It's just occurred to me that the previous three entries in this blog have been about sex in some way or another. So I guess this time I'll talk about something wholesome and all-American this time; competitions of athletic prowess. Yes, even an uncivilised and barbaric nation like Japan has Sports days, but their feeble and un-Western minds seem to have distorted the correct (white) way of doing them. Yes, in England, sports days consist of sitting around bored, watching the more athletic members of your class or form run endless sprinting, hurdles and long-distance races, and sometimes for a bit of excitement you can have the privilege of watching boys jump into sand pits instead. Normally the most interesting thing that can happen in a British sports day is if someone gets heatstroke; thus providing everyone else with a talking point.
In Japan, things are a little different. The Japanese equivalent to the British sports day is called an undoukai (運動会), literally a meeting of exercise, although, It is normally translated as 'sports festival.' Whilst festival might be a bit of an overstatement for an event where you're sat down for most of the time, counting the rocks in the sandy sports field, it's much more festive than the British version could ever aspire to be. For a start, there's not much in the way of sports at a sports festival, the kids tend to play communal games; like tug of war, throw the tennis balls into the basket ball hoop, ten-legged race (that's with 11 people). Occasionally, the brass band comes out and plays a stirring marching song (you know, the sort of thing they have at an American football game) and sometimes the kids take part in some sort of North Korean-style gymnastics session. In the end, they're too busy doing anything but sports to fit a 100m race in. The only example of sports at these sports festivals I've seen is the relay race, and even then they get the same amount of attention as the roll-the-giant-ball-over-your-backs-like-you’re-on-Takeshi's-castle event.
Now, I imagine some of you might be saying "Hang on Tom, aren't all these events really boring?" Well, I know nothing can compete with the white-hot excitement of a long jump competition, and true some of the events like the mass skipping event is a real snooze-fest, (especially in the surprisingly hot mid-September sun), but the real advantage of the Sports festival is the variety it has. You know how in Japanese game shows, everyone's involved in some sort of wacky competition that is more entertaining than it is an accurate test of physical capability, well the sports festival is like that. The sports festival is not some sober competition of athletic prowess like the Olympics, but a bizarre and entertaining event, which is less about skill as having fun, like the world cup. Also it has ceremonies. Lots and lots of ceremonies. The opening ceremony features each class marching past a podium with the big boss man (headmaster) on top, and extending their right arm out as if to salute him. They carry flags with their class colour on it and keep in rigid formation. In fact I have a video of it right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilXVkgmJk2E. They also raise the national flag whilst the Japanese national anthem (a.k.a. the world's most downbeat national anthem) plays over the loud speaker.
Afterwards all the teachers get together and do what Japanese teachers do best; get drunk and try and set the foreigner up with any single girl under 30. So, that’s the Japanese sports festival in a nutshell; basically an outside Japanese game show with a little disarming militarism thrown in for good measure.
