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.

Another Victim

The other day at school, during the lunch break on Field Day, I was invited by the very nice parents of one of the younger students at my school to go over to their little tent and have some food and drinks with them. I was really thankful for that gesture, because I didn't want to eat with the teachers, most of whom went back to the office for lunch, and I felt a bit left out, seeing all the kids sitting with their families. Maybe somehow they sensed that, because they "adopted" me for about 30 minutes, which was really nice! (I had met the mother several times before but not the father.)

We talked about all sorts of things, including school, of course, and at one point the conversation shifted to my favorite school subject here in Japan, English.

That's when the mother said something like, "My English is a victim of the Japanese educational system." I knew right away what she meant -- that she could read and write English fairly well, but her speaking ability was rather poor.

I can't help but point out the holes in the system here on an almost daily basis, but my suggestions for improving how English is taught (almost) always fall on deaf ears. That's why it was so refreshing to hear those critical words coming from a Japanese.

Believe me, that woman's stock went skyrocketing in my book as soon as she said that!

Kanji in Context

I've been in Japan for just over three years now. When I first got here, I found a book called "Kanji in Context" either in my apartment or at my desk at school, and I've been using it ever since to learn kanji.

Yesterday, when I was reading the (almost) daily announcements sheet (instead of saving paper and sending the announcements to us by email, we get a paper copy in our "mailboxes" -- it's unreal how much paper is wasted around here), I came across a pair of kanji that I had yet to see written together. I knew at least one "reading" of the individual characters, but I wasn't sure how to read the two together, so I asked a junior-high-school student for help.

He had no clue, so he asked a classmate, but that guy also had no clue, so he asked a third guy. The third guy finally told me how to read the two kanji together, but what he said was not what I thought the reading was. Oddly enough, it turns out he was wrong and I was right.

So many kanji look alike, and it turns out that the student mistook the kanji I showed him for a similar-looking one. The proper reading of the pair I showed him was "sai gei," but the student told me it was "sai katsu." The former means something like "second posting," whereas the latter probably doesn't exist (if it did, it would mean something like "second thirst").

Anyway, you can see how similar the two kanji on the right of each pair are and therefore how difficult they are to learn.

How the heck am I, a foreigner, supposed to learn to read this stuff when the Japanese themselves can't even read them? It's certainly a challenge, but I guess you could say I'm making progress!

Countdown City

The kids at my school love countdowns. The annual Forestopia Festival (involving a one-day sports festival and a two-day art festival) kicks off in a few days, and when I arrived at school today, I saw a sign reminding me that there are four days to go. (The sign is posted in front of the students entrance to the school, which is about 150 feet from the main entrance, which is also for the teachers.)














There's also a countdown that shows the number of days left until the seniors take the annual "Center Test," which is basically an SAT-like college entrance exam that is given all over the country on the same day.











And the first-year junior-high students have the mega-countdown calendar, which includes how many days until the next time they go home, until they finish the school year, until they graduate(!), and until the Forestopia festival.











Since my time at this school is limited, especially now that my fourth and possibly next-to-last year has started, I tend to think about how many days I have left here. But I prefer doing things the Muhammad Ali way: Don't count the days. Make the days count!

GT and Physical Fitness Testing

Because we had school on Saturday, we had yesterday, Monday, off. I'd rather have this coming Friday off so I can have a three-day weekend, but that's just how it goes.

Now that all the welcome ceremonies are over, the school days are starting to become more and more normal. For instance, today was the first morning of classes. The students (at the very least the seniors, but possibly all of them) also drew lots during homeroom to figure out the monthly seating arrangements (yes, they change every month!), which apply to both the classroom and the cafeteria! (The kids sit by grade during lunch, with six tables that seat up to 8 students per grade.)

Today was also the first day of what we call "GT," which stands for "Gokase Time."

During GT, which lasts for 10 minutes and takes place between the end of 4th period and the beginning of the lunch break, the high school students do listening comprehension practice in their respective classrooms, via the intercom.* Yours truly is responsible for coming up with all the materials for the sessions, which I actually introduce as listening comprehension "testing."

