Results Day

One teacher mentioned to me, upon seeing how excited these new students were, the irony of their enthusiasm: “if only they knew how hard they will have to work for the next three years…”

It was like a scene out of a movie. I walked confusedly through the crowds of students in uniform, teachers, and parents, all gathered around to see results from the school’s entrance exams. Some of my students would find me and say “Hello!” and stuff pamphlets and candy in my hands, only to disappear into the crowd moments later. I saw a few students and teachers with cameras up on the landing outside of the gym doors and thought that this would be a good vantage point for some perspective on the scene. I was about to talk to some of the photo club members when the doors behind me opened on either side and teachers carried out large bulletin boards with the numbers of those who got accepted to the school. Immediately, I was in a swarm of Japanese people, young and old, who were eager to see who would be among those to study at our school next year. The band started playing, and the sports teams – all in uniform, began shouting their school cheers. I’d never seen so many people excited about school before!

There were no classes this day as students from all over Iwaki came to our school to check their results. Iwaki High school is considered the top school in the city (and 3rd in the prefecture – something I’ve had mentioned to me many times while at this school) and so, there is a lot of excitement amongst students who get accepted. Also, many of Iwaki’s school clubs show up in uniform to hand out pamphlets and encourage the new first-years-to-be to join their clubs. The real excitement however, comes from the brass band playing while the sports teams shout their chants and find people to cheer and throw up in the air.

Again, I didn’t realize that this was going on and I didn’t bring my camera. I did get a few videos with my phone however:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qxw1AWJvtaQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS5olTd24-I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LskGKhrpXVk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lslb5Kf0vXY

Beautiful Day Bike Ride

It was a beautiful day today, so I thought I better make the most of it and go for a bike ride. I decided on Shinmaiko Beach because it’s a good ride, I haven’t been to the beach in a long time, and it’s beautiful there. The ride itself goes out of the city somewhat -- from all of the apartment complexes and supermarkets, and into the rice fields (which are still barren this time of year). It’s about a 40 min ride from my apartment – maybe a little more coming back because I was riding into the wind.

I didn’t get too far before I noticed my bike wasn’t shifting well. When I stopped to look at it, the cable had burst. Luckily, the bike shop was only a minute away and it took them all of 10 minutes to fix.

Anyway, here are some photos from the day (don't mind the squinty eyed fellow at the end). I’ve only got about 4 months left in Japan – days like today make me never want to leave.

The Good Times

Being a foreigner here in Japan, I am expected to partake in the celebrations of both Japan and my home country. It is the 18th of March today, but at home, many people will be celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. Accordingly, us foreigners here in Iwaki, gathered together at the Irish Pub in town (yes, there’s one in every town – even in Japan) for our fill of Guinness and Kilkenny. There was also some live music, which included some badass fiddle-playing.

The bar itself, like most bars in Japan, is a small hole in the wall with 2 levels. Needless to say, the place was packed with Japanese people and foreigners crawling over each other for another glass of beer. The music was generally upstairs – except for the fiddle-playing, which was downstairs because last year, there was fear of the ceiling caving in with all of the foot stomping.

The day after our St. Patrick’s Day celebration was “White Day,” which in Japan, is the counterpart to Valentine’s Day. In Japan, only the girls give chocolate to the men on Valentines Day, but in return, it is expected that men give the women something in return on White Day. I mentioned to a teacher that White Day didn’t seem to be mentioned on the calendar at school. She said that it’s because White Day isn’t really a holiday and that that it was probably invented fairly recently by the chocolate companies.

In any event, to celebrate White Day, a bunch of us went for Indian food at Baba’s where he served us his special Chocolate Curry Dinner, which among many things, included his famous Chocolate Curry! And yes, it is as amazingly rich and tasty as it sounds – especially with the chocolate coconut nan bread.

Of course, I had to go for another pint last night with our CIR on the actual St. Patrick’s Day. It just isn’t polite to turn down an Irishman on St. Patrick’s Day.

The photo is of an actual pint of Guinness (I haven't seen many of these since I've been in Japan) taken at the bar where we celebrated the other day – except from several months back. You may not be able to see it very well, but there is a shamrock drawn into the foam on top.

Shokuinshitsu

“Shokuinshitsu” is what we call the teacher’s room in Japan. For some reason, this is a very difficult word for me to remember. It is my hope that by using this word to name this blog, I will be able to remember it better.

