School Festivals
A message to my readers regarding 2 points before we begin:
1)I have received a request to start cut-tagging my posts (a magic LJ method of shortening this initial viewing window), since my updates are flooding my friends' "Friends update" pages. (a big thanx to our dear Peaches for bringing this to my attention ^^;) So. Below I shall leave my introductory paragraph, followed by a link that will lead you to the rest of this entry...it should work, but since this is a first for me, it very well may not. Do let me know if it doesn't or if you can't figure it out, by e-mail or reply post...preferably the latter.
Which takes us to #2:
2) Replying, aka leaving a comment. This is how to Leave a Comment/Reply to my blog ON the blog:
At the end of each post, you should see a green box on the left that lists my current location, mood, and music. A little lower on the right, there should be another box with links. The first link will either be "Post" or "Read [1,2,3]" (the # after "Read" = the # of replies there have already been to that particular entry--there will not be a Read link if no one has replied). Clicking on "Post" Will take you to a new page that has my blog entry and, waaay at the bottom, a text box where you can type in a message. When you're done, click "Post comment."
You can follow the "Read" link to see what other people have said (including your own comment if you decide to post)...there should be more comments coming in after this explanation. Hope it made sense. Let me know if it doesn't. ^^;
_______________
Japanese schools (from elementary to university) hold school festivals every fall, a thing all anime/Japan fans are monstrously aware of. I had the chance to attend Kansai Gaidai's school festival back in 2004 (OMG, has it really been that long? @_@)--an afternoon of cheer leading demonstrations, band concerts, guest speakers/performers, and FOOD. This past weekend, Tairadate and Kanita JH held their school festivals, and I was lucky enough to at last see for myself what these smaller-scale events are like.
In both schools, the students have been preparing for months--drilling parts of their performances, practicing skits, preparing food, putting together videos, painting panels and making signs. As a result of this, afternoon classes have recently been suspended, and I found myself wandering the halls of both schools, peering curiously into classroom after classroom in hopes I might find something to do. (I think think the most useful thing I really did in those weeks was paint a piece of cardboard about 4'x2' black) Perhaps next year, as I'll be here from the beginning, I might find something more challenging to set my mind to.
SATURDAY:
Kanita was first, and as recent events have suggested I take my schedule into my own hands, I discovered (after some inquiry) that they wanted me there as early as possible. So dear Kanazawa-san (the woman from the Board of Education who drives me home from Kanita every other week), kindly offered to give me a lift, since we all know (NOW) the bus does not run that early.
She picked me up at 8.
Halfway to Kanita, I realized I'd forgotten my school shoes.
We went back.
Back at the house, I dashed inside and snatched up my shoes, jumped back in the car, and we set out for Kanita...again.
I got there around 9, meaning I very well could have taken the bus. Upon arrival, it became clear, of course, that I was not needed any earlier. Everyone was rushing about getting ready, and I did little more than stand around watching them until the event began at 9:30.
Upon entering the gym, I swiftly took in He-sensei's apology for the field trip fiasco the week before (as this was the first time we'd seen each other since), and then took my seat among the students.
It was a little surprising to see the weak turnout. Sure, the school was small, and sure, most of the kids' parents were working, but at the start of the opening ceremony, I'd say there were maybe about 5 people sitting in the audience.
More trickled in later, so that by the end, there were maybe 30 or so friends and family come to join in the festivities.
Kanita JH's school festival, was arranged around the idea of a journey through space with a stop at each of the 9 planets (some of us are still in denial about the loss of Pluto, apparently). At each port, a new group would come to the front of the gym and put on a skit, play/sing a song, dance, do a demonstration, etc. Among the performances were a traditional Japanese dance to the technofied beat of (what I guessed to be) a traditional song, the cooking club's demonstration of the last year's activities in the form of an remarkably corny talk show (to the point of not actually being that funny), an excruciating bad band performance by 6 3rd-year students, a modern dance featuring some moves that I guessed had been snagged from watching American boy bands a little too closely, a music video of clips of the school to the theme of a popular anime (the Evangelion OP--it was most amusing, for those of you who know the tune and can imagine it), and at last, a taiko drum demonstration.
