Jeanneabeck’s Weblog

My high school recently had its biggest and best event of the year – the school festival.  Completely different from anything you’d ever experience in America, the “bunka sai” lasted three days and was a huge success thanks to all the hard work put forth by the student body.  If there’s one lesson I learned from this past weekend, Japanese students are great at working in large groups.  If given the freedom, responsibility and room for creativity, they’ll never cease to amaze you with what they can create. 

Preparations

Students had been preparing for the festival for months.  Students on the festival committee had planned out the schedule and all the events well in advance, dividing up the work among smaller committees.  At least a month prior to the festival I saw students cutting down bamboo trees from a nearby forest to build the massive entrance structure, as well as other students making t-shirt designs, making up dance routines, and rehearsing, rehearsing, rehearsing.   Each classroom got to decorate up their classroom however they liked, choosing whether they’d rather have games, make a haunted house, sell food or drinks, present about a foreign country, etc.  It seems like everyone was involved in the making of the school festival somehow. 

Friday

We only had a half day of classes Friday so that students could begin setting up their homerooms and other locations around the school for the school festival.   All desks and locker units were cleared out so that they could be moved into other classrooms, or, in the case of the lockers, be stacked and made into dividers for classrooms that were shared by two homerooms.   The transformation that took place within the school was quite impressive.

Students preparing their classrooms for the festival

Class 3-8's Classroom. They showed pictures of their trip to Australia and sold ice cream.

Saturday

Ryan came along with me to the school festival on Saturday.  The school didn’t open to the public until 1pm which gave us a chance to see all the student performances performed by students for students.  After putting the final touches on their classrooms, the students gathered in the gym to kick off the school festival.   We were entertained by the basketball club members, who took turns jumping off a trampoline to score slam dunks, by the hip hop club, who danced to appropriate and not-so-appropriate rap songs as well as cutesy Japanese songs, and by the music groups at school, which consisted of the school band and the various rock bands.  After lunch the school opened up to the public and Ryan and I were able to wander around and enjoy the festivities.  It was fun walking around the classrooms and seeing what the students had put together.  At 2pm we went to see the Karate club’s demonstration and I also went to have tea at the school’s tea house with the tea ceremony club.  It was a busy but fun day. 

School Festival Entrance. It's "Chopper" from One Piece - a popular animated show in Japan.

Festival banner. This year's theme was "Yes We Can!" Japanese kids like Obama btw.

One of the school's rock bands. They're all from the international studies program and are all wearing Australian shorts.

Outdoor Performance

Sunday

School was open to the festival all day today so we saw a lot more people wandering around the festival including some of the international students from the University of Missouri program.  It was great meeting up with friends and being able to show them around.  Some of us watched two of the student rock bands from the third year international studies class.  It was amazing seeing my students up on stage rocking out.  I got some pictures and videos of the students and the school decorations before the end of the festival.

At the end of the day students proceeded to turn the school back into normal, tearing down their decorations and cleaning up the one festive corridors and classrooms.  As I exited the school I heard some girls saying “kawaisou” or pitiful and looking at a little kitten.  This kitten must’ve been abandoned at the festival and had been wandering around, half starved to death.  From a distance it looked like the victim of some cruel joke – no tail and really short ears.  Coming closer and inspecting the cat, which one girl was now playing with, I saw that it was a Manx cat with unusually short ears.  I could feel every rib in her ribcage, every bump on her spine.  Even though Manx cats are suppose to have extra long back legs, hers appear to be too long so she walked around strangely.  She had a bit of a cold, but other than that and being starved, she was healthy, and more importantly, the cat was extremely friendly and playful.   I decided then and there she would be our pet.  One of the teachers helped me take “Kitty” home to an overjoyed Ryan, who’d been bothering me for weeks about how he missed having a “fuzzy” around the house.  Kitty has been with us nearly a week now and has been filling out nicely.  She’s the friendliest cat I’ve ever met, constantly nuzzling us and purring.  I can’t see why someone would abandon such a lovey pet.    

The cute and friendly but starved and strange Cabbit (cat rabbit) I found at school.

Kitty relaxing at home with Ryan

Monday

Monday was field day for the students.  Each class wore their class t-shirts and participated in various games on the school grounds.  Afterwards there was a bonfire lit by the flaming arrows of the Japanese archery club, a school-wide water fight, and fireworks.   I stayed through part of the water fight but headed out early because I needed to buy cat food.  It’d been a fun, but long and exhausting weekend and I was looking forward to a bit of a break.

Girls in 'stage costumes'

Running around the Bonfire

Tuesday

We had one day to recuperate from the festival.  I can’t really remember what I did – probably a whole lot of nothing.  Even though I had no specific job at the festival it was still exhausting running around with the students in the summer heat.  

The Rest of the Week

Class began again as usual on Wednesday to my dismay.  Tuesday was like our Saturday making Wednesday feel extremely long and as though we weren’t meant to be there.  Usually time seems to pass quickly at school and in Japan in general, however that was not the case for the rest of this week.  I managed to survive though and now am enjoying a 3-day weekend thanks to “Umi no Hi” or Ocean Day, another one of Japan’s many national holidays.  Ryan’s enjoying his new video game sent from America by mom and we’re both enjoying Kitty’s presence here at home.