In June I experienced two School Festivals, one at both of my two schools. Like the schools themselves, they couldn’t have been more different to each other. I was far more involved in one festival than the other, but both were such a great experience that I thought it worth a bloggy thing to reflect on my experiences and ponder the differences between them.
The first was the Sendai High School Festival on Saturday 17th of June, on what turned out to be the hottest, wettest, most humid day in history. Seriously.
Sendai High School is my base or ‘main’ school and the one I spend most time at- usually three days a week. It’s one of the most academic High Schools in the area, so competition to get in is fierce. But once students have made the cut, the hard work doesn’t stop. Academic High School students and staff work long and hard hours, meticulously preparing for the extremely difficult University entrance exams they have to take in the third grade.
It’s a big school, with around 900 students and 100 staff. I teach only the 300 or so first grade students (aged 15-16) at this school. Apparently second and third year students don’t need Oral Communication classes with an ALT, because there is no English-speaking section on the Unversity entrance exams; so of course interactive English classes with a native speaker would be a waste of time for them. This ridiculous ‘logic’ frustrates me on a daily basis, but here is not the time nor place to complain about the indaequacies of the Japanese English Language education system so I will move on.
As well as working extremely hard on their studies, most students are dedicated members of one of the many school Clubs, which have them practicing for anything from one to three hours after school every single day and often at weekends too. I frequently see my students heading home, still in their uniforms, well after 8 p.m on week nights and often on Sundays too. The club selection at Sendai High School is really impressive, with everything on offer from traditional Japanese arts such as kyuudo (archery), kendo (fighting with a bamboo pole), shoudo (calligraphy) and tea ceremony; to Western imports such as baseball, basketball, football and volleyball. Sports aren’t the only thing on offer; students of a more cultural persuasion can join drama, dance, brass band and art clubs. And last but definitely not least; there is my very own English Conversation Club!
One of my main roles as ALT at Sendai High School is being the supervisor, teacher and as it has turned out, confidante and counsellor of the group of girls that make up ECC. I inherited the care of ECC from my predecssor Nick, who I knew had been a fantastic teacher, learning resource and friend for them and who they would sorely miss when he departed. I felt a big weight of responsbility on my shoulders! But, I had hope. I’d heard that being in charge of an after-school club could be very demanding at times, but was ultimately one of the most rewarding roles an ALT can have. Unlike my friends who work in many elementary and junior high schools and don’t get to know any students very well; I can get to know and bond with a small group of students and watch them develop their confidence over their time in the club.
ECC meet every Tuesday and Thursday after school, from 4 p.m until around 17:15. I could write a seperate blog entry just on everything I’ve done and experienced with this very special group of young women, but I must keep on track and just give a brief outline here. When I first arrived at Sendai High School almost exactly one year ago, ECC was made up of just 9 students in total; all second years bar two first year students. The Captain of ECC was until recently a student named Megumi; easily the most confident, self-assured, forward-thinking and opinionated young woman I have ever met. She also has clear goals for the future beyond getting married, having children and staying in Kagoshima-ken for her entire life.That is quite something in small-town, largely rural, deeply conservative southern Japan! I have spent many hours talking with Megumi, satisfying her insatiable appetite for information about foreign countries, cultures and customs. She also writes a regular journalfor me and has told me many things about her hopes, dreams and fears. We have shared a lot with each other and although I know it’s not a good idea to bond with students too much, as they inevitably have to graduate and move on, I have definitely made a very special connection with her.
Megumi: a student I will never forget!
Anyway, I digress! So when I first arrived in Japan last year, Megumi and the rest of ECC were a great help in making me feel welcome and orienting me to the school, which at that time seemed like an unfathomable mass of asutere classrooms and corridors that all looked exactly the same. They were so excited about meeting me that they even made a huge “WELCOME AMY” banner that Nick and my supervisor held when they first collected me from Kagoshima Airport. The banner is pinned proudly in my bedroom, both covering the grimy wall and reminding me every day of why I’m here.
After eight months of twice-weekly meetings and a brilliant Christmas party, I’d really got to know the nine members of ECC and had come to think of them as little sisters, as well as students. It was inevitable that when new students joined in April, it would be strange at first. Partly due to my brightly-coloured hand-drawn cartoon poster inviting new members, and partly due to Megumi’s very persuasive recruitment speech at an assembly, a whopping EIGHT nervous first year members joined at the start of the new school year in April, swelling ECC’s membership to an almost unmanageable 17 members; the size of a small class. We could no longer use the cosy little clubroom that had become our home; and there was a sense of chaos and frustration at each meeting as I struggled to come up with activities that would suit the now big range of abilities, personalities and confidence levels in the club. I often left feeling frustrated, worried that the new members were confused and the old members bored.
