Graduation season has finally come to a close in Japan, after a month of rehearsing and possibly 5 months of fussing. Hence, this will be my last post about graduation ceremonies I promise!!
I had a choice of which primary school to go to, as they all have their ceremonies at the same time. I chose the East school as those 6th graders (12 year olds) are my favourites. It was a lovely ceremony, which I was expecting as I'd already seen it 18 times or so in rehearsal. What was amazing though, was that for all the time they had spent practising, the teachers still didn't know where they were supposed to be sitting and they still didn't leave enough space in between the front set of chairs and various paper flower decorations (a favourite in Japan it seems) for the girl in the wheelchair to get through. Also, considering how regulated so much of it was (the speed and direction of walking, plus exactly where and when to turn, the timing of the bowing, the importance of everyone standing up in complete unison before they started singing, army stylee) there were still some truly shoddy bits that apparently didn't seem to matter. For instance, all the other kids from the other years didn't have to wear their school uniform so were dressed more for a visit to the park than a formal ceremony and the graduating kids seemed to just have to wear anything smart, so some were wearing their primary school uniforms, some were in their junior high school uniforms for next year, some of the boys were in suits and some girls were sort of in party dresses with jackets. I was just thinking of England, and I'm sure everybody wearing the same uniform smartly would be much important than at what point everybody stood up, because you can get every single one of the 400 kids to stand up in the exact same milisecond and bow for the exact same amount of time, but if they are all wearing Kappa t-shirts and Barbie trainers they are still gonna look like a bit of a rabble you know? Obviously, different things are valued here. An especially touching part came after the ceremony (although the important people had already left, presumable to do something very important like scoff their buns down), when all of the kids walked round the school with their parents in a big line, and all of the kids and teachers lined the corridors and clapped for them and high-fived them and stuff (high five may have been me only, but that's cos I'm cool Mark-sensei).
My actual role in the ceremony was simply to amuse the kids as I entered by looking confused as to which seat I should sit in (I chose that role for myself) and just to watch and bow at the exact same time as all the other teachers (whether that was achieved or not I am not sure). Before it started, I also had to stand at the entrance and welcome the parents, and somehow work out who wasn't simply a parent but an important person, like from the police (he was easy he was wearing a uniform) or people from the board of education or whatever, as I had to give parents a pamphlet, but I had to give the "important" people (using that term VERY loosely indeed) not only a leaflet but also these two little commemorative buns for some reason. I don't ask question, I just obey, but I felt so stupid trying to guess who was bun-worthy and who wasn't. Everybody also looked very shocked to be greeted by a foreigner, so that caused quite a large amount of fuss. I was really happy that they'd given me a job to do though, all be it a bun-related one. There was a bit of a slipper emergency that I was sort of involved in too. You can't wear your outdoor shoes indoors in Japan...not just in houses, in schools too, and even many restaurants. The regular teachers have their own indoor shoes at school, as I have so many schools, for most of mine I have to wear the visitor slippers which are little plastic-y flipflop things, in a deligtful shade of neon turquoise, which cover about half of my big fat foreign foot...it's a very hobbly experience. Anyway, as we had so many visitors on the same day, which is unusual, there was a bit of a visitor slipper shortage...something else I would have thought might have been considered at some point during all of these rehearsals but wasn't. Anyway, as it turns out, there wasn't a shortage, it was just another fuss over nothing, which was really the theme of the day. And I enjoyed watching all the important people, carrying their buns, dressed up to the razz in suits but also sporting turquoise flip flop slippers, flipping around the school.
Other fusses of the day included a 5-minute discussion (no exaggeration) over which colour and type of pen should be used to tick off the important people's names as they arrived. Also, I have came to realise (although there had already been many signs which I might write about in another post), that Japan is a TRULY hypochondriac nation. In all of the rehearsals even, at least one kid was taken out sick....I mean....WHAT...how likely is someone to get so sick they ahve to leave in an hour-long rehearsal?? So you can imagine that in the pressure of standing up at the right time in a pair of Barbie trainers at the real ceremony proved too much for many of the little ones and the school nurse was running around like a headless chicken with people "sick". What exactly the illness was remains unclear, but I am guessing it may well be an overdose of rehearsal.
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