Approaching Aikawa Higashi Junior High School from the south, as I have done every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday since April, one must round several mountains until one finds the right hill, ringed with perfectly spaced cherry blossom trees and comfortable homes. Behind that hill sits the school, with stairways down to its dusty grand field. The students are among the most well-behaved in the city of Gifu, and the athletics are fairly successful -- it produced an Olympic Gold Medalist. So, as you may imagine, Sports Day for them is a day-long Leni Riefenstahl film.
Abigail's post below should give you a good sense of the setup of a grand on Sports Day, and the general shape of the events. My aim is just to supplement her post with the flourishes Aikawa Higashi put on the day. These start with the special guest appearance by Minamo, the mascot of Gifu City. If you've seen Hikonyan on a previous post, you know that each town in Japan has a character to represent it, and Gifu is no exception. Ours is a creepily grinning cormorant fisherman, traditional costume traded in for what appear to be the cobbled-together remains of old Golden State Warriors uniforms and those Ocean Pacific shorts you threw away after you were made fun of for wearing them in fourth-grade gym. (He is pictured below, looking at cursed homunculi of himself.)
The reason this cruel mockery of humanity visited was to lead our good children in a round of warm-up exercises, which they'd all learned from videos broadcast at lunch every day. If you've seen Battle Royale, you're not far off in thinking of the scene when Takeshi Kitano stretches by himself while listening with twitchy pride to stirring military marches, only now add roughly 400 children and a walking doll that needs to be led blindly around by two forcibly cheery female handlers. The music might've been Arashi, but if they'd existed 40 years ago, there's a chance the helicopter scene in Apocalypse Now would've been scored differently.
Abigail's post below should give you a good sense of the setup of a grand on Sports Day, and the general shape of the events. My aim is just to supplement her post with the flourishes Aikawa Higashi put on the day. These start with the special guest appearance by Minamo, the mascot of Gifu City. If you've seen Hikonyan on a previous post, you know that each town in Japan has a character to represent it, and Gifu is no exception. Ours is a creepily grinning cormorant fisherman, traditional costume traded in for what appear to be the cobbled-together remains of old Golden State Warriors uniforms and those Ocean Pacific shorts you threw away after you were made fun of for wearing them in fourth-grade gym. (He is pictured below, looking at cursed homunculi of himself.)
When the field was returned to the actual humans, it was to conduct the opening ceremonies, which are quite solemn. It was actually audible, the fading of Minamo-induced smiles draining from the gathered faces. The principal -- a strict but sunny man -- gave a mercifully short and warm (for something so robotic) speech, and then it was off to the races.
Batons were passed, tape was ripped, and the bitter tears of the almost-theres fell on the parched dirt. Was the weather in the mid-90s? Yes. Did a few students lose consciousness? Undeniably. However, there was something so touching about the vice-principal jogging across the grand to carry a sun-poisoned student piggy-back up the stairs to the school, it was hard to begrudge them the child endangerment.
And then came the halftime show. After the races and just before lunch, the students of Aikawa Higashi tore off their team colors (and shirts, if they were male) and came together in the center of the field. One student -- a strapping young track star with the peculiarly adolescent habit of rolling his sleeves up over his shoulders during every class and absently flexing his developing biceps -- took the stage and began beating out instructions on a taiko drum. In response, the students spread out into formation. At first they were alone, stretching in dynamic poses, but soon they were doing co-operative V-sits and handstands with partners, and then in threes. What followed can only be described as a Kim-Jong-Iliad: a four-person airplane became a five-person columned monastery, turned into a six-person art deco lobby piece, ended up a ten-person pyramid.
If I may editorialize (how dare you accuse me of doing so before now), while I do not mean to sell these kids short in any way, there is a fear that overtakes the awe of this. To be sure, this is a lovely demonstration of Sports Day not as competition but as collective celebration of physical prowess. However, people so young performing these stunts in unison seems anything but natural, and that's (charitably) ignoring historical precedent. My friend, a history teacher there, did not ignore historical precedent, even going so far as to dredge up his college English to make sure I fully understood what he meant in that moment: "I am afraid of war."