The shokuinshitsu is usually a fairly quiet place – even depressingly solemn at times, where teachers often have their faces buried in books, or are busy typing at their computers. At home, teachers generally have their own classrooms and students will come and go according to the classes they’ve been assigned. Here, the students are put into homerooms where they stay for the entire day. It is the teachers who move from room to room. When they are not teaching, they are usually at their desk in the teacher’s room. In such rare cases as myself, I have an office away from this room.

I was in the teacher’s room the other day when suddenly, a teacher burst into the room, cell-phone in hand, and shouted something to the other teachers in the room. Immediately, all of the teachers reached for their own phones and began to gather together, speaking quickly and waving their hands around. It’s times like these where I am lucky to find someone with the patience to translate events for me.

As it turns out, many universities in Japan post entrance results online, but for whatever reason, Tokyo University does their postings by bulletin board. As such, our school sent a teacher to drive the 3.5 hours to Tokyo to check the results. The eruption of excitement in the shokuinshitsu occurred when the teacher received a photo from Tokyo that showed that of the 5 students from Iwaki who applied to the university, one had been accepted to the school.

Tokyo university is regarded as Japan’s best university and for a school to have a student pass the entrance exam, this makes the school look very good. In fact, there has been quite a bit of disappointment over the last 3 years because no Iwaki students have made it into the school. Iwaki also had a student pass the Kyoto entrance exam, which is considered Japan’s #2 university.

Both universities are National Universities, which are subsidized by the government. They are considered to be of better quality than the private alternatives and are also much cheaper. I think generally, private university tuition is about $10,000 for one year, while public schools cost about $6,000 -$8,000.

I’ve also heard from a few teachers that the difference between high school and university is much different than it is in North America. In North America, the typical high school student will occasionally skip class, maybe do an hour or two of homework each day, and still manage to get into university, where they will be overwhelmed with the intense workload of post-secondary education. In Japan, high school is the time when students must work hard to get into a good university – they will arrive at school before 8, stay until 7pm studying, then go home to eat and go to bed. But when they get to university, the workload is actually quite manageable. I learned this when I was talking to a teacher who played in a couple of bands, was a member of a theatre group, and I think played kendo as well. I asked him how he had time for all of this and he said that university in Japan is not so difficult.

Even though it is the end of the school year, students only get 2 or 3 weeks off, and so, next year’s freshmen have already been announced. I will write more about this in the next few days, but one teacher mentioned to me, upon seeing how excited these new students were, the irony of their excitement: “if only they knew how hard they will have to work for the next three years…”

Spring...

I went to the hospital today. It's allergy season here, and the hospital is where people go to get medication. Everyone says that it's from the cedar trees that many people in Japan suffer from hay fever, but i can't be sure what it is.

I went to Mito on the weekend to see the plum blossoms in bloom. Plum blossoms generally bloom earlier than the more celebrated cherry blossoms here in Japan. Still, many people will participate in "hanami" celebration, which basically involves having a picnic underneath the blossoms.

I'm sure i will have more photos on hanami when the cherry blossoms are in bloom.

Dinner Parties

In Japan, people don’t seem to go for social gatherings at a typical bar as they would at home. Instead, Izakayas, where everybody goes, pays a flat rate, and is served a set menu for dinner and can drink as much as they want, are more popular. Drinks usually include soft drinks, beer, and sake.

Also unlike home, many teachers here, spend time celebrating together at work parties. In the English department, I know that the regular teachers (not so much the ALT) gives 3000 yen (about $35) to a sort of “party fund” that goes to paying for all of the social events throughout the year. So far, the end of summer vacation, winter vacation, and the end of the year in spring, seem to big hotspots for work celebrations.

Many of these enkais have been of the best experiences that I’ve had in Japan. They are great for getting to know my co-workers – especially the ones that aren’t English teachers and who I don’t see too often. Alcohol seems to relieve inhibitions on both sides of the language barrier.

In the last few weeks, we’ve had a couple of enkais. The first was a graduation celebration – mostly for the third year teachers who have been working extremely hard over the last few months to get students through their university entrance exams. I know one teacher, when I saw her one day and she looked terrible, said that she had been at the school until 1am the night before, only to be back at the school by 7 the next morning.

