. We were highly conspicuous in our shirts, and during lunch some of the teachers commented that it looked like a suou convention in the staff room.

The day was filled with all sorts of events, from the mundane (yet exciting) foot races, to the more interesting games such as kibasen (4-man cavalry battles) and the senaka-watari (crossing the back). The most interesting by far was the block cheers, which featured both American-style cheerleading (girls), as well as Japanese-style cheerleading (boys), and panel show held by those in the block-stands. I managed to snap more than a few (crappy) pics with my phone camera, so I will only post the more interesting ones here.

I found myself getting well involved in the cheering, pounding the tables, crying out when my block won or lost an event, oohing and ahhing at the most excellent displays of tumbling or dancing.

The day ended without injury or major illness (though some kids did have to visit the infirmary), and though it had threatened to rain the entire day, with the exception of the unfortunate kids who didn't get to perform their school taiko-drums cheer, we had fair weather for all the events. Each performance and event was scored, and I am happy to say that suou came out on top with some 1200 or so points. There were some tears shed by the other teams, and some tears shed by suou. All in all, it was a really fun day.

There were some oddities, which as a person I wish I had captured on film, but as a teacher I refrained from doing. First was a guy wearing a horse head. He is a character of some internet notoriety, though for what I don't know. When I asked one of the younger teachers what it was, I was told that I should just ignore it. I got the feeling that he was a most unwelcome guest.

The other was two girls cosplaying Rei and Asuka from Evangelion. Rei was pretty cute, and Asuka...well she looked good from afar. I didn't snap a picture for fear of being branded one of those creepy fat anime-otakus you see at J-conventions and comikets. As well, I think it would have been inappropriate for me as a member of the school faculty to do so.

The day was capped by torrential rains, in which I got completely and thoroughly soaked helping the taiko team put away their drums (a real effort involving tarps, because taiko drums are forever ruined if they get wet). Afterwards, the teachers changed venues for our post-taikusai nomikai, or drinking party.

Nomikai is an all-you-can-drink party, which in this case lasted 2 hours. Held at a cool Chinese food joint, it rapidly degenerated into a loud drunk fest. I got to see many of my teachers drunk, and talked to a whole bunch whom I might never had otherwise. Alcohol is a fantastic social lubricant, and I was there drinking it up. I cannot say just how much I had to drink, as the glasses are small. However it is customary to fill other peoples glasses up when they are noticably not full, and there were many teachers who roamed the room with bottles of beer, randomly plunking down with people, filling their glasses, having a cheer, and then getting up and moving to the next group. I had great drunken chats with my principle, and many of my JTEs. Some of the older teachers were giving advice to the younger, and quite a few were laughing like mad at just about anything (me and my co-ALT included). In the end we gave a hearty banzai three times (my first banzai!!!). It was a truly memorable day.