Culture Fest 1

I have had my first culture festival. I forgot my camera so pictures will have to wait till I get pictures from one of the teachers. However, I will try to talk about it without the aid of pictures. This is my second Japanese culture festival and Samantha’s first. My first was at Kansai Gaidai and this one was a world apart. Which is to be expected when comparing a middle school and a college, I guess. The event was at Chokai which is my smallest school. In the first part of the day each grade did a play that they had made all the scenery and plot for themselves. The first year class has made global warming their project this year so their play was about a family and their attempts to save energy and prevent global warming. They do things like unplug appliances when not it use and turn of the car when they go shopping rather then idle it. This play was the easiest to understand because it went something like this. “I will unplug the TV,” then he would unplug the TV. The second play was a bit more interesting. I want everyone to know that this plot is not an exaggeration. The story opens with a girl confessing that she likes a boy and them going out. After the date she is hit by a car and killed. She meets a god of death who after some discussion agrees to let her not move on but posses the body of her boyfriend’s best MALE friend. She (in the body of the male friend) tells everyone that it’s not really Shinichi but Akiko (or some such collection of names), they of course don’t believe her and get mad at Shinichi for his poor sense of humor. The boyfriend pushes Shinichi down and then the scene changes. The girl in Shinichi’s body then goes to HER house to meet her grieving mother. She is wiser now and doesn’t immediately tell her mother she is really Akiko she waits a bit and then tells her. After the mother is upset the god of death comes back to take Akiko away. Then the god of death goes off stage and comes back in white socks, long underwear, wings, and a halo that kept falling off and either making him forget his lines or making the forgetting of lines more hilarious. The final part of the play is Akiko being reborn as the daughter of one of her class mates with no explanation of if the classmate has grown up or is just a pregnant middle school student. The next play was truly the most confusing and to try to relate it is difficult. It opens with the kids in class and they are complaining about school. Then it cuts to two kids rooting threw trash looking for things for their mother to eat. Then another girl comes and pushes those kids down and takes their trash. Also, the trash girl is carrying her English book and going on about how she wishes she could go back to school. Then it cuts to a scene in school where one of the boys is studying and the pushing down trash kids girl comes in and pushes him down too. Then it changes scenes again two girls are living with their parents who are happy normal people. Except, the mother is the girl who pushes everyone down. The children go outside to play soccer. Then trash boy and studying boy break in the house and murder the parents. The kids go live with their grandmother. Then it cuts back to every at school like in the opening scene. They then talk about how glad that their lives are like that and that they go to school. The play was not a continues story like we thought it was short bits of unrelated stories. After that we went to the class rooms and saw examples of things the kids had made including old English essays. One of which was about how a girl’s mother “loved her cat to much and that it made the cat want to escape. The girl’s conclusion was I know how the cat feels sometimes.” Other kids just talked about how cut their family pets are. Other exhibits where things like crafts the kids had made. There was also a room where community artists and handy crafters exhibited their work. Including calligraphy that they had made Samantha and I do. That’s right out calligraphy is right there next to some of the best calligraphy in the community. To end the festival the students had traditional dance and choral singing. The ninth graders even sang Scarborough Fair. Aaa youa goingu Scabaowa Faya. Actually it was really good singing and they had clearly put a lot of work into every part of it.

On a bit of a more serious note. Last week one of my schools closed for a week for the swine flu, it’s now reopen but the local elementary school closed for a few days this week. There is also no word here on when we will be able to see vaccines. However, in good new one of my towns does not have any cases of swine flu. This should also give you an idea of how spread out my schools are and how little contact the residents of small towns that make up Ichinohe have.

Recently I have been really busy here is a bit of my schedule tomorrow, Friday, Samantha and I are hosting a Halloween costume party. This will be after a full day of school for me where I have to teach time, months and Halloween, also I will tell the story of Taily Po in Japanese which my JTE has helped me translate. Then Saturday I have an elementary school culture festival in Kozuya. Then Sunday I have to go to my second elementary school’s culture festival. Then on Nov. 8 I have to go to my other middle schools festival. So I by the end of next week I will have worked everyday from October 25-Novermber 13 with two days off. These are not together either one day is a Saturday and the other is a national holiday. At least I can take substitute days for my weekend work but oh well. Looking back that’s not strictly true I have actually only had 1 day off since the 19th of October. So on November 13 my schedule will have been work 5 days one day off, work 9 days have one day off, work 3 then have one day off then work 6 and finally have a weekend.