17 - Sports!

Alright, okay, this one’s a bit late. I was gonna write about Sports Day as soon as it finished, but… Ever heard of something called Tekkit? That happened. And then Borderlands 2 happened. So yeah, now I’m finally getting around to it, and its no exaggeration to say that I am fighting with every breath to keep my cursor away from Steam.

So, twenty levels of Siren and several miles of solar array later, it’s time. Sports Day, for those who didn’t read this thing last year (has it already been a whole year..?) is pretty much the same as the Sports Days of our youth. Classes compete to earn points, and the winning classes get… pride, I suppose. Looking in on this from outside, I’m surprised the kids care so much. I mean, it’s not that big a deal, really. Nobody will remember in a few years time. But then again, they do care, and I think it shows how close these kids have been able to bond with their classmates and teachers in their time here.

This year wasn’t a whole lot different from last year. I was wearing a hat with my school name on it this year. Oh, and it didn’t tip it down early in the morning and threaten the whole day’s endeavour. All the events were the same, more or less. The first years’ Heavy Rotation, named after a popular AKB song at the time, had transformed into TYPHOON39, which is exactly the same only it’s a song about the wind being played. It was an exciting race, that one, with one class being well far out in the lead, then fumbling at the last second and just getting overtaken. That’s what makes these things watchable, I have to say.

Oh, this year there was one that they didn’t get a chance to do last year. Didn’t catch the name, but it was a simple idea. There are three teams, divided into the three neighbourhoods of the catchment area for the school. Parents and ex-students living in those neighbourhoods were invited to come forward and try to throw coloured balls into a basket on top of a pole. The team that got all its balls in the net first was the winner. It was good fun, and I enjoyed seeing some of the kids from elementary having fun in the school they would be soon attending for themselves. I even met a few of the old third years, though their reactions to seeing me varied from amused curiosity to a couple of cases of outright blanking. Though it was funny, on one of those times I happened to catch the eye of that particular student’s five-year-old brother, and we found ourselves caught in a bitter war of rock-paper-scissors while she fought to not pay attention. Kids. I tell you.

There were tears shed by the current third years towards the end. I hadn’t got the connection before, but this year I noticed that the last even was the class dash for the third years. The three-legged race gone horribly, horribly wrong, in which half a class gets tied together and made to run fifteen meters into a crash mat. But they play different music for the third years; soft, sad, sentimental music quite different to the cheery ‘try your best’ stuff for the firsts and seconds. And I guess it’s quite fitting. It’s their last Sports Day, and one of their last events as a class, as students of the school, and the end is brought on with their arms wrapped around each others’ shoulders, holding on for support. Yeah, it’s quite fitting. I could understand their tears.

Oh, but the tears from the first years during the class dash were for something else. And by something else I mean the one kid breaking his leg in two places. I shouldn’t laugh…but I told them! I told them it was dangerous! This is why we think you’re crazy, Japan! Sending your kids to sporting events so their teachers can lasso their legs together and have them rip each other apart! Rest assured I said as much at the staff party afterward, to much shrugging of shoulders and ‘that’s just how we do things’es. Ah well. But yeah, that kid’s fine now. He’s a tough one, so a broken leg ain’t nothing to sweat over. But boy did it draw the attention away from the real events! I remember standing near the kid’s stretcher while paramedics secured his leg for transport to the hospital, and watching the brass band play their songs while marching all in synch. Impressive stuff. But I turn around to check the time and see that none of the parents are watching their own children! They’re all watching this poor kid in the stretcher, whose pain is probably caused by equal parts broken leg and embarrassment, and are completely ignoring the kids they came here to see! I know Japan is a real sucker for car crashes, but this honestly made me feel a little disturbed. How is the suffering of this kid most of you don’t even know worth more of your attention than your own children, some of whom will never play in that brass band ever again! I remember watching him get carted out through the throng towards the waiting ambulance, the brass band having finished now, and watching all the adults gawking after him like he’s been in some kind of explosion and been hideously disfigured. I took a little too much pleasure in explaining to the curious elementary schoolers from my school that it was no big deal at all.