However, after two months, the nervous new members had started to open up a little, and three even started writing me a daily diary, which are always a joy to read and reply to. The older members were admirable in the lengths they went to welcome these new ‘pack members’ to their world. Teenage girls, as I well know, can often be jealous and possessive of their friends and social circles. But Megumi and her other friends welcomed these strangers in with open arms and made every effort to make them feel included. In turn, the new members showed an incredible amount of respect to their elders. Although only one or two years younger than them, they referred to their seniors not as ‘chan’, the familiar add-on used with close friends; or even ‘san’, the more respectable honorific tagged onto both men and womens’ names. No, these girls actually referred to the senior members as ‘Senpai’- elder or senior. The amount of respect shown to others in Japanese culture, even by young teenage girls, never fails to astound me.
In mid May, probably later than we should have, we began our preparations for ECC’s contribution to the School Festival in June. The Japanese school festival (文化祭, bunkasai) is a very important event in the Japanese academic calendar, and one that weeks of preparation, planning and practice is put into. It’s an annual event held by most schools, at which students display their everyday achievements. Junior High School students who want to enter the high school or who are simply inquisitive may come to see what the schoolwork and atmosphere are like. Parents may also want to see what kind of work their children have been doing. According to Curriculum Guidelines by the Japanese Ministry of Education, school festivals are part of special activities and are defined as ‘events which aim to use the results of everyday learning to heighten motivation’. The festivals are parts of regular lessons in elementary (age 6 to 12), junior high (12 to 15) and high schools (15 to 18), so the students are obliged to contribute and attend in order to be able to graduate.
However despite this mandatory element, it’s always a lot of fun for everyone involved! Festivals are held to display the students’ learning, but many people visit the festivals just for fun. Food is served by students, and classrooms or gyms are transformed into temporary restaurants, art galleries and cafes. Dances, concerts, plays and exhibitions are performed by individual students or by various school clubs. Festivals are intended to be fun events, but it’s also the only opportunity each year for students to see what life is like in other schools. It’s also intended to enrich students’ lives by increasing social interaction. Finally, it’s a great way to encourage and nurture that famous Japanese characteristic: teamwork.
So, since mid May until the very day of the Festival, ECC worked tirelessly to prepare our club’s performance: a PowerPoint presentation of inspiring, touching and moving sayings from teachers, Japanese and Western celebrities, and yours truly. They started with the Japanese version, and with many hours of head-scratching, electronic-dictionary-bashing and my help, they finished with an English version too. This was a massive undertaking. Translation is never easy, but when you’re working with complex emotions, feelings and cultural differences, the task is rather daunting. Megumi and Kyoka, the second-year incoming Captain, told me that they frequently worked til 2 or 3 a.m on the presentation, timings and stage order. It’s safe to say that the members put their life and soul into preparing the presentation, practicing their pronunication and intonation and figuring out the order of the sayings. They also spent a lot of time taking both pensieve and amusing photos of all the teachers they asked to contribute.
So when the day finally dawned, tension was high and nerves were jangling. I arrived at school at 8:30 on a sopping wet, stiflingly humid Saturday morning in the height of rainy season (why the festival is held in the middle of the rains, and not in warm, sunny November when national Culture Day falls, I’ll never know) and could sense a real excitement in the air. The Festival opened with a beautiful piano solo of a Chopin piece which I should probably know the name of but ahem, I don’t. It was a very cultured way to begin the School Festival and certainly made sure that the atmosphere was very refined. Even by 9 a.m, it was already at least 30 degrees in the gymnasium; and the rain hammered down relentlessly outside. I remember thinking, as I shifted uncomfortably in my metal chair and tried to discreetly fan myself with my 100 yen fan, that the Japanese gaman spirit really is astounding. Gaman (我慢) is a term of Zen Buddhist origin which means “enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity.” This word really sums up that day and many other things I’ve experienced at school. Where else in the world would 900 teenagers sit on rigid metal chairs in a stiflingly hot gym for three hours, with no cold drinks or fans allowed, and not complain or misbehave once?
The opening ceremony continued with some short comedy plays by the Drama club that unfortunately I couldn’t understand. At around 10 a.m I gratefully excused myself from the sauna that the gym had become, darted out into the hot sheets of rain and headed to the ECC clubroom to meet the girls. They spent the next 40 minutes nervously reciting and re-reciting their lines, checking their pronunciation and intonation with me, and giving each other words of encouragment. Although I wasn’t too nervous at first, with time my nerves began to build and I was suddenly back in year 9 of secondary school (age 15), getting ready to go on stage to do a dance performance in Battle of the Bands, my school’s annual summer talent show. As a side note, I was Britney Spears and my friends were my backing dancers. Yes, really.
