Culture Day & School's 15th anniversary celebration

Had a full day at school. In the morning, students of various clubs held exhibitions. My English Club wrote haikus in English. Haikus are traditional 3-liner Japanese poems comprising 5 syllables in the first and third lines and 7 syllables in the second line. They are usually about seasons.

This is the best one written by one of my 4 English Club members: (written completely on his own, he only checked with me on the number of syllables in each word)

We live only once
So we should enjoy our lives
If we don't, we lose

I had to write mine in Japanese! Here it is:

秋が来た aki ga kita
柿も来ました kaki mo kimashita
やだ！太った yada! futotta

Then I translated it into English (in haiku-style as well):

As autumn draws near
Persimmons are ripening
Damn! I'm getting fat

Apparently my haiku was quite well-written (it was funny and it followed some ka-ki-ku-ke-ko theory that I didn't understand) and all the students came up to me to comment on it. Then I had to endure sitting in the seiza position (legs folded under) in a 30-min Japanese tea ceremony session without fidgetting cos I was next to the principal. After the ceremony, they invited the special guests - the principal and yours truly - to stand up and walk to the front to admire the bowls used for the tea ceremony. I stood up but couldn't move cos of the pins and needles in my legs...so embarrassing!

In the afternoon, there were singing and music performances and a play.

At night, we went to the western-style hotel in town for a very formal enkai. It was held in the hotel's ballroom and the setup was similar to our Chinese wedding dinners, except that instead of numbers, each table was represented by a Chinese character. I was at 喜 table. After that, we shook off the PTA crowd and I went to the karaoke bar with some of the younger teachers for the second round enkai.