Cool Biz

I grew up in San Francisco, where I was pretty spoiled in terms of the weather, since it's rather mild all year. Unfortunately, ever since I moved away in 1986 to go see the world, starting with Germany, I've mostly had to deal with the four seasons (and I'm not talking about the hotel!). Japan is no different from many of my other homes away from home over the years, which primarily means pretty cold winters and hot, humid summers.

Because of the nasty summers, a lot of companies and schools across Japan, including my school, run a campaign called "Cool Biz" from June 1-September 30. The point of the campaign is save electricity (mostly in the form of air conditioning) by allowing employees to dress more casually than normal. Basically what that means is, at my school, during the Cool Biz period, we can wear short-sleeve shirts and we don't have to wear ties. I almost never wear a tie, anyway, so that little perk doesn't apply to me, but I certainly enjoy wearing short-sleeves.

Tomorrow, Thursday, is the 30th, so, technically, starting Friday the men will have to be back to wearing ties and long-sleeve shirts. Luckily, however, the dress code isn't really enforced, so I don't expect too many teachers to change over to the standard style of dress right away.

Soon enough, though, it'll be freezing here again, and many of us will be back to wearing fifteen layers of clothing.

The Annual Forestopia Sports Festival - More Photos

The Forestopia Festival is also simply about having fun. Here, two seniors on the red team can be seen enjoying their final festival.










And here we have two sophomores from the white team showing off their enthusiasm.














The red team leader is seen here at the top of a "pyramid," trying to fire up his troops.








Naturally, the white team leader also got his chance to show off his squad's cheering/dancing skills. (The two team leaders are always members of the junior class and always seem to be males, for some reason, whereas the sub-leaders of both teams always seems to be females.)











There's also always a couple of "real" cheerleading routines performed by the girls.














All the cheerleading wouldn't be complete without some taiko. (Note how the white team this year was basically the blue team.)











It's an unwritten tradition for the kids who graduated in the spring to come to the festival. Showing up also gives them a chance to show off their new duds and haircuts. Some of the kids get pretty wild after they graduate, probably since they are happy to no longer have to abide by the uniform regulations which completely do away with individual expressionism. This is one of my buddies, who is now studying engineering in Hokkaido.











Here's another look at some of the returning seniors and their new looks. (This photo is from 2009.)











And finally, the two team captains once again, this time with the rewards for all their hard work.

The Annual Forestopia Sports Festival - Photos

The day begins with the students parading past the VIPs. The white team goes first, for whatever reason, and is led by the boys.










The red team follows, with the girls bringing up the rear. (As I've mentioned several times, the Japanese do not believe in "ladies first," but rather "ladies last.") Note that the only way to identify what team a student is on is by looking at the color of their headband. After a bit of dancing (and stretching) to warm up, the competition begins.











The first event is the tug-of-war, which is actually not called "tug-of-war" but rather something like "rope pull" over here. First, the boys fight it out. Then, the girls get their turn. Finally, the "all-stars" (both boys and girls) go at it.











What they do call tug-of-war is really the next event, which is more like a version of capture the flag. Two kids (either boys or girls) each wrap a kind of inner-tube harness around their bodies and try to be the first to grab the flag that is positioned about 6 or 8 feet in front of them. Some matches only last a few seconds, or at most about a minute, but this particular match in the picture lasted for about five minutes. The poor kid in the foreground is digging his fingernails into the ground in an effort to maintain his position. He put up quite a fight, but ended up losing.









Next came another capture-the-flag variant, which, as far as I know, was a Forestopia Sports Festival first! A certain number of kids had to first lie flat on their backs with their feet pointing toward the big red mat. When the whistle blew, they had to get up as fast as they could and sprint for the flag. Whoever grabbed the flag was the winner. After several rounds, a champion was crowned. (There is a separate competition for both girls and boys.)












After each event, the winning team is announced and a representative from the team is awarded a flag. The representative then hurries back to his or her teammates to celebrate the victory.










There are a few events that are strictly for the boys or strictly for the girls. The tire pull is one of the two girls' events. It can be a bit rough, but it's not nearly as rough as one of the boys-only events, which I call "Topple to Tower." I doubt "Topple the Tower" would be allowed in any school in America. Surprisingly, most years it seems that no one gets seriously injured during the event. This year, however, two kids did end up with their arms in slings, but, as far as I know, neither injury is, well, serious. I guess the reason the event continues has something to do with the samurai/kamikaze/bonzai-ness of the Japanese.