This was largest celebration that I’ve been to as I think every member of the school’s staff attended. It took place in a large tatami-mat hall – I think it’s called a “ryokan”, where we were all seated in groups at large round tables. Throughout the night, there were copious amounts of food served, including grilled fish, sashimi, nabe, salad, oysters, chicken, and plenty more food that I didn’t recognize. The food came out in separate courses – and kept coming; I barely ate any of the later courses because I was so full.

At this event, there was also a lot of ceremony involved, which was also something new to these celebrations. There were the usual toasts and speeches given by the administration staff, but this time, all of the third year teachers stood at the front of the hall and gave speeches (which I unfortunately could not understand). After each third year teacher had spoken, other teachers from the room went to the front to say something about each of the third year teachers. What was most impressive however, was after each speech, the presenter would raise his or her hands in the air and yell “Fleii” several times before everyone applauded. After the speeches were finished for each teacher, we all – maybe 70 or so teachers, got in a big circle, put our arms around each other’s shoulders and sang a song. At this point in the night, it was difficult to get any clear explanation of anything, and so, unfortunately, I still don’t really understand any of what happened.


I didn’t have my camera, but I did have the camera in my phone, which I used to take some videos. Click the links to see the videos.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtdszVL7V-c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9W5Ei-aQfA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJd3--yz0JU

The second event that was held recently was held between the English teachers at our school. There were eleven of us including me. The dinner was similar to the one before, except the place was also a hotel where we stayed the night. The rooms where we ate and slept were both tatami, and we both ate and slept on the floor. Again, great times.

There are usually certain points in each night however, where I, and the people that I’ve been speaking with throughout the night, need a break from communicating in our respective foreign languages. This break involves me sitting alone observing the Japanese people being Japanese – and I’m cool with this.

I’ve neglected to bring my camera these last few times, but at the last enkai, I did have my notebook in my backpack. I decided, during one of these “language breaks,” to sketch a bit of what was going on. You might think it odd for me to take out paper and pen, and begin sketching in the middle of a party, but I feel that in Japan, I am only one among many absurdities.

In this scene, the women teachers have all gone home and us men, are in our hotel room, sitting on the floor around a table, eating salty snacks and drinking booze, which the department’s party fund helped pay for.

Earthquake Country

We had a couple of earthquakes over the weekend -- both occurred underneath Fukushima. The first was a 5.7 and the second a 6.6, but i think Iwaki only felt about a 4 for each. I was in my apartment for both as it rocked back and forth, shaking my TV back and forth and rattling my hanging kitchen utensils. No ill effects though.

Hiroshima Okonomiyaki

Since I’ve been in Japan, I find that the more I learn about the country in terms of its language, traditions, and histories, the richer my experience becomes (A good place to start for anybody already in Japan is A Traveller’s History of Japan). Japan’s history is quite impressive if not solely for the fact that ever since people came to these islands, they’ve pretty much always been Japanese. What’s more interesting is when this history reveals itself embedded with the lifestyles and the people that I see everyday. Of importance to many Japanese in Japan is Hiroshima and its regional cuisine, okonomiyaki.

A student was in my office the other day for help in preparation for an interview to get into university – many good schools have interviews in both English and Japanese as part of their acceptance requirements. She also asked me if I learned much about Japan in Canadian schools. I told her that in the basic social studies courses that we take up to grade 11, all of our history focuses mostly on Canada. In Grade 12, we have the option of taking a world history class, but this focuses mostly on the west, and the only real mention of Japan is that the Americans dropped two atomic bombs on the country. It wouldn’t be until university where I learned more about Imperial Japan before the war, and a bit more about the country’s broader history.

Anyway, the student I was speaking to was very glad to hear that we learn anything about Japan at all – especially about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She said that she has heard that there are many young people of this generation, many of whom live in these two cities, who are not aware of these significant events in their country’s history.

It’s been almost 65 years since the war, but I find it hard to believe this part of the country's history could be lost in the memories of the population – especially when there are people still alive who actually have first hand memories of the bombings.

It was last night at an overnight teacher party where I spoke with a teacher who is from Hiroshima. He is a proud Hiroshimite, or Hiroshimian -- or maybe these types of terms don’t apply to Japanese names, and he is often very privy to the differences between the cultures in Northern and Southern Japan. I told him that I went to Hiroshima over the winter vacation and that I had gone to Miya Jima and the Peace Memorial Museum. He sort of brushed these off as being obvious and was more interested in whether we tried any of Hiroshima’s okonomiyaki restaurants, which is a cuisine that Hiroshima is known for.

