‘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