There was a similar girls' event in years past, which involved the two teams vying to be the first to climb a pole and place a flag at the top. I call it "Raise the Flag."










Since several girls were injured last year during "Raise the Flag," the event has been replaced with a more harmless event, at least temporarily, which is very similar to the tire pull. This time, instead of pulling on tires, the girls pull on bamboo poles. Whichever teams collects the most poles, wins.











The other boys' event, called "kibasen," is yet another semi-brutal type of capture-the-flag game. This version involves teams of four, consisting of one guy, the "horseman," (or I guess you could call him the samurai) being held up by three others, the "horse," going after each other. The object is to capture as many headbands from the other team's horsemen as possible within the time limit. One horseman wears a colored vest and is designated as the "king," which means his headband is worth more points than the others.










The competition also consisted of common track & field events, such as the long jump ...











and various sprints and relays. This guy pictured here happens to be the fastest guy in school as well as one of the fastest in the whole prefecture, actually.

The Annual Forestopia Sports Festival

I started to write about this last year, but I never got around to completing it. So here goes...

Every year, at some point in the summer, most (all?) schools in Japan hold both a sports festival as well as a culture festival. Some schools have them on separate weekends, but my school has both festivals over a three-day period that always starts on a Saturday and ends on a Monday.

The sports festival isn't too interesting for us teachers, since we primarily only help with set-up, judging, and clean-up. (This year, for whatever reason, I wasn't assigned any duty whatsoever, so I helped out wherever I felt there was a need, which mostly meant I helped clean up at the end of the day. Then again, I was busy taking pictures, anyway!) The kids are the ones who get to have all the fun, since they are the ones competing in the various events.

The one bit of action the teachers do see is when we do the x-by-100 meter relay (x = about 32). I guess that's when we get our 15 seconds of fame. I always hope that I at least get to run the part of the track leading to the finish line, since that's where 90% of the fans (parents) are located. After all, if I have to run, I might as well be seen! The first year I was here, I had to run starting from the finish line, so that was no good. Two years ago and this year, I ran the second leg, which was even worse. Last year was the only cool year, when I indeed got to come down the home stretch and show off my skills. I can still hear the "hayai(!)s" even today. ("Hayai" means "fast.")

The kids and teachers are divided equally into two teams, which are of course "red" and "white" (it's the same at every single school in Japan--- how boring!) and two prizes are awarded: one for the team with the best spirit, and one for the team that scores the most points in the actual sporting events. For the most part, the kids get to choose which team to be on, but, as far as I can tell, we teachers are simply assigned to a team.

My first three years here, I was a perfect 3-for-3: red, red, white; win, win, win. This year, to my regret, I was placed on the white team again (red is simply cooler than white). We certainly had the advantage in the cheering department, since the kid who was the white team leader is possibly the craziest, funniest, goofiest, and(!) wackiest student in the whole school, so the spirit prize was his (ours) to lose. The question was, therefore, whether we had the players to pull off the victory in the athletic department.

Sure enough, the white team won the spirit award, hands down. But who would win the big cheese?

All I knew was, the morning events, which consisted mostly of things like tug-of-war, two variants of capture the flag, "topple the pole," and a tire pull, as well as a few track-and-field events) didn't go so well for the white team. The overwhelming majority of the afternoon events (all track-and-field), however, went the white team's way.

So who would it be? Red or white?

We could hardly believe our ears when the scores were read: "White team -- one thousand ... three hundred ...... nine points." "Red team -- one thousand ... three hundred ...... ten points."

My reaction: "Huh? Say what? Are you kidding me? One point? One point? One(!) point?"

Basically, all the kids on the white team reacted in the same manner: disbelief.

I can't remember the scores from the previous years, but I'm 99% sure there was a huge margin of victory each time. A one-point victory was certainly a first.

Oddly enough, however, since no one on the white team actually believed we lost, there was no crying as is usually the case on the losing team. As a matter of fact, about the only student I remember seeing cry was the red team leader. Of course, his were happy tears.