Okonomiyaki is a Japanese style pancake that usually is made with some combination of yakitori noodles, cabbage, fried egg, seafood, sliced meat, tuna flakes and okonomiyaki sauce – I’m sure I’m forgetting something.

I told him with brimming confidence that in fact, we had gone to the famous Okonomimura, which is a building in downtown Hiroshima that houses about 20 or so restaurants – all of them specializing in okonomiyaki. The building itself is an experience. After getting off the elevator at each floor, there are several small shops that all look the same – they have a large stainless steel grill down the middle of the restaurant where on one side, the chefs prepare the food and on the other, customers are served and eat strait off of the grill. Each place also has its owners all competing for customers and aggressively trying to seat people in their restaurant. Janice, her dad, and I had a great time.

My teacher however, was not so enthusiastic. He was a bit upset that I had not told him I was going to Hiroshima because he would have recommended that we not go to okonomimura, which is fairly well known among people who live in Hiroshima as a place for low quality, and inauthentic okonomiyaki. The way to tell okonomiyaki that is prepared well from the stuff that is prepared not so well is that you do not need to use chopsticks to eat it. When it is prepared well, you are provided with a metal spatula-type instrument; if the chef has prepared the dish properly, one should be able to cut the pancake and eat it with the spatula without it falling apart. I had to admit that after cutting my pancake in Hiroshima, I had to use chopsticks to pick at the sloppy mess in front of me.

He also went on to tell me that okonomiyaki is an important food in Hiroshima because during the war, and especially after the bombing of Hiroshima, staple foods such as rice, were very scarce. Instead, people had to find other ways to sustain themselves and okonomiyaki ended up being a nutritious alternative to more traditional Japanese foods. It was his grandfather who was around to actually see one of the B-29 bombers fly overhead of the city and the subsequent mushroom cloud of August 6, 1945. The man lived for several years – until his grandson was about 18 or 19, but he also carried around a medical card that granted him free access to medical treatment anywhere in Japan due to the radiation he was exposed to in Hiroshima. Although many thousands of people died instantly in the blast of the atomic bomb, just as many people died in the weeks after from radiation exposure. I find it a bit eerie that on August 7th, the day after the bomb, many people mourn the deaths of people suffering from this radiation, while I simultaneously celebrate the day of my birth.

My teacher has yet to find any good okonomiyaki in Iwaki, but he said that a childhood friend of his has a restaurant in Fukushima city. Whenever he craves okonomiyaki, this is where he goes to have it served properly. Someday he will return to Hiroshima because as he said, he is the first son in his family and it will be his responsibility to care for his parents when they grow old and to take care of the family estate.

Hiroshima

I started writing this blog today, but at some point I realized that I was writing two different stories. As such, I’ve split them into two different posts. This one is on our travels to Hiroshima and the next will appear tomorrow.

It’s been a while since Janice and her Dad were here in Japan, but I wanted to write a bit more about our travels down to Hiroshima. I posted a few photos from Miya Jima, but haven’t mentioned much about the trip at all on this blog.

I’ve already mentioned a bit about Miya Jima in previous posts, and you can see some of the photos here and here. It is listed as one of the 3 big sites to see in Japan and so far, has been one of my favourite places to go in Japan. Miya Jima itself is an Island that you must take a ferry to. I think that throughout the region’s history, the island is considered to be a very holy, or spiritual place because of its beauty. The ferry drops you off about a 10 minute walk away from the massive tori gate that the island is famous for. The gate itself sits in the water on the shore of the island and when the tide is out you can walk right up to it. We had arrived early and not only was the tide out, but there were very few people there as well. Janice’s dad walked up to the gate, put his hand on it, and by the time he walked back, the tide had started to come in, submerging the base of the gate.

The gate is built right in front of a shrine, which many tourists walk through because it is built above where the tide comes in. It is called “the floating shrine” because it looks like it is sitting right on the water.

Like Nara, there are also lots of deer walking around the island, and you can buy food to feed them.

