2002-05-27 - 10:42 p.m.
Today was my first day at my last junior high school, and after four months in inaka (the sticks) I am definitely back in the city schools again (actually the suburbs). I was a bit startled coming in to work today and seeing kids sitting on the floor in the hallways with that glazed over “I hate school” look one expects from a 14 year old. The inaka kids are much more cheerful. The ninth grade boys looked five years older than their country counterparts and were sporting the gelled hairstyles and plucked eyebrows of the kids at my first school. It’s been a while since I’ve seen an “attitude problem” and it kind of makes me nostalgic. Anyway, I’m thrilled to be at this school, because my one-way commute has been reduced from 90 minutes (by bike, train, and foot) to 15 minutes (by bike). Want to greatly improve your quality of life? Cut down your commute.
There was a rather odd assembly at the end of school today, I guess in America we’d call it a pep rally. There’s a huge track and field event coming up, so the whole school gathered in the gym to cheer on the team, who seemed to be about 1/4 of the school. As the entire student body sat on the floor in identical blue gym suits, each competitor was introduced one by one -- all the boys first, then all the girls, which is usually how they do things in Japan. After dutifully clapping for the scores of team members, a video projector was rolled out, and about 10 minutes of well-edited footage of track and field practice was shown. Every few minutes the girls’ team captain would make a comment into the microphone like “Please wish us good luck!” or “We will try our best!” but this was the only interruption in what was an otherwise silent show. When it finished there was a polite round of applause. Then, from the back of the gym came the beating of a drum and the shouts of four ninth-grade boys dressed in the Prussian military-style school uniform. They came running into an open space in the middle of the gym and led the school in a couple of minutes of drum-beating and hand-clapping chants. The whole thing ended as quickly as it had started with the “cheerleaders” running off to the back of the gym. And then the principal spoke and I was up... giving my brief but well practiced bilingual introduction speech to an entire Japanese junior high school for the last time.
Later this week: Funny things I saw in Tokyo, part 648.
P.S. I'm all over that cold.