I had attended the taiko practice two weeks earlier, and was, at the time, quite impressed that JH students managed such a proficient level. The actual performance at the festival blew me away. They were every bit as good as any performers I'd seen at cultural events (or even Epcot ;) in the US, with probably 30 students on 6 different types of drum sets. They did 3 pieces, then repeated the first, and for those of you who have seen taiko, you can imagine it was the highlight of the day (especially among some of the other...not-so-fantastic demonstrations).
During the break for lunch, I milled about the school, which was set up with booths of food, pictures of school events, and examples of student projects and art work. It was at this time that I ran into two students from Kanita elementary, who beamed at catching sight of me and attached themselves to my person for the next hour. Together we freed goldfish into the school pond (returning the fish was a significant event, as a group of students had committed a chunk of their summer to cleaning the muck from the pond), ate ice cream, and strolled through the halls of the school. I eventually managed to shake my two leeches while they busied themselves chasing grasshoppers about in the courtyard of the school. (This isn't to say I don't like them, of course...just that these particular girls tend to be very demanding about the direction of my attention when we're together for more than five minutes at a time.)
So essentially...that was my day in Kanita. ^_^
SUNDAY:
This year marked the 10th anniversary of Tairdate JH, so Saturday was the ceremony to acknowledge it, and Sunday alone the school festival (whereas Kanita had 2 days of school festival, only one of which I attended). Tairadate's festival began with a similar turnout to Kanita (which was actually a more impressive student:attendee ratio than it was in Kanita, relative to the size of the schools). Here, rather than a modern, flashy space theme, the students marked the walls with the kanji for "harmony" and played off of that for their theme. There were speeches (including the English speeches I coached for the speech contest earlier this year), an impressive chorus composed of the entire student body, skits by each grade (including a Cinderella parody), a touch-typing demonstration (which grossly impressed the Japanese audience as I was sent into flashbacks of middle school and my days with UltraKey), and dance performances.
My particular favorite event here was 4 students who got up and performed an "ensemble concert." 2 pieces. The first was a rhythm piece in which they used not drums, but the backs of chairs to tap out the beat. The second was (to my everlasting amusement) a performance of the Sister Act 2 version of "O Happy Day." Most of you have probably seen that movie, and if you can recall the scene with this particular song, you know that the main melody is sung by a very gifted young black man with considerable range...and here we had a second year Japanese JH student (who happened to be one of Suzuka's brothers) doing a passable (not outstanding, but most definitely not what it could have been) rendition of that very song, IN ENGLISH, with every change of key and *nearly* every octave included. Incidentally, his main backup was the girl whom I had coached for the speech contest, so my enjoyment of this performance may have been because I knew both of these students fairly well.
A brave pair.
I ate lunch with Tsuruya-sensei's wife and one of his sons, and found it perhaps far too amusing that the boy's mildly rude behavior in declaring he was not hungry was more American than Japanese. I laughed as I called him America-poi (American-like), and was immediately surprised to find that the boy looked up at me with some interest for perhaps the first time since I'd met him, asking if I liked sushi and if I'd been to Korona's (a sushi restaurant in Aomori). Maybe he wants to be American...? *shrugs*
So Tairadate managed to rival Kanita's school festival well despite its meager student body, although I have to admit that I enjoyed the cleanup perhaps more than the day itself. When the performances were through and the guests had gone home, the students set about disassembling the sets and taking down the posters and artwork from the walls. Though Tsuruya-sensei told me I could just relax in the teacher's room, I have, in my months here so far, decided relaxing when there is work to be done (work that I can actually DO) is beyond ridiculous. There is no shortage of breaks in my schedule, so I went to the gym and helped one of the students take down the hand made aprons stuck to the wall. Not until I handed her the first pin did I realize she was one of the students I had previously made cry. To my relief, she did not run and hide, but actually smiled as we set to work until every apron was down and folded.