Before we knew it, it was time to head backstage. It was unbelievably hot; and the nerves had risen to an almost electric level. Several of the girls had gone quiet and pale, clearly petrified at the thought of speaking English in front of the 900 students, 100 staff members and at least 200 parents in the audience. I did the best I could to offer words of encouragement, including teaching them the famous Western pre-performance saying “break a leg” which, to be honest, I’m not sure was a help or not. When it was finally time to go on stage, the tension couldn’t have been any higher. We were ready to go! But, horror of horrors, there was a problem with the laptop that was being used to screen the presentation onto the big screen. I couldn’t believe it. Within five minutes, half the club were in anguished tears, wringing their hands, slumped on the floor sobbing. I felt awful for them. They had worked so hard, got so nervous and now technology was cruelly failing them. I tried to offer words of comfort and encouraged them to take deep breaths, but it did little good. Eventually, I had to go out on stage to offer a few words of explanation and apology to the waiting audience, and the schedule was hastily rearranged to give us time to sort out the technical hitch. By this time Kyoka, the incoming ECC captain, was in absolute pieces and almost beyond consolation. I was worried she wouldn’t actually be able to speak.
Mercifelly, the laptop decided to make friends with the projector and it was time for our performance. We split into two groups, one on each wing of the stage, and delivered the presentation without any more hitches. I was so proud of the girls. They followed all my advice- speaking loudly and clearly, looking up, smiling and most importantly, enjoying themselves. Each time one of them finished and returned back behind the curtain, the others all excitedly congratulated them with looks of pure joy on their faces.
Some of the words the girls had chosen were very moving, especially those from Mr Honda, an art teacher. Megumi wrote me a letter to explain the significance of his input, as she couldn’t put it into words (many Japanese people find writing English a lot easier than speaking it). Mr Honda asked for his friend Mr Isheda, a popular maths teacher who sadly passed away last year, to be celebrated in the presentation. Mr Honda and Mr Isheda had been best friends, and when Mr Isheda passed away suddenly at age 47, due to a motorbike accident, Mr Honda and the whole of Sendai High School were understandably distraught. Mr Honda had always promised Mr Isheda that he would buy a motorbike so that they could ride together, but didn’t get to fulfull his promise before his friend passed away. After Mr Isheda’s fatal accident, Mr Honda bought the red motorbike that his friend had recommended to him, and had a special sticker made for it: “Pray for A.I.” (his friend’s initials). Mr Isheda’s favourite quote had been (obviously in Japanese) “there you are. I feel relief.” We made sure that this saying, along with a picture of Mr Honda standing proudly beside his motorbike with its memorial sticker, was an integral part of the presentation.
My own contribution to the presentation was a quote from Audrey Hepburn, my favourite actress. I really like this quote and although it was a challenge to translate into Japanese, I think it was a good choice.
“For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others. For beautiful lips, speak only words of kindess. And for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.”
After the presentation, there was a sense of real elation and achievement. We did it! The girls were literally jumping for joy, and the look of sheer relief on their faces was palpable. I felt like a very proud big sister!
We did it! The members of ECC after our nerve-wracking performance.
After the performance, we all headed back to our little clubroom for a de-brief. It was the first time all 17 members had been in the clubroom at the same time, and it was a very tight fit. It struck me how much the club had changed in such a short time. The girls were all still high on nerves and adrenaline, and the buzz of finally delivering the presentation they’d worked so hard on. As is always the way with events like this, there had to be a series of speeches afterwards, even when the audience in question are just teenage girls. Each third year student made a very emotional speech of thanks to the rest of the club, and a plea for them to carry on their hard work and make sure the club continues to grow. As third years, this was the very last thing they would do as members of ECC, and as I watched them sob their way through their thank you/farewell speeches, I realised that this club wasn’t just a way for them to tick the ‘I am in a school club’ box. It was a family, a close-knit group of young people who’d spent many hours together and who had come to rely on each other for support and companionship. The end of their school club career was clearly a very poignant event for them. From now, it really is knuckle-down and study hard time.
After the thank you speeches, I had had just about had all the emotional trauma I could take for one day! It was finally time to relax and enjoy the more casual part of the School Festival: wandering through the many beautifully decorated homerooms, eating, talking and playing games. I spent three really enjoyable hours with Megumi, visiting every classroom, playing games, chatting with students and eating far more cakes, ice cream and doughnuts than should be allowed.
