Boiled Octopus

Wednesday and Friday were days we spent outside rehearsing for Sports Day. These first three weeks of work the students have spent a lot of time preparing for this day in PE class. Wednesday, I spent in the shade with Ishiwakie learning Kanji. The temperatures were in the 90s. Even in the shade it was miserable weather. Friday was the same, hot with intermittent Kanji lessons in English.

Saturday was the big day. My hours were normal work hours. I arrived at 8:00 am. We had a quick meeting at 8:20. All of the male teachers wore white nylon sweat pants, shirts and hats. The women wore white shirts, navy nylon sweat pants, and white hats. Students were already putting the final touches on the campus when I arrived at 8:00. Chrissy planned to arrive by 9:00 with the Claudia, the other English teacher. By 9:00 I still hadn’t seen her. So I started filming the events.

The day began with a procession in front of the parents. All 700 students marched through by homerooms, raising the flags for the nation, city, school and classrooms as they passed. The parade lasted for nearly 20 minutes, even as they passed the dais, the students continued to march in place in the mid-field until the entire school populace was in place. The parade ended with a girl yelling to the principal that the students were ready to fight for him. The students then double-timed to their seats across the field from the crowd. By that time, Chrissy had arrived and took over filming. Evidently she had to take care of some business, life insurance or something and killing me later.

The student seats were in the full sun. Again the temps were in the 90s. Students packed in large thermoses of tea to keep them going through the day. Komori, one of my students, looked at my little water bottle and let me know that I didn’t have enough liquid for the day. She was right. As the students ran their races, I would try to find some shade along the edges of the field. I couldn’t go very far. In the morning staff meeting, I found out that I was in a three-legged race with Oyama and a relay with 12 other teachers. Once again, the schedule was in Japanese so I didn’t know exactly when I would be called into action so I had to stay close.

At noon, the parents left for lunch while the teachers and students retreated to the classes to eat lunch. At one o’clock we were back at it. The afternoon began with another parade of students. This time they wore their uniforms for the various clubs and sports. I believe that the sports run year long here. There are no real discernable sports seasons. Katano told me once that besides Mondays he has only 5 days off from his coaching of Kendo. Once again, at the end of 20 minutes, the infield was packed with students marching in place.

The afternoon was filled primarily with dance routines, gymnastics and campground style relays. One event was classroom jump roping. Each class had one rope and as a class, 30 to 40 kids were jumping the same rope at once. I saw one class where kid was being carried piggy back on another kids back jump roping. The kid being carried was a special-ed kid and two boys would take turns carrying him on their backs.

The afternoon ran a little over schedule and ended around 3:30. Once the parents left, the students broke down the chairs, tents and grounds. The kids had packed their class chairs out to the field and brought them back in at the end of the day. Some of the kids were so small, I felt bad and helped. One of the last kids I was going to help refused. She was carrying 3 chairs plus at least one gym bag. Another student said, “No this is student work. We clean up.” I didn’t help any more. Finally the students were allowed to leave the school a little after 4:00.

In the teachers’ office at the end of the day we had some cold tea and ice cream. Everyone was very tired but didn’t leave. We spent the last few minutes of the day talking about the day’s events. Matsuno, a very sweet semi-retired teacher, spoke with me about the day. She asked how I liked the day, as I sipped my tea. I was tired. She didn’t miss my expression or color on my face. She said my face looked like ‘boiled octopus.’ I wish I looked that good. I didn’t feel that good.

I went home for a quick shower. The teachers had a party scheduled to start at 6:30 at a restaurant downtown. I had about an hour and a half. I had to get some clean clothes on. I had spent the day, running races in a pair of long khaki pants and a button down shirt. I had refilled my water bottle at least twice and all of that had soaked through. I really felt sorry for Oyama. She had to hang onto this ‘boiled octopus,’ me dripping with sweat for our three-legged race.