Last blog I talked about the sports festival and its analogue the Western sports day. But, dear readers, there are actually two festivals in Japanese schools; the second is the 文化祭 (bunkasai) or cultural festival. Now the impression I got from TV and manga before coming to Japan was that the cultural festival was like an open day, except it didn't really involve showing off what you learn in lessons or trying to persuade Mr. and Mrs. Biggleswathe that little Dicky would be better off going to your school next year rather than Borstal comp. down the road. No, in the cultural festival, I was told kids run little cafes in their classrooms, they turn their classrooms into haunted houses and they give performances of their light music club, that sort of thing. But no, how wrong I was. Turns out, that stuff happens in senior high school; in junior high it's all about the choirs. Yes each class sings a song straight out of the secular hymn book, which are purposely designed to be as similar to one another as is possible to get. The overwhelming impression is like being in a church and singing evensong minus any God. By church I mean the Church of England, not one of those fun-having, Koran-burning evangelical jobs you get in the States.
So for the entirety of the morning, we listened to each class sing their song, and then each of the year groups sang their own song. A bit dull, but I wasn't really complaining because it in the afternoon that the fun began. You see, I'd signed up to participate in a teacher's performance of AKB48's song Aitakatta, a band which is composed of 48 15-24 year old girls as is probably the hottest act in Japan at the moment. Over lunch I was presented with my very own skirt and neckerchief, thus fulfilling my number one ambition here in Japan - to dress up like a schoolgirl and make a fool of myself. After watching a three piece rock band (guitars turned all the way up to 2) and a very good pianist, I was ready to get dressed. I slipped into my skirt, (well I say slipped, I mean struggled) and fastened my neckerchief, and got ready to join my co-workers. Some were dressed as Otaku, the primary fan-base of AKB48, others, like me were dressed as schoolgirls.
So there we were, waiting for the cue to come on. Of course the kids had no idea we were in drag; one poor girl strayed into the lobby where we were waiting and promptly died from shock. The skirt was decidedly more breezy than trousers are, it's a good thing I've cultivated a good crop of leg hair to act as nature's own legwarmers otherwise I may have caught hypothermia. Between the unshaven legs, the 6'3" height and the beard, I wasn't going to be fooling anyone that I was a middle school student, but some of the other more effeminate looking teachers put on a slightly more convincing drag act. The teachers dressed as Otaku pulled it off quite well, even the football-mad P.E. teacher, who would be one of the last people I'd expect to see hanging around Akihabara's porn palaces, stuck on his thick-rimmed glassed, tucked-in his socks and pulled out his largest camera. We were to be the reinforcements, joining the group about a minute into the song and surprising the students with the sudden arrival of cosplaying teachers in their midst. As the brass band played the opening notes of the song, we waited for our cue to come charging out from behind the students and make our way to the performance.
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| Gaijin - ruining Japan since 1854 |
About half a minute into the song we made our move, rushing out, as slipping on the heavily waxed gym floor in our socks. Having joined the rest of our posse, we stood dumbly for a few seconds, as everyone simultaneously forgot what the moves for that part of the song was. Polished it was not, but I guess it wouldn't have been as fun if we took it seriously. What resulted was one of the most enjoyable performances I'd ever done, although it felt far too short at the time, you could see the kids loved it. As we rushed out of the gym, the cheers went up, I remembered why I had so much fun at the Japanese society dance team in university, except even more so, because I got to wear a skirt.
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| O brave new world, that has such people in it. |
The festival pretty much ended there. There was the usual closing ceremony and some of the kids were given awards, although I'm not entirely sure why. The student council president was quite funny though, witty and confident, most of the jokes went over my head, but the few that I understood I enjoyed. So that was it, my cultural festival. Not entirely what I expected, but an extremely entertaining experience overall. Next year I may try and skive off work at my elementary school again.
So for the entirety of the morning, we listened to each class sing their song, and then each of the year groups sang their own song. A bit dull, but I wasn't really complaining because it in the afternoon that the fun began. You see, I'd signed up to participate in a teacher's performance of AKB48's song Aitakatta, a band which is composed of 48 15-24 year old girls as is probably the hottest act in Japan at the moment. Over lunch I was presented with my very own skirt and neckerchief, thus fulfilling my number one ambition here in Japan - to dress up like a schoolgirl and make a fool of myself. After watching a three piece rock band (guitars turned all the way up to 2) and a very good pianist, I was ready to get dressed. I slipped into my skirt, (well I say slipped, I mean struggled) and fastened my neckerchief, and got ready to join my co-workers. Some were dressed as Otaku, the primary fan-base of AKB48, others, like me were dressed as schoolgirls.
