‘Sports Day’ at Noukou almost killed me.

Each year, schools across the land count the days in anticipation of ‘Sports Day’: a whole day without mathematics class or English lessons - just playing games in the dirt. All day long. Kind of like a lot of us did in elementary school - except here, in Japan, they ride that wave till the triumphant end.

The festival was commenced by a procession (of course), which entailed the 400 high-schoolers parading around the dust track, wielding their handmade flags and shouting obscenities at each other. (These are the agricultural students, mind you: They’re much too cool for Sports Day.) Below are some of my students. Miki (miss double peace-signs in the middle) is awesome - she takes English-conversation lessons in the evenings and can speak very well. The other girls are absolutely insane. Most times I’m hiding from them.


After the procession (which was accompanied by the tinniest-sounding marching-band music leaked from a squawk box), the teachers actually judged which class had constructed the best flag.


Then the games began (for real this time). The kids ran 50m and 100m races, and they were real fast. Some of the students ran barefoot (you could tell they meant business), and they destroyed the other kids. It was quite the spectacle. The picture on the left is pretty crappy, but it shows some of the scenery around Noukou, which is really beautiful: A ring of thick, green mountains crowds the school grounds. Supposedly, it’s difficult to find mountains in Japan that haven’t been clear-cut for timber - so I feel pretty fortunate to be living somewhat among them.

A real man’s sporting event came next: Tug of War. But before that got underway, the students killed some time passing around my sunglasses and pretending to be fashion models (this went on all day long). For some reason, the Japanese rarely (if ever) wear sunglasses. I’ve heard a couple theories on this. One goes: “The Japanese believe it’s disrespectful for one to hide his or her eyes.” And another: “Biologically, their eyes are better ‘equipped’ to handle the bright sun.” I’m not sure which (if either) are on the mark, but you’d think they’d never seen such eyewear the way they were fawning over my two-dollar “shades.”

Finally, the tugging began. I think the students were competing between grades and “homerooms,” and they were a little volatile about the whole thing. Even the teachers were getting all red-in-the-face over the game.

Then came the tattooing event (my personal favorite), where students drew naked men with boners on their arms and legs.

After lunch there was an 8-team, 10-person relay race (quite the ordeal), and I was coerced into the position of runner #7 on the teachers’ team. Along with the students, the teachers at Noukou are ripped. For some strange reason, they’re all (practically) ex-olympic athletes - so this was some serious shit. Three laps into the race, when the baton was finally passed on to me, I suddenly realized I didn’t know how to run anymore - I completely BIT IT rounding the first curve. Skidding sideways across the dust-track I was luckily able to take down a few of the kids running alongside me, which helped my placement in the end. I think the teachers’ team came in 6th out of the 8 (not too bad), and I cycled home reeling and sore with a dirt-encrusted track burn.

2 Comments

japanezee b
Sugoii!! Where's the picture of your boner-sporting tanuki?
Tuesday, October 3, 2006 - 07:02 PM

japanezee b
tanuki tattoo, I mean. Jeez. Maybe I should quit drinking my shochu straight out of the bottle.
Tuesday, October 3, 2006 - 07:04 PM

Kansai Mosey with Abby Augusta

Respect for the Aged weekend brought Abby down from faraway Nagano (famed for its mountains, snow monkeys, onsens: the “roof of Japan,” says the travel guide). We spent three days ambling between Kyoto and Nara, and although just a few hours southwest of us a pretty hairy typhoon was rattling the folks on the Kyushu island, the weather in the Kansai region was just right. In Kyoto, we stayed in a kinda touch-and-go hostel dubbed the White House, which was rigged out with a beer vending machine, community bathing, and a coin-operated television. Not too shabby really (I mean, we didn’t get bedbugs or anything). Plus it was only a 30-second totter from Kyoto station. I didn’t snap any photos of the White House, but imagine a dingy ashen hovel takin’ a load off in an alley that smells like trash--and there it is, plain as day. (The inside was nice, though, really!)

When we got to Kyoto on Saturday, we stashed our bags at the hostel and took off on foot. Luckily for me, Abby is some kind of ace navigator (a helmswoman in a previous life), so meandering through Kyoto ended up being an ironically productive approach to viewing the city. We headed eastward to Higashiyama first, which is a massive
park strewn with temples, shrines--oh, and grave sites too. We circulated through the sweeping cemetery, which seemed never-ending (we eventually sat down in front of a heap of stones to eat the snacks we’d brought along. The graves were framed by green, billowing mountains, and there were a few tykes chasing each other through the aisles). Later we came upon an area called Kiyomizu, a district of towering pagodas
and ancient shrines. Tourists were aplenty here, all with cellphone-cameras absently raised to capture the perfect memory--all on a screen the size of a credit card. I’d never been to this part of Kyoto, but it was surely the bee’s knees of Kyoto’s historical quarters, plus Abby and I hit the nail on the knuckle because we arrived in Kyomizu just in time for the dragon procession, led by Buddhist monks (apparently only once a year).

