The Even Greater Tokyo Region

What kind of Sport is this???

This last week I've finally had to be at work a lot. (not to be confused with "working a lot"). For thse unfamiliar with Japanese schools, they have these things called an undokai (literally "excercise meet). Basically it's a sports day. So what, 'we have sports days', you may be saying...

Of course, the Japanese take this very very seriously, and in the whole week leading up to it, there was almost no classes. The students, and teachers, were out practicing.

At least in New Zealand at the sports days, all the participants are chosen by the reliable method of having people nominate their friends in the hope they dont have to do anything themselves. In Japan, evrey single tiny detail is spelled out. On my desk there are stacks of paper forming an inpenetrable fort, and each paper details things like, who will be running, how the participants will march to the starting spot, what brand of underwear they will be wearing etc...

All week long, the students practiced every aspect of the sports day, including the actual events. And it wasn't just running, but tug-o-war and silly events too. They are too complicated and boring to explain, but basically these games are designed to embarrass the people who mess up. The red team won every event, but that may be because the other team was waving white flags the whole time. So it was billed to be a very one-sided event.

The big day was held on a saturday. And I think there was a 100% turnout. At my school in NZ, it was held on a schoolday, and there was about a 60% turnout.

The whole sports day was quite hilarious, only the Japanese didn't seem laugh at the same things I did. There was a Tae-bo-esque warmup routine, set to Japanese pirate music. And most events had music- which brought up memories of disneyland-playing in the background. One event which shocked me was called the "Tyre Collection". It sounds innoncent enough. It involved a whole lot of tyres in the middle of the field, and all the girls. It was basically a bitch-fight for the tyres. If they had handbags, this could have been a Monty Python skit. Just crazy. Then the whistle blows, they return to the starting spot and bow to each other.

Between all of the silly events and silly music, there was a whole lot of bowing and marching. To me it seemed more like military training. And you thought that Japan doesn't have an army. They have one of the largest military spending budgets, and through the schools, a compulory draft with a 100% participation rate.

Watching the students march around, I couldn't help but think how much the students must dislike sports day. But as is often the case, I was very wrong. Afterwards, in the red group debriefing, there was harldy a dry eye there. Although they had won, they lost the cheering competetion, and they were inconsolable. Girls, boys and teachers alike. So it seems like everyone had a good time...

All except for me... I mean, it was pretty funny, but I had nothing to do all day. I just sat around, taking photos of all the sillyness around me. The real fun came afterwards at the staff drinking party. Yes, it is exactly like it sounds. All the teachers sitting around getting drunk. Being the new teacher, it was also a sort of welcome party for me. Meaning, they all wanted to see me get drunk. I am by far the youngest teacher at the school (in fact, it is unheard of to have a 21 year old qualified teacher... I guess I'm not qualified...) So I used the drinking party as a time to earn respect and show my maturity. Nothing says "I'm mature" like drinking a lot of beer.

I managed to survive the drinkning party in style, and I learnt a lot about the other teachers, like what one of them had for breakfast that morning. So a good time was had by all.