When I started doing GT about a year ago, I actually had to do two-step "dictations." Step one was me reading a short paragraph on any topic I wanted over and over for about 5 minutes, before giving the students a couple minutes to look at the script and correct their work. Step two was what they call "shadowing practice," whereby I once again read the script over and over for about five minutes, but this time the students were standing up in the classrooms and reading the script out loud, word for word, as soon as I said the words. (This whole "shadowing" thing as well as the standing-up-and-reading-out-loud thing is very common in the classrooms here in Japan, since word, sentence, and even paragraph memorization is given more importance than any actual thought processes. I hope to write more on that in a future blog.)

Luckily, after about two or three months, I was able to switch from the dictations to "real" listening comprehension testing.

Since then, so as not to bore the students, I've done my best to change the format for GT every month or so. For instance, I started off reading two long paragraphs and asking five multiple-choice questions based on the content. Then I switched to three shorter paragraphs with four questions each. At one point, I even eliminated the multiple-choice questions and instead challenged the kids to come up with the correct answers on their own. Basically, as the year went on, I went from easier methods to more and more difficult ones. (Occasionally, I simply told stories that I came up with, but for the most part, I surfed the Internet for interesting news articles and edited them down to about 120-200 words each, depending on whether I read two or three.)

This year, I've started off reading really short dialogs and asking multiple-choice questions based on the content. Starting in May, I'm probably going to switch to "complete-the-dialog" type questions. Hopefully, when all is said and done, most of the students' listening comprehension scores on the "Center Test" will improve dramatically.

Another thing that went on at school today was the annual physical fitness testing, which included checking the students' eyesight and hearing, recording their height and weight, and having them do a few athletic activities such as the standing broad jump and 30-second side-to-side shuffle.

*The junior high school students head to the cafeteria as soon as 4th period ends. Until the beginning of the 2009-2010 school year, when the listening comprehension practice began, all the students went to eat at the same time and GT took place after lunch. Back then, GT lasted for 20 minutes and was used sort of as a "study hall." The students given worksheets to complete for either English, Japanese, or math with the subject changing from week to week. Last year, GT lasted for 15 minutes. This year, GT was shortened to 10 minutes when the new schedule came out.

The Welcome Ceremony

Today, the welcome ceremony for the new students was held in the gym. As per usual, the ceremony was full of bowing and speeches. There were even 24 VIPs present, including the mayor (who gave one of the speeches).

Every ceremony in Japan, no matter how small or unimportant, begins with a few opening words and ends with a few closing words. In the case of the welcome ceremony, that means that the junior-high-school vice-principal basically just says, "The ceremony will now begin." and "The ceremony is now over," respectively.

But it's not quite that simple. You see, first everyone present stands up. Then the VP bows a bunch of times before finally reaching the podium on the stage. Then he bows to everyone in the audience and everyone in the audience bows back. Then he says the magic words and bows again, everyone else bows back again, and then the VP bows a bunch more times before he finally takes a seat, along with everyone else. All that just to get the party started.

Today's other noteworthy events: Shortly before the welcome ceremony, the new kids went to their classroom (which was decorated for them) for the first time (the boys entered first, of course!) and got most of their books; after the welcome ceremony, each grade, as well as the faculty members, had a group picture taken; lunch was a "family meal;" and in the afternoon, some of the students actually had a regularly-scheduled class for the first time in the school year.

The Ceremonies Continue

The new students arrived today, which means there was another ceremony at school: The "Welcome to the Dormitory" ceremony.

The ceremony took place in the school cafeteria, and, as you can imagine, was full of bowing and speeches.

First, the junior-high-school vice principal welcomed the students. Then, the head of the dorm welcomed the students. Then, all the members of the dorm staff introduced themselves (which meant one "good day" after another as well as one "yoroshiku onegaishimasu" ["nice to meet you"] after the next). Then, the "hausumastas" (dorm fathers) and the two student dorm chiefs (one male, one female) welcomed the students. Then, one of the new students gave a short speech to everyone, essentially asking them to take care of them for the next six years. Finally, a representative of the parents gave another speech about taking care of the children.

The whole thing was scheduled to last 20 minutes but took twice as long.

Tomorrow we have yet another ceremony, the "Welcome to School" ceremony. That one takes place in the gym.