Japanese Word of the Day:
English: Sports Day
Japanese: Undoukai (運動会 or うんどうかい)
*Note; I’m treating the word Sports Day like a proper noun and capitalizing it but that may not be how others treat it. Japan doesn't have capitalization so I kind of have to guess what constitutes proper noun status.
English: Sports Day
Japanese: Undoukai (運動会 or うんどうかい)
*Note; I’m treating the word Sports Day like a proper noun and capitalizing it but that may not be how others treat it. Japan doesn't have capitalization so I kind of have to guess what constitutes proper noun status.
Timeline: September 20th
As promised, let’s talk about Sports Day!
Eh? You mean you have no idea what I mean by that? You say
American schools don’t do Sports Day?! Blasphemy!
That’s basically the response I got when I told people I had
never seen a Sports Day before. From what I've gleaned, basically it’s a
festival held in the autumn each year at elementary school, middle school, and
high school. My nursery was even going to have a simple one!
As the name implies it’s a day of sports activities by the
school arranged into equal teams. Each team has a class from each grade and a
color assigned to them. For my JHS there were 3 teams (3 classes per grade)
colored Red, Blue, and Green. During the day the teams performed both as an
entire team and as individual classes.
I actually found out about sports day long before the actual
event when my JHS switched from the 50 minute class schedule to 45 and began
practicing each afternoon. The first time bits of Nicki Minaj’s “Starships”
floated up into the teachers room I knew something was up. Actually, my very
first thought was “Hey wait, I know that song, that song is in English what’s
going on?” Soon after I learned that each team had to pick 3-4 songs to dance
to and each team had at least one song in English (one team had two). In case
you were wondering the English songs selected were: “Starships” by Nicki Minaj,
“Payphone” by Maroon 5, “Little White Lies” by One Direction, and “We Are Never
Ever Getting Back Together” by Taylor Swift.
If you’re up on recent pop songs you may be wondering why
kids are dancing to a song about being high, irresponsible spending habits, and
having sex, though that isn't the wording the song uses. The answer (courtesy
of two fellow English teachers) was that they didn't understand the lyrics,
they just like the song so it’s fine. I still giggled every time “Starships”
started playing because I am a mature adult. In fairness, Taylor Swift’s song
is probably the only one of them without inappropriate content so five points
to her.
For almost a month the kids practiced every day after school
learning dance choreography or practicing synchronization for some of the
events. At last the day arrived…
Sports Day was held on a Saturday so that parents could come
watch their children which also meant that I had to get up out of bed on a
Saturday, boo. I had been given the official teacher shirt to wear so I felt
pretty official and awesome, at least at first. Allen had made some other plans
for this weekend and wasn't able to attend so I found myself alone in the
teachers room wondering what on earth I should be doing. Eventually I found
Motonishi-sensei and decided to tag along with her since she 1) knew what was
going on and 2) spoke English.
The event began by having all the students line up in their
teams (or “blocks” as they were called) and each group marched in after their
flag bearer. Now I know that while all the world shares a history there are
certain events which I as a western are more predisposed to be educated on or
reminded of. So when a large column of teens comes marching past in perfect
sync with a hand raised in the air in a salute, wearing colored headbands, and
following a big red flag all my alarm bells start going wild. Japan, it seems,
does not share this imagery as being reminiscent of Nazis as they were all
cheering happily for their students rather than being alarmed.
 |
| Imagine the Imperial March playing. |
After the marching stopped everyone arranged themselves in
perfect lines so the principal could give his opening speech. I believe I've
said before that I think it’s the job of principals in Japan to give long
speeches no one listens to and Sports Day was no exception. After debating
quantum mechanics for a while the principal finally decided to wrap it up and
sports day could begin proper!
The events of sports day were mostly similar to American
sport events though with a few bizarre but highly entertaining additions thrown
in. The events were:
Races: [徒競走]
There were actually various races throughout the day. For one each member of 3 classes (from the same grade, so all on separate teams) would race in a 6-person at a time race. In another, 3 classes from another grade all raced in one massive relay race. In both of these you could tell the students who really ddidn'twant to be running but also didn’t want to let down their team. But you could also tell the really, really fast runners who were giving it their all in the hopes to bring their team ahead. It was honestly immensely fun to watch and I found myself cheering without even meaning to. The last race I can recall seemed to be a collection of the best runners from classes competing against one another. The fact that they had all chosen to be there made that the most fun to watch not mention how competitive it was.