The transformation of the classrooms was astounding. For those of you not familiar with the anatomy of a Japanese High School classroom, here are two words to describe it: austere and spartan. There is no decoration, no colour, no distraction from study at all; just windows on both sides, a painfully old-fashioned blackboard and teacher’s podium at the front; and 30-40 single metal-legged desks and hard chairs set out in uniform rows. I have no fancy whiteboard, screen, or any audio-visual equipment to liven up my lessons at all. Just chalk, the blackboard and my own imagination!
In the classroom there are no clues at all to the personalities of the 40 odd students who spend seven to eight hours a day, every day sitting there listening to lectures on everything from algebra to the proper way to execute a bow. It’s how I imagine Borstal in the 1970s might have looked like. Imagine the contrast then, on School Festival day. The classrooms had been transformed into colourful, fun, attractive celebrations of the students that ‘live’ there. For indeed, as their ‘homeroom’ and the place they spend the majority of the school day, these rooms really are their homes, and their classmates are their family members. Photos of students as babies, amazing balloon sculptures, banners, hilarious home-made videos shot on the school grounds, blackboard murals, beautiful paintings and calligraphy, mini cafes, incredible mosaic murals; it was a riot of colour, fun and talent. Here are some of my favourite photos.
ECC chefs!
Boys enjoying one of the classroom ‘cafes’
Cross-dressing boys: an integral part of any Japanese school event
Classroom cafe fun
Made entirely of plastic bottle tops!
After a good three hours of relaxing and enjoying the students’ work, it was finally time to clean up and head home. Although my JTEs told me I didn’t need to help tidy up, I read between the lines and knew that it would be a good thing if I stayed and helped. So after sweeping some floors, shifting desks back and helping to squash cardboard boxes flat, it was finally time to head home for the longest shower in history and a much-needed party nap!
So that was the Sendai High School Festival. An exciting, nerve-wracking, funny, exhausting day with some very special memories made. I’ll certainly never forget my first Japanese School Festival!
And now onto Satsuma Chuo High School, my second school. It’s about half the size of Sendai High School, with only 500 students, and as different from it as it’s possible to be. I love the contrast between my two schools- variety really is the spice of life when it comes to the life of an ALT. Satsuma Chuo is a technical or vocational school, meaning that unlike Sendai High School, students are not so academically-focused. They will be going on to a specialist technical college, or straight into jobs after High School. Although there are general academic courses, many students are grouped into Welfare, Engineering and Agriculture courses. What this means is that their English level is generally much lower than that of their peers at Sendai High School. Although this can make lessons very challenging, I actually find that generally, Satsuma students have more energy and drive, and are definitely more lively. This is probably because they don’t have to study as hard or pass as many exams as Sendai students! They are always smiling and are absolutely thrilled to see me. The teachers too, although obviously very busy, seem to have more time to talk to me and I am given a lot more scope for creativity and fun games in these classes. Perhaps because of this, or because the majority of the English teachers are women, I have bonded really well with the teachers at this school. I always look forward to my visits to Satsuma Chuo High School, despite the 6:25 alarm call!
The school is in the small town of Miyanojo, about 40 minutes drive northeast from Sendai. This really is the Kagoshima ‘inaka’ (countryside). The drive to Satsuma Chuo, although long, is really beautiful and makes it (almost) worth having to get up more than an hour earlier than usual. I pass rugged green mountains wreathed in mist and clouds, the rushing Sendai River, lichen-covered gravestones carved with elaborate kanji, dreamily beautiful bamboo forests and glassy rice fields, currently saturated with the rains of ‘tsuyu’, the seemginly never-ending rainy season. I frequently see old men and women working the rice fields; wearing bamboo sugegasa, the iconic pointed hat worn by so many agricultural workers across Asia to protect them from the sun, wind and rain as they work the fields that nourish their neighbours. It really is like something out of a film and makes me feel as though time has stopped.
So, back to the main topic: the School Festival. Because the two schools are so different, I had already guessed that their School Festivals would be very different to each other. Just how different though was striking! I only attended the second day of the Satsuma Chuo festival, so maybe I missed the high-end cultural stuff, but something tells me not. Possibly because I wasn’t such a big part of this festival, the atmosphere was much more relaxed. I actually had the chance to return to my desk and relax during the day, which was really nice.
So things kicked off, like at Sendai High School, in the gym. The whole room was decorated with some of the students’ beautiful mural work; everything from a huge mosaic of the new Tokyo Sky Tree, to a big painting of Spongebob Squarepants, to ‘paintings’ made entirely from painted wooden toothpicks!
