sports day

Unfortunately, I didn't get to experience Sports Day firsthand, but all my junior high school students have been telling me about it the past couple weeks. Most schools in this area held it last Saturday and this past week, I saw some pictures and video of some of the activities. It's a pretty talked-about, looked-forward-to event and has been going on for a long time (my friend's dad remembers participating in the same event, with the same activities). I was interested to hear what kinds of things they do because some of them seem to reflect certain aspects of Japanese culture that are a little different from American culture.

Almost everything is very team-oriented. Remember doing the three-legged race? They do a NINE-legged race. Along the same lines, they do a caterpillar-type activity where they line up 20 students and tie all the students' legs together...one leg to the person in front of them, and one to the person behind. Then they all march forward. It's pretty amazing. Jump roping with large groups of students all on one rope (I heard of 40 students!!) and tug-of-war are also popular events.

We were also surprised at the number of activities that would be definite liabilities in the states. One of the boys' events is similar to "chicken" fighting in a pool. Four boys create a rather complex formation with one held above the others. They run around trying to knock each other off...but not into water...onto very hard dirt (at least it's not pavement, I guess?). For another, two teams hold large logs upright, while offensive members from the other team lunge at the log trying to bring it down.

Most schools break the students up into red and white teams (i.e., Japanese flag). I've been finding out my students' results this week. Some won, some lost...several had injuries!....but everyone had a lot of fun.