There were actually various races throughout the day. For one each member of 3 classes (from the same grade, so all on separate teams) would race in a 6-person at a time race. In another, 3 classes from another grade all raced in one massive relay race. In both of these you could tell the students who really ddidn'twant to be running but also didn’t want to let down their team. But you could also tell the really, really fast runners who were giving it their all in the hopes to bring their team ahead. It was honestly immensely fun to watch and I found myself cheering without even meaning to. The last race I can recall seemed to be a collection of the best runners from classes competing against one another. The fact that they had all chosen to be there made that the most fun to watch not mention how competitive it was.
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| This was a full class relay race. |
Hurricane: [ハリケーン]
This was a fun one. So once again it was a grades worth of classes competing with each other. The classes were arranged in rows of about 6 people and the team at the front held a large bamboo pole horizontally between them. The teams had to run together with the pole to a cone which they would run around with one person stationary at the cone and the rest swinging around (like a hurricane, go figure). The team then had to run back to their class and the two end pole holders would run the pole underneath the entire class who would jump up over the pole. Then the pole went back to the front over the heads to the next 6 people in line. It was quite impressive the amount of coordination required by the groups to pull this off. There were a few times when the center of the “hurricane” would swing the pole around so fast someone on the end would fall off which was as hilarious as it sounds. Don’t worry, no one got hurt.
This was a fun one. So once again it was a grades worth of classes competing with each other. The classes were arranged in rows of about 6 people and the team at the front held a large bamboo pole horizontally between them. The teams had to run together with the pole to a cone which they would run around with one person stationary at the cone and the rest swinging around (like a hurricane, go figure). The team then had to run back to their class and the two end pole holders would run the pole underneath the entire class who would jump up over the pole. Then the pole went back to the front over the heads to the next 6 people in line. It was quite impressive the amount of coordination required by the groups to pull this off. There were a few times when the center of the “hurricane” would swing the pole around so fast someone on the end would fall off which was as hilarious as it sounds. Don’t worry, no one got hurt.
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| I wish I had a picture of the pole going under the class, it was amazing to watch. |
Tug-of-War: [綱引き]
Tug-of-War is something we know well in America. As always, there were 3 classes from a grade competing though only two at a time. For everyone to be matched with everyone else meant there were 3 matches total. The game had a set time period and whichever team had the lead at the end of the time period was the winner. In one case the time was cut short because the green team completely destroyed the blue team and was clearly the winner.
Tug-of-War is something we know well in America. As always, there were 3 classes from a grade competing though only two at a time. For everyone to be matched with everyone else meant there were 3 matches total. The game had a set time period and whichever team had the lead at the end of the time period was the winner. In one case the time was cut short because the green team completely destroyed the blue team and was clearly the winner.
 |
| All the games were back to back so the team not pulling sat to the side. |
Dance: [ブロック演技]
This was one of my favorite events to watch because of how much work had gone into it and how much that work showed. Each team (3 classes from each grade) came out with their headbands tied on a wrist and danced to about half of 3-4 different songs. The synchronization of the teams was phenomenal and they used it to achieve some pretty cool effects, such as a ripple down 4 lines converging in an X shape. I had intended to get video of at least one of the dances but apparently I didn’t know how to use my video setting correctly and instead got 6 videos that were 1 second. Oh well. I still giggled every time something inappropriate came up in the songs.
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| ♫ But weeeee are never, ever, ever, ever getting back together~ ♫ |
Lunch: [弁当]
…Lunch is totally an event I have no idea what you’re talking about. After the dance performances everyone took a lunch break. All the kids went back to their classrooms to eat bento (lunch boxes) they had packed and the teachers got our own bentos delivered. They were really impressive with lots of food even though I didn't recognize about half of it. Sadly, both pictures I took turned out blurry so you’ll have to cope with the less blurry of the two. Also, if you were wondering, the parents in attendance all packed bentos for their families and the school grounds turned into a massive picnic.
…Lunch is totally an event I have no idea what you’re talking about. After the dance performances everyone took a lunch break. All the kids went back to their classrooms to eat bento (lunch boxes) they had packed and the teachers got our own bentos delivered. They were really impressive with lots of food even though I didn't recognize about half of it. Sadly, both pictures I took turned out blurry so you’ll have to cope with the less blurry of the two. Also, if you were wondering, the parents in attendance all packed bentos for their families and the school grounds turned into a massive picnic.