This was probably the most beguiling way to start off our weekend in Kyoto: The city was lively and full of movement, it wasn’t typhooning, and it was a perfect 75 degrees outside--not 97 and humid as it had been the past few weeks. So we pressed onward into a narrow thoroughfare of shops leading to the next place of marvel. To our surprise, we hadn’t seen the last of the rogue dragon: He came snaking down the thoroughfare through the throng of tourists, jutting in and out of shops, then whipping back down the path. (We were eating green-tea ice cream cones when the dragon hurtled over our heads.)

Afterward, we found some quieter temples and kicked gravel in the shade for awhile.


Then we trekked another couple miles to the Heian Temple. It was huge, sandy, and a little oppressive.


From Heian, we were “walking with purpose” toward the Path of Philosophy, which we’d both wanted to see above anything else in Kyoto--so it was the day’s destination essentially. We ducked down a slender passageway as a shortcut to our target path. The gravel trail was knifed in its center by a slow-moving creek. On our left was a wall that retained the gardens of elaborate homes from our view. (outside the photo, to the left, a gardener diligently trims the tree above Abby’s head.) Soon after, we reached the Path of Philosophy. We were pretty spellbound with exhaustion at this point, but the path was an entrancing course of gravel and stone, flanked by a deeply furrowed stream (which would’ve been alarmingly easy to tumble into). Twilight was rooting in, so it was difficult to take many pictures (and y’all know how ill-mannered the camera flash can be), but the photo at the top of this entry was one we snapped by balancing my Canon on the stone railing of a bridge. The path is lingering in the background, and on the left is the stream. I’m actually tempted to omit this photo because it falls flat in comparison to the place (the fate of all photos--so sad). At this point, Abby and I have probably walked something like 5 miles, but I’d say we’re looking pretty gleeful--but that’s because we’re about to eat at Cafe Peace, which sported the best vegetarian food I’ve eaten in Japan yet. On the way to the restaurant we passed more interesting places. It was only early evening (6 or so?) but almost completely dark. After veering off Philosopher’s Path,
we came across this empty place. Completely silent, it had this lit from within quality--kind of a hypnotic place in general. Abby and I read some of the prayers that passersby had tacked on to the wall of the temple. Most of the prayers in English were more like wishes for happiness (may peace be bestowed upon you and other banalities.), and at that moment I had genuinely wanted to be able to read in another language--there was writing on the wall in Spanish, French, Japanese (of course) and on and on.

From there we made our way to the restaurant, which was located in the Kyoto
University area. Cafe Peace is the Kansai region’s most famous vegetarian/vegan restaurant, and it was (seriously) that good. We ate an amazing garbanzo-bean curry and some kind of soy cutlet dish. So satisfying; I’d been craving good veggie food for almost two months! And on top of all that ... Abby picked up the check.

The next night, after visiting Nara, we spent some time in the Gion district. Here it rained briefly, which made the cobbled streets glow under the lamps. We watched for awhile, crouched under our umbrellas, from the railing of a small bridge.

“Hallo, handsome boy.”

By the end of 6th period yesterday (the fourth class of my first day teaching), the students at the agricultural high school basically had me in a full nelson, topped off with a few English cuss words. But I think it went OK, overall. Really.

One seventeen-year-old "PUNK" said fuck you to me, his shirt tucked in, yet strangely buttoned only halfway up displaying a sad row of scantily skin-clad ribs. He kept reciting two phrases: (1) Sid Vicious, making the gesture of shooting heroin into his arm while saying the name (in case I needed the action to trigger my memory of the man) and (2) I drums, because he was a drummer, and he was in a band (with the other punk-ass kid across the room, whom played bass and had an affinity for Linkin Park, whom kept insisting I'd come from China, not Chicago. How clever.). When I questioned the drummer--his name's Yuta--about the other members of the Sex Pistols, I learned he didn't even know whom Johnny Rotten was! What a poseur, right? I mean, he'd probably just seen the film Sid and Nancy at his last slumber party and made a role model out of the half-fictional character. Geesh, OK. Enough slammin' the schoolboys. Clearly I've redeemed myself to, er, myself.

[side note: Only the boys were total jackasses (of course). Most of the girls seemed somewhat interested in learning English, and a few of them could actually speak pretty well. For instance, while most boys would draw pictures of their suicidal dreams on my ‘Nice to Meet You!’ handout, the girls would leave adorable messages like, You smile good.]