More and more, I'm starting to believe that it is English, not me, that these kids are so afraid of. (thankfully)
After the aprons were set, I headed over to the stage, where a small collection of students were stripping the stage of the huge, stage-sized paper backdrops painted with the scenes appropriate to the 1st grade skit. As they realized it would be very difficult to shove these giant sheets into garbage bags in one piece, they tentatively began to tear them into pieces in the cautious Japanese way. Seeing this, my bold American spirit burned with the opportunity to destroy something, and I took up the opposite ends of one of these sheets and instigated a tug-of-war with one of the 3rd grade girls.
Within 5 minutes, the 4 or so students that began tearing the paper turned into a collection of 10 kids, and the plan to rip the paper into small enough strips to fit into the garbage bags became an operation to rip until there was no more ripping to be had. Apparently, the fun found in artwork demolition (these backdrops were painted by the 1st graders...so they were kinda like artwork, however disposable) is not limited to crazy foreigners eager to destroy something. Soon enough, students were running up to me with long stips of paper, waving the open end at me to instigate a tug-of-war. When the monstrous sheets were diminished to pieces no bigger than a human head, the students took to throwing the scraps into the air like fall leaves, diving into the pile, and rolling about in the mess with glee.
Truly, it can't possibly be me (or just me) that they're afraid of...not anymore, anyway. ^^
CONCLUSION:
I'm scheduled to go to Tairadate elementary's school festival in a couple weeks, which should be fun, although I don't know at all what it will be like. My following aspiration will be to attend a high school festival, which, as I understand it, should be a little more like the Kansai Gaidai version...which was more fun, honestly, even though I didn't get to help clean up.
...I think I'm set now for this post, so I'll end here. I took some pics of the Tairadate event and will be posting them soon for viewing. 'Till then!
Fin.
1)I have received a request to start cut-tagging my posts (a magic LJ method of shortening this initial viewing window), since my updates are flooding my friends' "Friends update" pages. (a big thanx to our dear Peaches for bringing this to my attention ^^;) So. Below I shall leave my introductory paragraph, followed by a link that will lead you to the rest of this entry...it should work, but since this is a first for me, it very well may not. Do let me know if it doesn't or if you can't figure it out, by e-mail or reply post...preferably the latter.
Which takes us to #2:
2) Replying, aka leaving a comment. This is how to Leave a Comment/Reply to my blog ON the blog:
At the end of each post, you should see a green box on the left that lists my current location, mood, and music. A little lower on the right, there should be another box with links. The first link will either be "Post" or "Read [1,2,3]" (the # after "Read" = the # of replies there have already been to that particular entry--there will not be a Read link if no one has replied). Clicking on "Post" Will take you to a new page that has my blog entry and, waaay at the bottom, a text box where you can type in a message. When you're done, click "Post comment."
You can follow the "Read" link to see what other people have said (including your own comment if you decide to post)...there should be more comments coming in after this explanation. Hope it made sense. Let me know if it doesn't. ^^;
_______________
Japanese schools (from elementary to university) hold school festivals every fall, a thing all anime/Japan fans are monstrously aware of. I had the chance to attend Kansai Gaidai's school festival back in 2004 (OMG, has it really been that long? @_@)--an afternoon of cheer leading demonstrations, band concerts, guest speakers/performers, and FOOD. This past weekend, Tairadate and Kanita JH held their school festivals, and I was lucky enough to at last see for myself what these smaller-scale events are like.
In both schools, the students have been preparing for months--drilling parts of their performances, practicing skits, preparing food, putting together videos, painting panels and making signs. As a result of this, afternoon classes have recently been suspended, and I found myself wandering the halls of both schools, peering curiously into classroom after classroom in hopes I might find something to do. (I think think the most useful thing I really did in those weeks was paint a piece of cardboard about 4'x2' black) Perhaps next year, as I'll be here from the beginning, I might find something more challenging to set my mind to.