Some of the shops are also interesting; we found one store that was full of wooden sculptures. I don’t think I took any pictures, and hence cannot share the intricacy of these figures – of which, many stood over my head, but I will say that several of them had price tags that showed them to be worth tens of thousands of dollars. What was even more odd, was that for so much exquisite work, there was nobody attending the shop as we walked through!

On the island, we also took a cable car to the top of Mt. Misen, where the eternal flame still burns (see a photo here). You’re also supposed to be able to see lots of monkeys on the mountain, but when we were there, a sign said that they were all out feeding. The best part of the mountain though is the view at its peak which is about 40 minutes away from where the cable car takes you. On they way, there are several shrines and temples to visit as well. At the summit, there is a great view of Hiroshima, the island itself, and the tori gate at the bottom near the ferry.

Miya Jima is one reason many tourists go to Hiroshima; the Peace Memorial Park is the other. Within the park, there are several memorials to see and visit, but the most symbolic/memorable for me were the A-bomb dome, the Peace Flame, and the Peace Memorial musem.

The A-bomb dome is a structure that survived the bombing of Hiroshima and is now being preserved as a memorial to the event. The building itself was pretty much the only building left standing after the attack, which they say is partly due to the fact that the bomb was dropped and detonated almost directly above it. Because the force of the bomb was directed strait down on the building, its vertical walls were in the best position to withstand the initial blast – although I’m sure this wasn’t the only reason it is still standing.

The Peace Flame is a monument that was lit in 1964 and has burned continuously ever since. The flame will only be extinguished if all nuclear weapons in the world are abolished. I have also read that the flame was lit from the eternal flame that burns on top of Mt Misen.

Finally, there is the Peace Memorial Museum, which serves to document the tragedy of the bombing in Hiroshima. Inside, you can see the history behind the bomb as well as several official documents discussing the legitimacy of using it. There are also replicas of the city before the bomb was dropped and afterward. The most haunting portion of the museum contains actual artifacts from the area within the blast – and even from the people who were affected by it. Among the various items that somewhat survived the blast, there were collections of hair, fingernails, and even a tongue that has been preserved from among the thousands of people who suffered seriously from radiation exposure and died in the days after the initial blast.

I think we were only in Hiroshima for a day and a half. It was a very brief visit, but I feel like we saw a lot, and Hiroshima was probably one of the more memorable places I’ve been in Japan. We also saw a castle in the city, but to be honest, I don’t remember much about it. The only other thing we had time for was to go to Okonomimura for some okonomiyaki. More on that tomorrow…

I'm just getting warmed up...

After talking to some of my teachers a while back, and reading just today in my Japanese textbook, the first day of spring for Japan was officially February 4th – halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. Why spring doesn’t begin on the spring equinox, I do not know. I also heard about an event called Setsubun (literally: the transition of one season to the next), which is held the day before spring. For the event people eat soybeans for good health – usually as many beans as you are old. People also toss roasted soybeans around houses, schools, and shrines while shouting “Out with the demons! In with good fortune!” The tradition is called “mame maki” (bean scattering) and is meant to, surprise, drive away evil demons and bring good fortune.

Unfortunately, I guess my students are too old, or too mature, or too busy for such traditions because I didn’t get to see any of this during setsubun. One teacher recommended that I sneak away to a shrine during school to see it, but I think I was too busy that day.

Anyway, the point of this is that spring has officially been in Japan for over a month now, and it had just finally begun to warm up over the last few days. I think that on Saturday, I was home for most of the day, and I didn’t use my kerosene heater at all until later in the evening – something I haven’t been able to do since probably the end of November. It was an odd sensation to be in my apartment, and for everything around me to feel generally warm. I mentioned a few months back that Japanese apartments don’t have any central heating or insulation. Instead they rely on kerosene heaters for most homes, and sometimes electric heaters for others. I’m usually warm in my apartment, but the apartment itself is never completely warm – especially the side of the apartment where my toilet and shower are. At night, it’s not recommended to run the kerosene heater while sleeping, and it usually starts making loud beeping sounds and then turns off after a few hours anyway. Instead I sleep under about 3 thick comforters. It’s only the first 10 or 15 minutes of everyday where I feel really, really cold; my thermostat in the apartment usually reads somewhere around 3-7 degrees in the mornings.