Urgh, which leads me on to another grief, I’m afraid. No apologies, though; this is my blog and I write what I wanna. So, last year I didn’t have a whole lot of stuff to do during Sports Day. I set up, I took down, but when the actual event was underway I had little to do except watch and, on one occasion, run a bit (and I’ll get to that grief in a minute). I remember sitting near the announcers and talking to them in their spare time between announcements. But this year… this year it was like I had been demoted down beyond support staff to, I dunno, notion of a support staff or something. Sports Day goes on for many hours, it’s a whole day thing. Sometimes I’d quite like to sit down. And, oh joyous day, there are a lot of seats available. Or so I thought. Early on I take a seat near the medical tent, and am there for about ten minutes before the nurse asks me to move. Apparently those seats were needed for the student council. No problem, I say, and go stand near the announcement tent. They need the seats more, it’s only fair. So I’m standing for quite some time, about an hour or so, but I’m not feeling too uncomfortable. I should point out that none of this is to do with being forced to stand and me being a big baby who can’t take strain in his legs. It’s something else, bear with me. About half way through the event a science teacher (who happens to head up the broadcast club) invites me to sit down next to her. I get on well with the broadcast club, see, and with that teacher. So I sit down, gratefully, until lunch time, which comes and goes. The second half begins, and a PE teacher comes and sits down near me. Then he looks at me, and with narrowed eyes says, “Peter, you can’t sit here. These seats are for the PE teachers.” (In Japanese, I should point out). Surprised, I look about. The other PE teachers were in the PE teacher tent on the other side of the track, or were administering the Sports Day about the field. Indeed, as I stand the science teacher exclaims, “He’s fine here, surely! He doesn’t have anywhere else!” “No,” comes the reply, “not here. Not here.” And so I move, making a half-hearted apology and muttered thanks to my ally in the broadcasting club, and move away. “Sorry, Peter,” I hear as I make my leave. I see her looking concernedly my way a few minutes later. I do wish I’d hid my anger a bit better, now that I think back. Or maybe no, I don’t wish it. If I’m angry, I kinda want people to know. Is that pathetic of me?

Now that all the seats are claimed I can do little except stand near the back, near the wire partition that separates staff and visitors. There’s no shade, but there’s nowhere else. And then, at my back, I hear a, “Can’t see because he’s in the way.” I turn, much to the embarrassment of the parents who assumed I wouldn’t know any Japanese, apologise, and walk away. It was the straw that broke the camels back, I think. I was furious. I had nowhere to stand, nowhere to be. I’m getting used to being ignored, to being told to just keep clear and stay out of the way. If I can’t help, it’s the best thing to do, and I’m often being told that I can’t help. But one thing I’m finding very difficult to come to terms with is being forgotten. To everyone, I am someone else’s responsibility. They can tell me I’m in the way and that I should move, but are unburdened by the responsibility of then telling me what I can do instead. That’s not their problem.

I’m going to curtail this before it turns into a real rant. The sort of rant I don’t want to really have over the internet. I hope I’m not coming off badly, here. Reading this all back I think I sound a bit pathetic. But I can’t argue with what I feel, y’know?

There’s one more thing that happened on Sports Day that really hammered home these stupid insecurities of mine. Just like last year, I was asked to run with the staff as part of one of the relay races. No big deal. Not even when they tell me that I’m still young, so will be given a longer distance to run. It was fun last year. So some weeks before the big day I am told by several teachers that I’ll need to be ready to run. Now imagine my concern when the relay comes around, and the announcement goes out that the teachers taking part should take their places on the track. I get the attention of one of those teachers who told me I would be running. “Peter, quick, take your place!” he says. “But where is my place?” I ask, and watch as his expression falls. “Uh,” he says, “good question.” He runs to find someone else, and asks them. They don’t know either. Soon, all of the participating teachers are gathered together, shrugging their shoulders and making suggestions. This is in front of all the visiting parents, I should point out. Eventually, the first teacher returns and points uncertainly to the PE tent on the other side of the track. “Over there,” he says. I nod, and run to m place. Great, I think, it’s all sorted. The race starts, and the principal begins the relay. He passes it to me, and I’m away. And then I have to stop, because there next teacher is right in front of me.

Five meters. Five meters! Not a distance I can even sprint, it’s too short! I have more energy finishing than when I started! And at the end the principal complains that he had to run too far! I return to my secluded corner, and am told by a sweet 7-year-old girl from one of my elementaries that I really should have run further, and should have argued for a longer distance. “No,” she adds, “you should make a race where only you run!”

You see what I mean? Someone else’s problem. Somewhere along the line it was decided that Peter would be running in the relay race on Sports Day. But at no point did anyone take it upon themselves to, maybe, think of how far I would actually have to run! It’s just… bizarre!

The one silver lining was that the kids sitting in their classes that I passed on my way to my out-of-the-way place thought my run was hilarious, and made a wonderfully big deal about it. I received high fives, and pats on the back, and “Good job! Very fast!”s. It was humbling to be reminded that I’m not here for the teachers, that confused, jumbled muddle of half-baked opinions, but for the students. And these kids deserve much better than I could ever give them.

Okay, I’m done on that bombshell.

