Pomp and Circumstance

Today was graduation for the 3rd graders (= 8th grade) at my Junior High School. Naturally it was a very special day for them, but it ended up being a special day for me too.

Most of the time I don't know what's going on at school to any extent; generally it's just enough to feel like I have at least part of a foot on the inside of "the circle," which has been just fine. But determining the relationship the students have with the teachers, as well as with each other within each grade, not to mention between grades, has been less than easily discernable without understanding the language. Is the student visiting the teacher in the teacher's room just because they want to hang out with the teacher, or is it because the student failed to turn in their homework recently and are being reprimanded (people in Japan can be completely stoic even in the most joyful of events, which can give a misleading impression to someone outside the cultural loop)? Is the banter in the hallway and during club practice in good fun? I've never had a chance to witness how students and teachers interact in the classroom outside of English classes. But today I didn't have to understand a single word to understand what kind of impact their time together at Tokigawa Junior High School has had on the students and teachers.

Yesterday after watching the graduation ceremony practice, the principal asked me if I thought Japanese Junior High School graduation ceremonies were like military exercises. When one of the English teachers reminded me that he would be at his own daughter's JHS graduation ceremony today and I told him I hoped he would enjoy it, without batting an eye or missing a beat, he made the comment that it is difficult to enjoy graduation because it is so formal, as I had witnessed. Okay, touche, but take lots of pictures, I said. It's difficult to take pictures, he immediately replied, because most of it is everyone just sitting. I suppose in some sense their comments are truthful. The fact that a couple of hours each day for 3-4 days are dedicated to practicing for the ceremony gives you a bit of an idea about how precise they are. Setting up the chairs in the gym yesterday was definitely a militaristic operation involving a very long tape measure. But today emotion softened all the sharp edges....of the teachers' disciplinaric guardian/educator role, of the students' stoic, proper behavior, of the formality and rigidness of the graduation ceremony itself.

At the start of the ceremony, with the 1st and 2nd graders, as well as the teachers, parents and town officials already seated, the 3rd grade students filed into the gym behind their homeroom teachers to a round of applause. The Japanese national anthem was sung (gotta learn that sometime soon) as well as the school song (that one too). Then, to my surprise, they dove right into handing out the diplomas. I only saw one girl already crying during this part of the ceremony, but she started crying about 2 days ago, so I took that one with a grain of salt (she's my bud, so I can take a shot at her here). There were a number of speeches then by the principal and various town officials. Then the Student Body President turned on the faucets as he gave the final speech. I wish I could tell you what he said, but since I can't (cuz I couldn't understand it), all I can relate is that by the end of his speech most of the 3rd grade girls were crying, as well as some of the 3rd grade boys, some of the 1st and 2nd grade students, many of the parents, and most of the teachers, most notably the 3rd grade teachers. Even the rough-and-tumble 3rd grade Head Teacher (Social Studies teacher and coach, ironically enough for those of you who know my father :-) ) and tough-as-nails principal were teary-eyed. The Student Body President himself was having trouble getting through the very end of his speech and had to wipe tears away before he left the stage.

Immediately following his speech, the 3rd grade students had to sing a 'thank you and good-bye' song to the rest of the audience. The irony of the fact that a good portion of the girls were crying so much that they couldn't even sing the first part of the song was not lost on me as I simultaneously recalled the numerous "one-more-time" rehearsals of the song that had been performed the previous two days to make sure it was just right. :-)

At the end of the ceremony, the 3rd grade teachers stood at the very front of the gym in front of the 3rd grade students, who, homeroom by homeroom, would bow to their teachers, then file out as the 1st and 2nd graders played "I Did It My Way" on recorders (it sounds funny, but it was really cute). It was probably the most emotional part of the ceremony as the teachers, some of whom were in serious tears, had to accept their student's respectful bows for the last time, watch them turn their backs and head out the doors towards the awaiting world of high school.

After the 3rd grade teachers, students and parents mingled for about an hour in the 3rd grade classrooms, everyone congregated outside, lining either side of the walkway leading from the students' entrance of the school to the front parking lot area to applaud the 3rd graders as they exited the school for the last time. The atmosphere was a bit more relaxed; a lot of hand-shaking, calling out "congratulations," but still a lot of tears. After the last 3rd grader exited the school, everyone shuffled to the front parking lot where the 3rd graders performed their own surprise good-bye for all the teachers. Each teacher and staff person's name was called out and various forms of "thank-yous" were hollered. I got a "Mandy! Thank you very much!" in English. :-) Made me smile. Special thank-yous were delivered to the 3rd grade teachers, usually by individuals or smaller groups of students that were especially close to each teacher. It was really touching. One of the teachers told me that in all her years of teaching, she had never had such an experience where the students so creatively added their own touch to the end of the graduation ceremony; that this was a special group of students. I have to agree. I only spent about 2 months with this group of students, but I was just as proud, sad and excited to be sending them off. Their acceptance of me into their community during such a short timeframe, not to mention probably the most stressful time of their JHS careers, and during my still uncertain early-stages of life here in Japan, will make them a memorable group.

Of course everyone was running around taking pictures together before the 3rd graders headed home, including me, so check out my photo site in the next few days if you want to experience Japanese Junior High School graduation through photos.

Snowboarding 101

To be read with a sense of humor.

Actually, it was more like “Snowboarding 001.” Last weekend I attempted snowboarding for the first time. I don’t think my entire body has been so sore since high school sports practices.

About 10 of us (3 of us foreign teachers, a Tokyo-ite, a few Japanese teachers and a few city hall workers) headed north to the prefecture of Niigata for a weekend of winter sport enjoyment. It quickly became apparent that the snowboarders outnumbered the skiers, so I decided to look at it as a learning opportunity, threw my lot in with the snowboarders and talked another skier, Ms. Sekiguchi (the JHS art teacher in my town), into snowboarding too. Thank goodness she was game; I needed a partner in pain….I mean crime.