An amazing One Piece (famous Japanese anime) mural made of painted toothpicks pushed into polystyrene. It must have taken weeks to make!
I love him!
Like the Sendai High School opening ceremony, the gym was stiflingly hot and crowded with students. However, the entertainment on offer could not have been more different. The lights dimmed, a colourful bi-lingual ‘Make a Dream!’ banner was lowered and the school’s dance troupe took to the stage. I have one word to describe the next twenty minutes, and it is ‘sexy’! No refined Chopin piano or brass band here. No, day two of the Satsuma Chuo festival opened with the dirty, throbbing basslines of American hip-hop and some seriously suggestive dancing by the lean, muscular boys and girls of the Dance Club. I barely recognised the girls, out of their matronly knee-length checked shirts, flat black brogues, boxy school shirts and knee length socks. Their hair crimped and glittered, their eyes given that strange, alien-like appearance with the doll-eye contact lenses that are so popular here and their faces made up: they actually looked like the teenagers they are, instead of children.
After the dancing was for me, the stand-out event of the Satsuma Chuo festival and what made it so very different to its Sendai counterpart. I had been told by my English colleagues that there would be a talk on martial arts and that I didn’t have to attend because it would probably be boring (the Japanese do know how to tempt). However, I thought it would be good listening practice if nothing else so decided to stay in the gym after the dancing. And, it turns out to have been a good decision!
A large screen was lowered and for five minutes we were treated to a very energetic, impressive video following a man who appeared to be some kind of boxing/martial arts whizz. There were lots of moody shots of him glaring sullenly at the camera, and plenty of clips of him beating the living daylights out of his opponents, interpersed with short clips of him being interviewed. The sense of anticipation grew, I could feel the students getting more and more excited. Suddenly the film ended and from the back of the gym, the guy from the video strode in, topless and wearing only his boxing shorts. This was a most unexpected and very welcome surprise for me, and ensured that I paid very close attention for the next hour! Not to sound shallow, but muscular topless boxers are few and far between in Kagoshima-ken.
For the next hour, the guy delivered what was clearly a motivational speech to the students. I couldn’t understand everything, but there was a lot of “please do your best”, “perservere”, and the obligatory “fight!”. Eventually, he called two volunteers to the stage, who held a baseball bat upright for him. With one powerful kick and a roar of delight from the audience, he broke it in two! Very impressive. During the whole speech, when my eyes weren’t glued to his arms and chest (sorry, I am a red-blooded woman after all), I kept smiling to myself. This really couldn’t be more different from the refined elegance of the Sendai High School festival.
After the talk it was time to eat! We all headed to the innter courtyard of the school. All Japanese schools are built in a kind of square, with a big courtyard in the middle, sometimes with trees and benches. At Satsuma Chuo it’s only small, and I had never been into it before. For the School Festival it had been beautifully decorated with windmills, made from used plastic drinks bottles, painted and covered with streamers. For the next hour I wandered in and out of the courtyard, enjoying the huge array of foods prepared by the students and chatting with many teachers. Let me say this: School Festivals are bad for the waistline. With food hawkers as adorable as this, it’s impossible to refuse!
Later in the afternoon I returned to the gym to see the school rock band give a performance. I was blown away! There on the stage, rocking out, laughing and bantering confidently with the audience, were the four third-year girls I often have lunch with. They were wearing their school uniforms, but they couldn’t have looked more different. When I eat with them they are sweet but painfully shy. It was really something to see them transformed into a sassy, confident female rock band! It was also quite something to see the level of audience participation. At the Sendai School Festival, although there was plenty of cheering and clapping, everyone remained resolutely sitting down and behaving themselves. Here however, sutdents were standing on chairs, dancing, jumping up and down, taking photos with their mobiles (banned at school but everyone has them anyway), doing Mexican waves and waving flashing lights. Overall, there was a lot more energy to things. It was less polished, but more real.
After that I did the rounds of the beautifully-decorated classrooms, buying more snacks, playing games, chatting with many students and simply standing gazing down into the hustle and bustle of the courtyard below. We were treated to an impressive performance by the school’s calligraphy club which we watched from above. Unlike the beautiful but very formal calligraphy on display at Sendai High School, this was fun, rough and ready. A large canvas was laid out in the courtyard, and for ten minutes, the calligraphy club girls danced about on their bare feet, sloshing brightly coloured paint around and creating a vibrant piece which I’m told signified youth and energy. And that’s exacly what sums up the Japanese School Festival for me: the abundant, optimistic energy of youth. Both Festivals, while very different, were great experiences and ones that will be some of my best memories of my schools. I’m already looking forward to next year!
fromnottstonippon 