2002-04-20 - 12:35 a.m.
Last Friday night I had my enkai (welcome party) given to me by my new school. It was a small affair, held at a cozy family-run restaurant in Kisarazu. Two English teachers and a third teacher who doesn’t speak English but really likes to drink, were in attendance. An older husband and wife were running the whole show. While the wife cooked and served us food, her husband labored over describing and pouring many, many different kinds of sake. He brought out special plum and cherry blossom sakes for me, and served me the stronger sakes over ice with club soda. Because I was the only woman in the party, I was assumed to be a wimpy drinker, which it turns out wasn’t a bad thing, because I am a wimpy drinker. Meanwhile, the teacher who came just because he likes to drink knocked back glass after glass like it was water.
Since April marks the start of the new school year in Japan, the past two weeks have been chock-full of welcomes. My first day of school, two weeks ago, consisted entirely of welcoming ceremonies. First, I had to give a short speech to the teachers in the staff room during the morning chorei (daily meeting), and the principal responded with words of welcome for me. Then the eighth and ninth grade students were gathered in the gym, where the seven new teachers were formally introduced. I, like the other new teachers, gave a short speech to the kids. This ceremony was followed by an even MORE formal ceremony. The mothers of the new seventh grade students arrived, dressed in their spring suits (all pastels; black suits were worn a month earlier at the elementary school graduation) and clutching cameras. There were a couple of fathers in attendance, but educational support is seen as the mother’s role -- and the beginning of junior high school marks the onset of the most intense phase of the relationship between mother, child, and scholastic achievement. As classical music blared from the sound system, the new seventh graders marched into the gym down a path bordered by potted flowers. Led by their homeroom teachers, also dressed in suits, the kids filed in two by two as if they were heading for Noah’s ark. As the entire gym applauded their entrance, the mothers craned to get pictures of their child, dressed in school uniform for the first time. Each student had a red carnation pinned to his or her lapel. As they reached the row of chairs at the front of the gym, the lines peeled off into two and the students reached their seats with near military precision.
It is hard to overstate the formality of these ceremonies. To mark the beginning of the proceedings, the vice principal is called upon to make “opening remarks.” The vice principal walks to the stage and climbs the stairs with rigid posture. Taking three or four steps toward the center, he pauses to bow to the Japanese flag hanging above the podium. He then walks to the podium and faces the audience. Another brief pause. Then he takes precisely one step forward and bows to the audience. The entire audience bows in response. One more step forward. The vice principal then gives his remarks, which in their entirety are: “We will now begin the Kururi Junior High School opening ceremony of the year 2002.” He then completes the entire process in reverse: One step back, pause, bow, one step back, walk away from the center, pause, bow to the flag, walk down the stairs. This same process is repeated by every speaker, and by each new student who is called up one-by-one to accept a certificate. The “closing remarks” are giving in the same fashion by the vice principal, who is called to the podium to say, “This now concludes the Kururi Junior High School opening ceremony for the year of 2002.”
This past Monday, the older students led a more informal introduction for the new students. They demonstrated the proper and improper ways to wear the uniform (girls should wear their skirts at an appropriate length, and boys should make sure that their collars are buttoned). There was an elaborate display of nighttime safety in which two students wearing reflector armbands walked in place against a black backdrop while a spotlight swept the darkened gym, simulating headlights. Then half of the gym was partitioned off with a net and each sports team did a recruitment exhibition in full uniform, as the seventh graders looked on. From start to finish, the two-hour orientation was entirely student-run.
My ride home from school is a bit of a circus. Whereas at the previous school I boarded the train about 20 minutes before the high school students, my current school is at the same stop as the high school. In the morning it’s not a problem -- the students trickle on, so there’s not problem getting a seat. The boys sleep and the girls do their make-up, apply gluesticks to their legs to keep their enormous socks up, and trade puri-kura (photo stickers of friends). But when I return to the station at 4:30 in the afternoon to go home, there are about two hundred 15-17 year-olds packed solid to the edge of the platform. When the train pulls up -- very slowly -- the mob pushes towards the doors and into the cars. Following another JET’s advice, I just put out my elbows and float in with the crowd. Once inside the door, a wild scramble for seats occurs. So far I’ve been able to get a seat, because despite the number of students, there are always several left empty. From what I can tell, this is because the freshmen don’t sit under any circumstances. The older boys will haughtily stretch out across four seats while the younger dutifully stand swinging on handstraps as the train rounds curves. The one time I saw a freshman take an empty seat, he first asked permission of the older student sitting nearby. The decibel level on the ride home is deafening. Now fully awake after a day of school, the boys and girls interact, and the resulting behavior is extremely rowdy. The girls mostly just talk and laugh loudly. As for the boys, their behavior includes but is not limited to: throwing girls shoes around the train; hanging other’s belongings out of the windows; performing gymnastic moves using the hanging handstraps for leverage; and exiting the train through the windows instead of the doors. I’ve started wearing earplugs for the 45-minute ride. Today I even managed to sleep.
Well that’s about all the school news I have. I’ll write about other news next week -- plans to go to Tokyo Disney Sea and Kyoto are in the near future...