SATURDAY:
Kanita was first, and as recent events have suggested I take my schedule into my own hands, I discovered (after some inquiry) that they wanted me there as early as possible. So dear Kanazawa-san (the woman from the Board of Education who drives me home from Kanita every other week), kindly offered to give me a lift, since we all know (NOW) the bus does not run that early.
She picked me up at 8.
Halfway to Kanita, I realized I'd forgotten my school shoes.
We went back.
Back at the house, I dashed inside and snatched up my shoes, jumped back in the car, and we set out for Kanita...again.
I got there around 9, meaning I very well could have taken the bus. Upon arrival, it became clear, of course, that I was not needed any earlier. Everyone was rushing about getting ready, and I did little more than stand around watching them until the event began at 9:30.
Upon entering the gym, I swiftly took in He-sensei's apology for the field trip fiasco the week before (as this was the first time we'd seen each other since), and then took my seat among the students.
It was a little surprising to see the weak turnout. Sure, the school was small, and sure, most of the kids' parents were working, but at the start of the opening ceremony, I'd say there were maybe about 5 people sitting in the audience.
More trickled in later, so that by the end, there were maybe 30 or so friends and family come to join in the festivities.
Kanita JH's school festival, was arranged around the idea of a journey through space with a stop at each of the 9 planets (some of us are still in denial about the loss of Pluto, apparently). At each port, a new group would come to the front of the gym and put on a skit, play/sing a song, dance, do a demonstration, etc. Among the performances were a traditional Japanese dance to the technofied beat of (what I guessed to be) a traditional song, the cooking club's demonstration of the last year's activities in the form of an remarkably corny talk show (to the point of not actually being that funny), an excruciating bad band performance by 6 3rd-year students, a modern dance featuring some moves that I guessed had been snagged from watching American boy bands a little too closely, a music video of clips of the school to the theme of a popular anime (the Evangelion OP--it was most amusing, for those of you who know the tune and can imagine it), and at last, a taiko drum demonstration.
I had attended the taiko practice two weeks earlier, and was, at the time, quite impressed that JH students managed such a proficient level. The actual performance at the festival blew me away. They were every bit as good as any performers I'd seen at cultural events (or even Epcot ;) in the US, with probably 30 students on 6 different types of drum sets. They did 3 pieces, then repeated the first, and for those of you who have seen taiko, you can imagine it was the highlight of the day (especially among some of the other...not-so-fantastic demonstrations).
During the break for lunch, I milled about the school, which was set up with booths of food, pictures of school events, and examples of student projects and art work. It was at this time that I ran into two students from Kanita elementary, who beamed at catching sight of me and attached themselves to my person for the next hour. Together we freed goldfish into the school pond (returning the fish was a significant event, as a group of students had committed a chunk of their summer to cleaning the muck from the pond), ate ice cream, and strolled through the halls of the school. I eventually managed to shake my two leeches while they busied themselves chasing grasshoppers about in the courtyard of the school. (This isn't to say I don't like them, of course...just that these particular girls tend to be very demanding about the direction of my attention when we're together for more than five minutes at a time.)
So essentially...that was my day in Kanita. ^_^
SUNDAY:
This year marked the 10th anniversary of Tairdate JH, so Saturday was the ceremony to acknowledge it, and Sunday alone the school festival (whereas Kanita had 2 days of school festival, only one of which I attended). Tairadate's festival began with a similar turnout to Kanita (which was actually a more impressive student:attendee ratio than it was in Kanita, relative to the size of the schools). Here, rather than a modern, flashy space theme, the students marked the walls with the kanji for "harmony" and played off of that for their theme. There were speeches (including the English speeches I coached for the speech contest earlier this year), an impressive chorus composed of the entire student body, skits by each grade (including a Cinderella parody), a touch-typing demonstration (which grossly impressed the Japanese audience as I was sent into flashbacks of middle school and my days with UltraKey), and dance performances.
