Sports Day

What was amazing was how seriously the Japanese took Sports Day and the kind of events they had. (I was told by a teacher that this was a typical Japanese Sports Day) While our Sports Day focusses on track and field events, theirs incorporated telematch type games too.

Students actually got the whole of Friday afternoon off to prepare - train for their events and rehearse their cheerleading routines. The spirit on the day itself was just incredible - the students got so emotional whether they won or lost and everyone shouted themselves hoarse cheering their teammates on. Red and yellow teams had fans painted in their teams colours (yellow had whistles too), black team painted plastic soft drink bottles black to beat against each other to create tons of noise and blue team had pom poms and a huge biscuit tin container to beat against. Now I know why I kept seeing students collecting plastic drink bottles for the last few weeks!

Students are divided into 4 teams - Yellow, Red, Blue (my team!) and Black. Each team consisted of 3 classes, one from every grade. The homeroom teachers (same concept as our form teachers back home) of every class belongs to whichever team their class is in. Check out these teachers who are all dressed up to support their teams! (Yes, we were all given the traditional Japanese headbands in whichever colour our team is to wear. Some of the girls got really creative with how they tie it around their heads.)

Opening ceremony

The band plays the school song (the building behind is the school's sports complex)...

...and the students march out from the sports complex in their teams

They march around the track and when they pass the principal, each team shouts its slogan and makes some kind of gesture (e.g. the blue team's slogan is "Victory!"so they make a V with their arms)

After the march past, the teams gather in the centre of the track (couldn't get the red team in the pic...no wide-angle lens lah)

Representatives from every team come up and shout their teams' "promise" to work hard to the principal. I didn't understand what was being said but some of them must have been really funny cos the teachers and students were laughing. Last year's winning team returned the cup to the principal.

And parents turned up prepared to spend the entire day watching their kids

Funny games

Students try to get as many balls into the net as possible within a time limit. It is utter chaos, but great fun to watch! The ball counting process is dramatic. The announcer counts 1 and each team throws a ball out, and continues counting with each team throw a ball put each time and when a team reaches its last ball, they toss it high up in the air with a flourish to indicate that its their final ball.

Imagine 20 people skipping at the same time. It sounds crazy but they're really good at it. Blue team won this event with a total of 21 consecutive skips before the rope got caught.

For this event, students ran around getting parents to join their teams. Standing in a long line, they pass this giant ball partially filled with water all the way to the back, the last 2 persons have to roll the ball around this cone at the back and then all the way to the front of the line and pass it back again. The sequence is repeated 5 times after which last persons have to hoist the ball on top of a stand and run and grab their teams flags. Since all the parents were standing at the end of the lines, it was the parents that did all the running for this event.

Girls event: 2 teams form lines facing each other, with pipes placed in the middle. They then run and grab as many pipes as they can. When they manage to get a pipe to their side, they can go help their friends who are still wrestling pipes from the other teams. A crazy game cos towards the end everyone will just be pulling on 1 or 2 pipes.

Boys event: 3 boys form a base and 1 boy will be on top wearing a cap. Aim is to grab as many caps off the opposite team as possible. This game got rather rough...I didn't like it.

My favourite event: Pan (bread) competition. Student starts running, picks up something, reaches his/her partner, they tie one of their legs to each other, run three-legged to the bread stand (where there are a variety of buns hanging from a pole), bite a bun each and run three-legged all the way to the finish line with buns in their mouths. Yes, they get to eat the buns after the race, so no surprise that it is the most popular event among the students! I wish I could have taken part too!

Lunch was onigiri (rice balls) made by parents using the rice that we harvested on Wednesday (see earlier blog entry), and a yummy vegetable and pork soup. There were salmon and ume (plum) onigiri. I found out that ume onigiri is popular in Japan because it resembles the Japanese flag.

After lunch was the cheerleading competition! Each team had to put up a 5-min routine. It was really fun. Japanese boys aren't shy about taking part in cheerleading at all. Some even tie their hair up in little stumps ala Ne zha. To the blue team's dismay, they were told that I couldn't take part to be fair to the other teams (cos the other teachers didn't want their teams to start asking them to participate!)...so I couldn't join my team for the cheerleading contest :(

Yellow team dazzled the crowd with their boys doing cartwheels, somersaults in the air and other gymnastics stuff and won the cheerleading competition. No good pics of yellow's performance sorry, they just kept moving around and it was too exciting.

The only event I took part in was the teachers' relay. The vice-principal and principal were the last 2 runners of our team. Parents sent a team too. Before the race started, we were told to use the outer lane of the track, so as not to disrupt the student teams! We lost to the students (which happens every year) but won the parents' team! YAY!

The closing ceremony was simple but emotional for the students. Red team cried when it was announced that they were the overall winners. But, the other teachers said that the good thing about this year's Sports Day was that every team won something. Red won the cup, Yellow won cheerleading, Blue won the relay and I can't remember what Black won. Prizes were presented, speeches were made and the school song was sung with much gusto by both the students and teachers.