After lunch fun prevailed, with three- (or five-) legged races, as well as mukade, which is like a human train of forty people trying to run together without falling in a laughing heap. There was also the most thrilling relay race ever run, which involved a member of the fastest team dropping a baton and the rest of the team closing the gap to end in a photo finish between the anchor and his friendly rival from the track team. There was also the obligatory visit from the delinquent alumni, drunk and violent, which ended with a patrol car parking itself firmly inside the gate.
My Red team lost, both in points to White and in cheering to Blue. The score was 1512 White to 1502 Red to 1068 Blue. They were so downcast every member of the cheer team cried when they gave their closing speeches. The teachers tried in vain to cheer them up, so they trotted out your humble narrator to have a crack at it. I tried my best to tell them how proud I was of them, but what eventually worked was my clumsy Japanese explanation of how impressive what they'd done was: while other teams won by focusing on one side or the other, Red had been within inches (well, centimeters to them) of both prizes, proving both of the other teams wrong that that was how things needed to be done. I'm not sure if they were convinced or just amused by my attempt, but I appreciated the reluctant smiles.
Thanks for listening, everyone. I know this has gone on much longer than it deserved to, but I so rarely post here I thought maybe I could make up for that in one post. If you care to, leave me a comment, or at least a TL;DR with an amusing GIF of someone dancing like an idiot. Victory!
And then came the halftime show. After the races and just before lunch, the students of Aikawa Higashi tore off their team colors (and shirts, if they were male) and came together in the center of the field. One student -- a strapping young track star with the peculiarly adolescent habit of rolling his sleeves up over his shoulders during every class and absently flexing his developing biceps -- took the stage and began beating out instructions on a taiko drum. In response, the students spread out into formation. At first they were alone, stretching in dynamic poses, but soon they were doing co-operative V-sits and handstands with partners, and then in threes. What followed can only be described as a Kim-Jong-Iliad: a four-person airplane became a five-person columned monastery, turned into a six-person art deco lobby piece, ended up a ten-person pyramid.
If I may editorialize (how dare you accuse me of doing so before now), while I do not mean to sell these kids short in any way, there is a fear that overtakes the awe of this. To be sure, this is a lovely demonstration of Sports Day not as competition but as collective celebration of physical prowess. However, people so young performing these stunts in unison seems anything but natural, and that's (charitably) ignoring historical precedent. My friend, a history teacher there, did not ignore historical precedent, even going so far as to dredge up his college English to make sure I fully understood what he meant in that moment: "I am afraid of war."
After lunch fun prevailed, with three- (or five-) legged races, as well as mukade, which is like a human train of forty people trying to run together without falling in a laughing heap. There was also the most thrilling relay race ever run, which involved a member of the fastest team dropping a baton and the rest of the team closing the gap to end in a photo finish between the anchor and his friendly rival from the track team. There was also the obligatory visit from the delinquent alumni, drunk and violent, which ended with a patrol car parking itself firmly inside the gate.
My Red team lost, both in points to White and in cheering to Blue. The score was 1512 White to 1502 Red to 1068 Blue. They were so downcast every member of the cheer team cried when they gave their closing speeches. The teachers tried in vain to cheer them up, so they trotted out your humble narrator to have a crack at it. I tried my best to tell them how proud I was of them, but what eventually worked was my clumsy Japanese explanation of how impressive what they'd done was: while other teams won by focusing on one side or the other, Red had been within inches (well, centimeters to them) of both prizes, proving both of the other teams wrong that that was how things needed to be done. I'm not sure if they were convinced or just amused by my attempt, but I appreciated the reluctant smiles.
Thanks for listening, everyone. I know this has gone on much longer than it deserved to, but I so rarely post here I thought maybe I could make up for that in one post. If you care to, leave me a comment, or at least a TL;DR with an amusing GIF of someone dancing like an idiot. Victory!
Comments
Post a Comment