Welcome back dear readers! I’ve hit the four month mark here in Japan, and time is getting away from me again. I have a few things to catch y’all up on, so let’s start with my junior high school’s festival. I am a little late on writing about it, as it was over 2 months ago, but I think y’all might want to hear about it because it is a cool cultural thing here in Japan.
Since school started back up in the beginning of September the students had been preparing for this event. It is one of the most important events for students here, and they spend a lot of time and effort in preparing for it. The school festival gives students the chance to show off their talents and all the hard work they are doing at school.
The festival began in part on Friday with some sports activities. The students were divided into two teams, with the 6th graders from the elementary school coming over to join. They then did a variety of sports activities, such as a running relay and a partner “activity relay”. Us teachers just watched, but it did look like it was a lot of fun for the students.
Saturday was the main part of the school festival. The day commenced with an opening ceremony, and then the students spent time presenting on various experiences they had had in the past year, such as class trips and projects. After their presentations, we got to explore the exhibits they had put together of some of their work. They displayed art projects, home economics creations, and more. It was really cool to see the students be able to display their work and have their parents and other community members come to admire it. The teachers also had to submit some sort of craft for a display, so I quilled something. It was also cool to see the different talents of my fellow teachers.
After the exhibition we took a break for lunch, then reconvened for my favorite part of the school festival. It was now time for the performing arts segment. It seems like they take performing arts pretty seriously here in Japan. Every student sings in the choir, and many of them play instruments. Many teachers also play instruments for special events. There were four different events for this segment: chorus, band, a puppet show, and taiko drums. Each part was equally awesome.
I thoroughly enjoyed the chorus event in particular because I got to participate in it. Each grade sang their own song, and then two grades combined for another song, then all the students sang together. The PTA sang a song (which included me), and then all the teachers and students sang a song together. I was really excited to be part of these two songs because they were in Japanese, so I felt really accomplished in singing them. After the teacher and student song, however, it really became my turn to shine. Since the vice principal knew I was a singer and had previously invited me to sing with her as she played the piano, I was asked to sing one of those songs for the festival. I do love to perform, so I said yes. I chose to sing Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver, which is one of my favorite songs. It is also a popular song in Japan, so it was something we knew the audience would enjoy. I was super nervous to sing by myself, but I was also excited. It went really well, and the audience even clapped along for the whole song. It was such a great experience.
After the chorus event, the band played a few songs. Only about half of the students are in the band (so about 15 students), but they still play amazing. Even though they are junior high school students, they sounded better than most American high school bands that I’ve heard. They are very dedicated to excellence in music, which I love. After the band, many students then did a taiko performance, which was so amazing. Taiko is traditional Japanese drumming and I had never seen it before. I was amazed. If you have a chance, look up a taiko performance; they are pretty cool.
The last performance was the puppet show. And I’m not talking little puppets. They were pretty large puppets, and some of the students dramatically read the story as others moved the puppets. It was so cool because it was a traditional Japanese story. Thankfully my friend Lexi had tagged along for the festival, and since she has a high level of Japanese she was able to translate a bit for me so I could understand the gist of it.
Overall, the festival was such a fun experience and it was so awesome to see all that my students had and could accomplish. I was really impressed. I am really excited to see what they will prepare next year.
After the festival most of the teachers went to an enkai, which is basically a food and drinks party for all the staff. I hitched a ride with the English teacher down to Matsumoto, where we joined the other teachers at a pretty nice restaurant. I am not sure how many courses the meal was, but at least six separate small dishes were served to us. Of course, picky eater me did not like much of that meal. However, (and you should be proud of me, Mom) I did try a bit of fish, lotus root, and some salmon on rice (I drew the line at eating the salmon eggs that were served on top, and picked those off). This was a pretty big accomplishment for me, because I am a notoriously picky eater who refuses to try anything.
Accompanied with the meal was a wonderful thing here in Japan known as nomihodai, which basically means all you can drink, including alcoholic drinks. This restaurant didn’t skimp on the alcohol, which was pretty nice. Usually nomihodai drinks are weaker than normal, but if you drink enough of them you can still get pretty intoxicated. I had at least three strong mixed drinks, and a few glasses of beer, so I ended up getting pretty buzzed, which is normal for an enkai. I’ve heard stories from friends about their fellow teachers getting pretty drunk at these events, though no one at mine got really drunk. Part of what contributes to this is a cultural thing here where other people are often filling up your drink for you. At an enkai it is customary that you do not pour your own drink, but fill up the drinks of the people around you. Someone will usually take a look at your drink then and fill it up for you. It is a nice tradition, except when you’ve only had like two gulps of your drink and they are topping it off again. It can get a little hard to gauge how much you are drinking then.
After our dinner at this restaurant we then relocated to an izakaya, which is a place where you can get drinks and some nibbles. It’s kinda like a tapas bar, and is pretty much the equivalent of going to a restaurant like Applebee’s in the US and ordering some half apps. The izakaya we went to was pretty delicious, and we got a few more drinks there. Unfortunately, me and the secretary had to leave earlier than everyone in order to catch the train heading back towards the village. We then had to take a taxi back to the village since it is 15 minutes from the closest station. As soon as I got home I hit the hay because I was beat. The enkai had been the perfect way to end a pretty wonderful day. I am excited for the next special event at my school!
I’ll try to catch up on a few other things I have done here before I head back to the US for Christmas, so stay tuned readers!
Gitta Across the Globe 