The ski area we went to was much less steep than many areas around it, and yet, for the first run, we managed to choose a slope with one of the steepest starts, and it was icy to boot. I couldn’t stand up for the life of me and in the end I pretty much slid down the steep part partially on my snowboard and partially on my left hand…cursing inertia the entire way. Ms. Sekiguchi was a bit slow to start too, but of course, a couple minutes later while I was still at the top of the hill trying to master the art of standing up facing forwards, I looked down to see Ms. Sekiguchi rounding the first turn at the bottom of the first section of the slope. Yeah, good plan, Mandy, try snowboarding.

One of the group was nice enough to stick with me on the steepest part of the hill. About halfway to two-thirds of the way down, we came across some of the other members of the group, including Ms. Sekiguchi…..going up in the ski lift again. They caught up with us in short order and there was a changing of the “make sure Mandy gets down the hill” guard. My security detail and I finally made it down in time for lunch…..it took me somewhere between 2-3 hours to get down one run, which I’m pretty sure is a record for me. During each of the many hundreds of times I was laying on the ground communing with the snow, I remember thinking how funny this was all going to be after the fact, and by golly it is! Actually, as frustrating as my first 2-3 hours of snowboarding sounds, I had a lot of fun. In a strange way, it was a nice change of pace from skiing (a.k.a. something I can actually do relatively respectably). And my terrible showing that first morning prompted some people to do things they might not have done otherwise, like one of the other foreign English teachers going full-speed into the orange guard fence I was wiped out next to, just for the hell of it. There’s just something about making a fool of yourself that makes others more at ease doing likewise.

Luckily, something about the spaghetti and meat sauce I had for lunch propelled me to another level during the afternoon. I was still no Peakabo Street, but I could stay on my feet much longer than I could in the morning, even making it half to two-thirds the way down the easier slopes before wiping out in spectacular fashion. And I was able to keep up with Ms. Sekiguchi, the beginning snowboarder wunderkind, which was a huge boost for my ego, besides being a lot of fun. It was also a bit of a necessity considering all the other snowboarders were at least at a lower intermediate level and no one want to snowboard with us – ha ha - except the Japanese English teacher, Ms. Inoue, bless her heart, and Mr. Fukuda, the city hall worker who had organized the trip. He was a good skier and I totally didn’t expect him to be hanging around us beginners, but nonetheless, whenever we were having a good run at the slope, there he was photographing it for posterity’s sake….or maybe collecting illustrations for his “How Not To Snowboard” book.

For those of you who snowboard (and even those of you who don’t, I’m sure you’ll be able to picture this), here’s the kicker for my being able to finally do something that resembled snowboarding. Of course, being able to stand up is the foundation for being able to snowboard, right? Well, over the two days I attempted snowboarding, I never learned to stand up facing down the slope. I was only able to stand up backwards, facing up the slope. Whether this was a cause and effect thing, is hard to say, but I ended up much better at snowboarding backwards than forwards, which I gathered was a bit unusual and unorthodox. I was cracking myself up all weekend at the fact that I do most things backwards, which now includes snowboarding. In case you’re wondering, yes, I was able to get myself turned around often enough to say I can snowboard forwards too. However, I had to start each slope backwards and most of my runs were done looking over my shoulders to make sure I didn’t run into anything since I couldn’t see where I was going very well. A couple of other beginner/intermediates in our group would comment to me, “Wow, I can’t snowboard backwards.” And I would look at them stoically and say, “Well, I can’t snowboard forwards,” and would think to myself, which one of us do you think is more screwy?

Anyway, the second half of my first day of snowboarding went well enough for me to want to give it a go a second day. Day two was pretty much like the second half of day one, except my wipe-outs were more spectacular because I would mislead myself into thinking I could do things at a faster speed than I could on day one. Again, Ms. Sekiguchi, Ms. Inoue and Mr. Fukuda were there to share the fun. Ms. Sekiguchi and I spent more time communing with the snow, which got to be more messy than on day one because day two was quite a bit warmer and definitely more sunny than day one, so the snow gradually turned to slush throughout the day, or melted away from some spots altogether. I equate this experience of trying to still learn how to snowboard as the snow is disappearing from under your feet to trying to learn how to drive a stick-shift with the emergency break on (true story; does that surprise you?).

It was all good fun and I’m happy I can say I’ve been snowboarding now, but until Ms. Sekiguchi and I are ready for more punishment and can take to the slopes together again sporting the single board, I’m sticking to skiing for the time being. I don’t think I’ll take being able to stay on my feet (most of the time) for granted as much next ski trip.

To top off the weekend, there was a special event going on at the ski resort we went to, so at 9pm on day one, we gathered with the crowds at the bottom of a slope to watch a candle-light children’s ski ceremony, followed by the most spectacular fireworks I think I’ve ever seen. The fireworks show (with music) lasted maybe half an hour, standard, but the fireworks they set off were unbelievable. The most memorable one exploded nearly right above our heads, fanned out until almost the entire sky above us was engulfed in color and the tails stayed lit almost all the way to the ground. It’s one of those things you have to see for yourself to really appreciate. Especially when it’s all happening to background music by a Japanese boy-band called “SMAP” (the name is enough, but to boot, they pretty much equate to the Backstreet Boys – been around forever and are all in their late 30’s now) and you can sing along to the chorus, “Arigato, Ohhhhhhh! Arigato, Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

The next trip is coming up this weekend. It’s skis for me! Wish me luck. Ganbatte, Mandy!