My particular favorite event here was 4 students who got up and performed an "ensemble concert." 2 pieces. The first was a rhythm piece in which they used not drums, but the backs of chairs to tap out the beat. The second was (to my everlasting amusement) a performance of the Sister Act 2 version of "O Happy Day." Most of you have probably seen that movie, and if you can recall the scene with this particular song, you know that the main melody is sung by a very gifted young black man with considerable range...and here we had a second year Japanese JH student (who happened to be one of Suzuka's brothers) doing a passable (not outstanding, but most definitely not what it could have been) rendition of that very song, IN ENGLISH, with every change of key and *nearly* every octave included. Incidentally, his main backup was the girl whom I had coached for the speech contest, so my enjoyment of this performance may have been because I knew both of these students fairly well.
A brave pair.
I ate lunch with Tsuruya-sensei's wife and one of his sons, and found it perhaps far too amusing that the boy's mildly rude behavior in declaring he was not hungry was more American than Japanese. I laughed as I called him America-poi (American-like), and was immediately surprised to find that the boy looked up at me with some interest for perhaps the first time since I'd met him, asking if I liked sushi and if I'd been to Korona's (a sushi restaurant in Aomori). Maybe he wants to be American...? *shrugs*
So Tairadate managed to rival Kanita's school festival well despite its meager student body, although I have to admit that I enjoyed the cleanup perhaps more than the day itself. When the performances were through and the guests had gone home, the students set about disassembling the sets and taking down the posters and artwork from the walls. Though Tsuruya-sensei told me I could just relax in the teacher's room, I have, in my months here so far, decided relaxing when there is work to be done (work that I can actually DO) is beyond ridiculous. There is no shortage of breaks in my schedule, so I went to the gym and helped one of the students take down the hand made aprons stuck to the wall. Not until I handed her the first pin did I realize she was one of the students I had previously made cry. To my relief, she did not run and hide, but actually smiled as we set to work until every apron was down and folded.
More and more, I'm starting to believe that it is English, not me, that these kids are so afraid of. (thankfully)
After the aprons were set, I headed over to the stage, where a small collection of students were stripping the stage of the huge, stage-sized paper backdrops painted with the scenes appropriate to the 1st grade skit. As they realized it would be very difficult to shove these giant sheets into garbage bags in one piece, they tentatively began to tear them into pieces in the cautious Japanese way. Seeing this, my bold American spirit burned with the opportunity to destroy something, and I took up the opposite ends of one of these sheets and instigated a tug-of-war with one of the 3rd grade girls.
Within 5 minutes, the 4 or so students that began tearing the paper turned into a collection of 10 kids, and the plan to rip the paper into small enough strips to fit into the garbage bags became an operation to rip until there was no more ripping to be had. Apparently, the fun found in artwork demolition (these backdrops were painted by the 1st graders...so they were kinda like artwork, however disposable) is not limited to crazy foreigners eager to destroy something. Soon enough, students were running up to me with long stips of paper, waving the open end at me to instigate a tug-of-war. When the monstrous sheets were diminished to pieces no bigger than a human head, the students took to throwing the scraps into the air like fall leaves, diving into the pile, and rolling about in the mess with glee.
Truly, it can't possibly be me (or just me) that they're afraid of...not anymore, anyway. ^^
CONCLUSION:
I'm scheduled to go to Tairadate elementary's school festival in a couple weeks, which should be fun, although I don't know at all what it will be like. My following aspiration will be to attend a high school festival, which, as I understand it, should be a little more like the Kansai Gaidai version...which was more fun, honestly, even though I didn't get to help clean up.
...I think I'm set now for this post, so I'll end here. I took some pics of the Tairadate event and will be posting them soon for viewing. 'Till then!
Fin.