Seika Sports Day

It was a big day! It is Japan's national sports and fitness day and William's school put on their 60th Annual Athletic Meeting. We arrived promptly at 8:30 AM and we spent the next 6 hours sitting in the sun on a dirt field watching a pretty fascinating Japanese sports event. Even for a pre-school/kindergarten event, Japanese sporting events start with all kinds of pomp and circumstance, music, speeches, flowers, bowing, raising flags, and then more music and speeches before you get to the event where you start with the lighting of the cellophane Olympic flame... then the sports!

We started off with Suzuwari (Breaking of the Bell). The ropes that are strung over the top of the field had, what looked like, two beer keg piniatas which were actually two paper mache bells sealed together and the participants threw balls at the bells to break them open. The balls were fluffy balls of cloth, so all they really did was impede the guy that was cutting open the seal between the bells with a knife. But, with a great cheer, they were broken open and all the streamers, paper chains, and flowers on a string came stringing out and they hauled them into the sky like paper jelly fish!

There were all kinds of kid type sports being played (Rolling of the big balls, running, tug-of-war, more music and pageantry...) It was a bit difficult to spot William since he was dressed like all the rest of his classmates in their sports uniforms (summer uniform, by the way, not the winter uniform we'd dressed him in. We're not sure where we missed the message on that one. Winter uniform started the 1st of October. But when Caroline showed up, most everyone else had the summer outfit. If there is a "Uniform of the Day" notification that we got, it was in Kanji and we missed it. I was scrambling to deliver the summer outfit, but the Seika staff are apparently used to people like us and loaned William a summer outfit.) Anyway, with their little hats on, they all look the same, but when they take their hats off, it became pretty easy to spot William. See if you can find him in this picture...



As the day progressed, the nice white uniforms became a dingier and dingier shade of dirt to the point that they blended in to the field. Caroline is presently trying to clean the loaner uniform...

Parents were invited to participate in many of the events along with the staff and special guests. Some of the special guests did a lantern race where they were dressed in neon kimonos and conical hats and they raced to a kit with a paper lantern and matches where they lit the lantern and then carefully carried the lantern to the finish line. There was also a volunteer parent tug-of-war that I participated in. They just threw us into teams as they saw fit. I ended up on the white team which was opposite of Williams, so I may not have tried my hardest... Even so, I thought we were robbed!

We were also called weeks in advance to ensure that I would be present and able to run in the final Medley relay. It was the final sporting event. They had four teams. Each with a student, a faculty member, and two parents in that order that ran the baton around the track. Having seen one of the parents already slip out on the pre-school sized curve, I didn't give it all that I had, but I did make up time to get us to a second place finish. I'll keep my day job.

The day ended with more gymnastics (performed to a medley of Disney tunes with Japanese Lyrics), announcement of the game points (white won), speeches, more flowers, lowering of the flag, songs, closing address, and prizes. Everyone had fun, though it was a long day. Even I was getting tired and whiney. I'm not sure how the kids held up to it all!



In the video, William is in the parade holding hands with another student and looks at the camera. He is later doing warm-up exercises in a less than enthusiastic manner (which doesn't really distinguish him much in this case...) then doing the parachute routine. He is then in the red hat team playing tug-of-war with the teachers. And... I have no idea who that big kid is, out of uniform, coming around the corner...