Noukou, this school where I teach Wednesdays, is an agricultural high school. Some of the students "choose" to attend Noukou because (A) they don't like studying or (B) they're legitimately interested in developing farming techniques. I'm convinced, however, that most of the students are stuck at Noukou because they were born into a community where academic knowledge is deemed useless (they're farmers, so they've gotta point), and therein lies the (Sid) vicious cycle. They didn't do well enough at their substandard middle school, thus they didn't make the grades to get into an academic high school. Not too far off, really, from the state of public education in North America. But, here, the students seem to settle for it, and it becomes understood that nothing much is expected of them. (OH, and on top of all that, high school is optional in Japan.)

I taught my first classes at the academic high school (Kita Kou) today. Biiiiiig WHOOP compared to teaching at Noukou, so I should be happy to have entered the teaching world under some of the worst possible conditions. Today's classes were actually pleasant: I got to teach in my socks (because not one of the school's many pairs of slippers fit my feet), the kids listened, the girls didn't tell me my dog Bubba was ugly, and they actually answered my questions rather than straight-ironing their hair at their desks (one boy at Noukou actually did that yesterday!). So far, I have two favorite students. One is a girl named Shimuri, who also has two cats and a dog named Sukoto. The other is a boy (whose name I don't remember) whose "worst memory of summer vacation" is getting hit by a car. (He’s fine, he didn’t even break anything.)




4 Comments Manage Comments for this Entry

e.t.
i am exhausted just by reading this! the difference between the "boys and girls" seems typical, yet some how more severe and bizarre at the same time. i can't even look teenagers in the eyes here, let alone ones who don't speak my language and sware at me. you're my hero.

ps- joanna's new album makes me weep. truly. (i managed to download it all, though i will certainly buy it- i was just antsy after reading the complicated measures taken to create those arrangements and what not) anywho, i can't listen to it once with out feeling as though my stomach is wrenching itself into knots. she is the best story teller. don't you think?
Friday, September 8, 2006 - 03:11 PM

D.C
I'd like to see the sucidal dreams version of the "nice to meet you" .. sounds interesting.
Thursday, September 14, 2006 - 03:16 AM

Johnny
I'm with D.C. Man, aren't the boys over there dicks? At school they would always get pissed when the girls would swarm us and in one particular instance, a boy actually whipped out his penis in the middle of the hallway for some strange reason, to prove his manhood I presume!? His actions went unpunished even though the principal of the school was right there when it happened, he just giggled nervously and grabbed the kid by his arm and told him to get lost essentially! Strange.
Thursday, September 14, 2006 - 04:56 AM

japanezee b
Could you ask the kid with the straight iron if he would lend it to me?
Tuesday, October 3, 2006 - 06:52 PM

Tody was my "debut,"

they said, handing me a pair of slippers half the size of my feet and sitting me on the sidelines of a gymnasium full of high-schoolers mingled with bored faculty members. The principal, kocho-sensei, whom at that point I still hadn't met, introduced me to the seated teenagers and yawning teachers. He talked a lot (for never having met me), but I was only able to pick up a few words from his speech (I heard him mention the names of a couple Japanese poets -- Matsuo Basho and Shuntaro Tanikawa -- however, in what kind of context I have no clue).

After kocho-sensei spoke and descended, I was waved to the stage. The stage itself was adorned with a huge American flag, and as I stood up they began to play the national anthem. I'm sure the school had the greatest intentions (trying to make me feel welcomed and such), but I started to feel very awkward, not really knowing what to do with my hands while my nation's anthem is played (hold one over my heart or something? That seemed ridiculous), and, to make everything worse, my slippers flew right off my feet as I started up the stairs to the stage. This made all the kids erupt in laughter, drowning out the sound of O'oh say can you seeeee, which altogether had an undeniable symbolic effect. Here I am, representing the United States in the quaint town of Nagahama, and in my first month I've managed to trigger a throng of teenage laughter during our nation's anthem.

Next came my speech, in Japanese, which altogether spanned no more than a quarter of the time it took the American Sports Song to finish out. Not knowing any Japanese really, I had strung together a series of banal facts about myself: I like reading. I like snowboarding. My Japanese is shit. And so on. After the predictable conclusion to my speech (doozo yoroshiku onegaishimasu), I received a deafening rattle of applause. I really swooned 'em apparently. Then I descended the stage in dirty blue socks, slippers in hand.


[ common Japanese office relations ]



3 Comments for this Entry

mexi-nugget
Maybe you just cut foot-loose. It seemed to work for Mid-western high school students...
Saturday, September 2, 2006 - 08:50 PM

Ryan
so wonderful. you realize you are going to write a book about all this right? good.
Wednesday, September 6, 2006 - 08:34 AM

Johnny
Hey buddy, I feel you! When I was at school in Japan, my host parents couldn't find me slippers almost the whole time I was there. They had to special order them from a Big & Tall-type store hilariously misnamed "Britishisms".
Thursday, September 14, 2006 - 04:48 AM