7 - Defiance

And so, against all odds, Sports Day was only nine tenths cancelled today.

Picture the scene. It's 8 o'clock, everybody's already here, and the rain is for now remaining up in the sky. Amidst the practicing, line-drawing and tent-building there are five middle school students and a tall foreigner...

...soaking up the water on the ground with sponges.

Now I had thought that Japan, the nation that had successfully produced and commercialised the headed pillow shaped like a woman's lap would have had some kind of miraculous piece of environmentally friendly technology for doing this task. Something using a bucketload of straws and the vacuum of space, perhaps. So I was rather humbled by the whole ordeal of trying to get all the water from the sandy pitch out of the sand and into a bucket. You've heard the phrase 'like trying to draw water from a stone' before, I would guess. Well this was kinda similar. It's one of those situations where you can't help but think 'wouldn't this be so much simpler in the world of Pokemon'. 'Course, if my awesome Blaziken was at the task of getting water out of sand, he'd be more likely to vitrify the field than dry it*.

However, 9 o'clock rolled around and the pitch was at least workable, so the Sports Day went right on ahead.

First I'll go over the way everything works for those that haven't seen one of the plethora of anime dedicated to the memories of sports in Japanese schools. Rather than teams, each class goes up against the other, wearing coloured headbands to mark allegiance. Each class has a flag that they made themselves, and they all take their places off to one side and wait for each group's individual summons to the battlefield. So the start of the ceremony was a short march to some song that I KNOW I've heard before but can't place where, and then the principle gives a speech, they raise both the school flag and the national one to, of all things, Thine Be the Glory, and everybody claps. Of course, this is just my school we're talking about here.

First was 50m dash, nice and simple, then 100m and relay. And then it was Heavy Rotation. Heavy Rotation is awesome. Rather than a straight running race, classmates (in a team of some thirty or so) line up in fours and are given a long stick, which they hold between them. They then have to run out to a cone, which they go round (student on the far end doing all the work while near end student acts as an anchor) and then keep going, to a second cone, which they use to slingshot back the way they came. THEN, as they approach the rest of the group, the two centre students break off, and the outsiders have to pull the pole under the legs of Everybody else in the class, who jump over it. Chaos ensues. First team to get everybody around the course wins. Awesome.

That's the sort of thing you see a lot of in Sports Day, quirky stuff. Other highlights include a relay involving a unicycle, a child's trike and a tire pulled by two other students, and an insanely dangerous human chariot battle. Unfortunately, Typhoon 13 saw fit to end the proceedings right in the middle of the entire-class-legged-race, and everyone went home early.

But not before I got my own chance to race.

The staff relay was an odd race, taking place during the girls 200m relay, and rather than everyone running a set distance we were assigned fractions of the track based on (supposed) ability. As youngest, I got a sizable 110m, and I rocked it. Unfortunately, we were so far behind by the time we did I couldn't do a thing to save us.

Not much else to say about today except that we teachers then had to work hard in the pouring rain to get everything cleaned up minus student help. The baseball team are an odd lot. There's a strange, militaristic feel to them that you don't get off the other clubs. They shout louder, work harder and just help to such a ridiculous extent. Whenever a teacher walks by during practice, foreign me included, they all take off their hats (but not helmets, that's dangerous) and practically bellow "Konccha~", a very manly hello. They stammer a little when it's me, who, remember, can't speak Japanese, but there's a ritualism to it that's very striking. Case in point, they insisted on helping in the rain tonight, and every time I tried to do something one would jump in with a "Peter! Change! Change!" and I'd be out of a job.

But now, one day late, it's the weekend. And I'm gonna fill myself up with beer. It's weekend until Tuesday, so with tomorrow's church the exception I may not get up for anything! I'm so knackered, in soul more than body, and am gonna vent my heart's content.

Thanks for reading.




*Special thanks go to Portal 2 for teaching me that word.