Despite how ridiculous this probably sounds to people back home, people who are used to always having a warm home, I’ve kind of gotten used to it. It even makes sense to me in some regards. Basically, Japanese people don’t bother heating the rooms in their house that they aren’t using – and they don’t bother to heat them when they’re not there either. When I wake up and when I come home, my apartment is cold, because for the 6-10 hours or whatever that I’m sleeping or away, I don’t really need to be heating my apartment. In the Japanese homes that I’ve been to, families will heat the room that they are in, close the door, and the rest of the house stays cold – because there’s nobody using it. I’m not saying that I’m not looking forward to a warm house next winter, but before coming to Japan, I would leave the house for a day, or even a couple of days, and I wouldn’t think to turn the heat off before leaving.

I had two days of beautiful sunshine over the weekend and I didn’t need to use my heater, and then, Sunday night it snowed and today was again, very cold. Spring is almost half over – before I know it, it’ll be snowing in the summer.

To be fair, these photos were taken from the last time it snowed here a few weeks ago. Most of the snow was gone when I woke up this morning.

Graduation Day

We had graduation day for the third year students at Iwaki Kouko earlier this week. The ceremony took place in the morning and all Iwaki students and teachers attended, so there were no classes for the day.

The ceremony was a very formal event that took place in the school gym. It was also the first day of work where the school asked me to wear a suit. Upon arriving at the school, I could tell that it was a very special day for students and teachers because everybody looked noticeably groomed. Teachers wore there nice suits and styled their hair, and one teacher even wore her kimono. Also, the gym had been transformed for the ceremony and the baseball field was used as a parking lot to accommodate all of the parents. I thought this significant because I got in trouble for riding my bike on the field a few months back – apparently its not acceptable to be riding on the field.

 

I managed to get a look at a program briefly before the ceremony began. Everything was scheduled to begin at 10:00am and to finish at 11:02am. It started with the band playing entrance music for all of the students, and the song finished about 3 seconds after the last student was seated. At this point, we were aksed to stand. I’d like to mention that back home, everyone in the building would eventually comply with this request to stand, whereas, here, in less time than it took for the speaker to say “ritsu” (stand), everyone had risen as one unified school body.

Next, we were asked to bow (“rei”), where again, the entire room showed its back to the ceiling at the same time. Having missed the dress rehearsal last week (I was either forgotten or uninvited – and I only found out about it when I went to print something in the teachers’ room, and nobody was there; this is very strange for the teachers’ room), it took me a couple of tries to figure out the timing for our bowing. I estimated that the duration of each bow was to last for approximately 1.3 seconds. This was more or less confirmed later when I asked another teacher about this. He said that you were supposed “1, 2, 3” – the way he counted it, the “1” and “2” lasted about a second, and the rising on the “3” count took a fraction of a second as well. During the ceremony, we were also asked to bow several times in our seats. I was impressed that even the students who had fallen asleep, still managed to bow in time.

 

Finally, we were asked to sit. This whole process would be repeated 2-3 times at the beginning, and then another 3-4 times at the end. After this first sequence, which only took about 7-8 seconds, I figured we were well on schedule to finish the ceremony by 11:02.

After most of the formal greetings, I think there were a couple of speeches. These speeches were generally beyond my vocabulary of “thank you,” “where is…” and “it was fun,” and they used much more formal language than I was accustomed to. As such, I didn’t pay much attention, and they all somewhat blended together into one long rant. I believe that aside from the speeches at the beginning, there wer also speeches made in the middle and at the end.

The actual congratulation of the students was much different than at home. Instead of walking across the stage and shaking hands with the principal, the homeroom teachers would call each student by name. The students would say “hai,” and stand up. Some students, it would be more accurate to say, shouted, “HAI!”, or on some occasions, even “HAAIIII!!!!” After each class had been called out, the students took their seats (together).

The ceremony ended with us singing the school anthem (sorry, I just remember we also sung the national anthem earlier as well), and then the band played exit music for the students as they filed out.

After the ceremony had finished, and the students were picking up their chairs to carry back to their classrooms, I spoke with a few teachers about the ceremony – as they were all very curious as to what I thought of it all. When I told one teacher that it all seemed to be a very formal and serious event, he told me that their graduation ceremonies are generally modelled after the American Naval tradition, and in fact, the school uniforms are a reflection of this as well.

The rest of the day was filled with a few cheers from the students and lots of photo-taking from parents.

Finally, in true Japanese fashion, all of the teachers went out in the evening and we all got drunk as skunks.