This coming weekend is that next, and last big event before graduation: the Cultural Presentation Day. Quite a mouthful, huh. Most schools call their cultural flip-side of Sports Day a bunka-sai­, or Cultural Festival, but not ours. I guess it’s not… uh, festive enough to be a Festival. Anyway, I’m assuming here that all shall be as it was last year. The morning will have the school open to the public, the parents and siblings of students, to tour the school and look at all the artwork and models and stuff that they’ve been making. I’m guessing my role in all this will also be the same as last year: I’ll be standing at the front gate looking dapper as possible, greeting everyone who comes in. It’s not a bad job, even when the teachers who are supposed to be there decide that I’m fine on my own and go smoke somewhere. When the elementary kids turn up they’re always surprised to see me, which is cool, and I’ve gotten into pretty cool conversations with the folk who live nearby. I even got waved at by a bus full of kindergarteners, that really made my day!

Afternoon’s a show on the main stage, with music by the brass band, presentations by class representatives and clubs, singing from the classes that won the class choir competition (which is tomorrow) and a play put on by volunteers from the third year students. Last year’s ‘play’ was an interesting trio of stage shows: a dance by some of the girls, a manzai performance by a couple of the boys (manzai being a 2-person stand up routine popular in the Kansai region), and an actual play by some of the rest, all put together in a larger performance where they’re a budding new idol group ala AKB48. Interesting, I say, because it was a nice idea to combine differing interests in the classes. But that play… Weird stuff. If I remember right, it was about the aftermath of the story of Romeo and Juliet, only Juliet didn’t die for some reason. And Romeo’s kid brother is visited by Romeo’s ghost to tell him to look after his ex-girlfriend by marrying her. Weird!

Anyway, this year I have higher hopes. The play will be a rendition of Hashire! Melos, which is apparently a very famous Greek legend even though only Japanese people seem to know about it. They did a sweet reworking of the short story that made it famous in Aoi Bungaku, if you ever watched that. Anyway, the tale goes that Melos, a shepherd, tries to assassinate the tyrannical king of the land because people jus’ don’t like tyrants. His attempt fails, however, and he is sentenced to die. Except, Melos doesn’t want to die without attending his sister’s wedding, his sister being his only living relative. He wants a chance to say goodbye. He petitions for three days time to attend the wedding, after which he will return to face his execution. The king agrees, on the condition that Melos’s close friend Selinuntius stay in prison in the boy’s stead. If Melos does not return within three days, Selinuntius will be executed instead, and his blood will be on Melos’s hands. So the theme of the story, which is really long when you get through all the little things he has to run through on his journey, is about perseverance in the face of exhaustion, starvation and hopelessness, and also about the trust of a friend. It’s an ace story. And they’re gonna perform it on stage. Ambitious, you might say. I’m optimistic, though. I know the kids acting pretty well, and they’re a talented bunch. They can pull it off.

So yeah, there’s that to look forward to. That’s on Saturday, so I would be getting Monday off, only Monday’s an elementary day so I’m actually getting Wednesday off. My plan? Karaoke from 11 til 5, then home in time for dinner. If they’re gonna charge me 800 yen for 6 hours of karaoke and all the CC Lemon I can drink, I’ll take them up on that!

Anything else to talk about? I dunno, I’m pretty tired. Writing blogs feels like taking out my soul and wiping it on a piece of paper so I can show it to people. At the end, it feels like I need to recharge my soul back to its former volume.

Oh, I went to the old recycle shop the other day. Saturday, it was. Thought that with all the time Steph uses her computer at mine, it being the only place out of the two that has internet, she could do with a nicer place to sit. Bought a desk and a chair, had it delivered, found myself a sweet shirt and a cardigan, also bought a PS2 game, a PS1 game and a DS game. All for less than 30 quid. I do love Japan, sometimes. It’s all about where you look. That PS1 game? It’s something called Battle Arena Toshinden 3, which I vaguely remember being mentioned in some old magazine I read as a kid. You know how much it was? Ten yen. Ten…measly… yen. That comes out as being less than 1p! I couldn’t afford to not buy it! Who cares if it’s rubbish! The PS2 game is something called Busin, and it’s an old dungeon crawler. Not too bad, I have to say. Certainly does dungeon crawling a lot better than something like Totomono, which is far newer. Also got The Lord of Elemental on DS, which is the Super Robot Wars OG spinoff about Masaki Ando and his adventures in the centre of the planet. Looks like fun, but with all my dungeon crawling and gunzerking and crafting of mining lasers I haven7t had much time to get into it.

Yeah, that is it. Nothing else to really talk about. Thanks for reading, it was a big one this time.