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| Sorry about the blur, I was trying to snap a picture rather covertly. |
Wheelbarrow Game: [親子でハッスル]
I have no idea what to call this game which is why I dubbed it the “wheelbarrow game”. Basically, 3 classes were arranged in a line with a family member, friend, or teacher next to each student. The pair had one of each of their feet tied together and had to run like that over to a wheelbarrow. Then they could untie the legs before one hopped into the wheelbarrow and the other carted them around a cone and back. While this may sound like a really simple (albeit strange) game it was actually the most fun to watch of anything.
I have no idea what to call this game which is why I dubbed it the “wheelbarrow game”. Basically, 3 classes were arranged in a line with a family member, friend, or teacher next to each student. The pair had one of each of their feet tied together and had to run like that over to a wheelbarrow. Then they could untie the legs before one hopped into the wheelbarrow and the other carted them around a cone and back. While this may sound like a really simple (albeit strange) game it was actually the most fun to watch of anything.
I suspect this game may not have counted towards the final
score or just not been worth many points since several of the students and
partners decided to ham it up and just have fun. One of my favorite examples
was a student and his mother. When they reached the wheelbarrow the mother got
in for her son to push her, which he did for about 3 feet until he lost control
and dumped her on her side. The mother was annoyed and (at the coaxing of
several cheering teachers) bopped her son on the head before telling him to get
in the wheelbarrow. She pushed him about one foot before consciously dumping
him out. It was a highly entertaining game.
 |
| Seriously, like every other person fell out. It was great. |
Jump Rope: [団結ジャンプ]
Ok, jump rope. That’s another pretty standard game, not much to explain here. Oh right, except for the fact that it was entire classes jumping at once over a massive jump rope. It was really, really impressive to watch a mass of ~25 students all jumping in sync with one another, especially once they got a good routine going. Also you may be beginning to notice a theme with the events…
Ok, jump rope. That’s another pretty standard game, not much to explain here. Oh right, except for the fact that it was entire classes jumping at once over a massive jump rope. It was really, really impressive to watch a mass of ~25 students all jumping in sync with one another, especially once they got a good routine going. Also you may be beginning to notice a theme with the events…
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| Fly, you fools! |
Many Feet: [Many Feet]
Last up was a thing called “many feet”. The 3 classes from
each team gathered and each entire class tied one of their legs to a long rope,
thus connecting the entire class. Remember that theme I alluded to in the last
event? Yeah, the theme of the day was definitely ‘teamwork’. Once again, the
entire class had move their legs in sync or else everyone would be unable to
move. Sadly, one team did end up getting completely out of sync and had to stop
everyone and completely restart, leaving them far behind the other two teams
who finished the race much faster. They still got a round of applause though,
which I thought was very appropriate.
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| All three teams are in this picture if you look closely. |
Flag Bearers
Each team also had a flag bearer (who I think was also team
captain) who would go nuts with their flag during events in an effort to
encourage cheering for their team. I swear these flag bearers must’ve had a
jumbo cup of espresso before coming because they had more energy than the
energizer bunny. When their respective classes had events they stopped to
compete before returning to flag wielding meaning they were basically active
all day. At one lull between events two of the team’s flagmen started balancing
their (massive) flagpoles on their palms or even faces. It was quite
impressive.
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| I picked this picture because it had the least faces to blur. |
Once all events were over, the teams lined back up in front
of the principal who, yes, made another speech; thankfully it was short. He
then declared the winners to be both team Blue and Red and presented the trophy
to one team and the school flag to the other. Team Green got only sadness and
aches.
After that the teams arranged in large circles to… give more
speeches. Japan loves speeches, man. During the day I had decided to ally
myself with team Red since red is an awesome color and they seemed like fun, so
I followed the Reds to their team circle. First the team captain/flag bearer
gave her speech (in tears), followed by a second in command (sniffling). Then
it was open for any students who felt compelled to speak. From my limited
understanding I gathered that a few 3rd year students chose to speak
about how much the team had meant to them and how great winning was (through
more tears). After that, the team Red assigned teachers all gave little
speeches about how proud they were. Fortunately, I was saved having to say
anything since I wasn't an assigned teacher and did absolutely no work to help
or prepare the team.
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| The captain was giving her speech at this moment. |
Once speech-o’-clock came to an
end the teams took big group pictures and then individual class pictures while
I wandered off to find something productive to do. I knew that everything that
had been put up for Sports Day would have to be taken down so I did my best to
help take things were they were supposed to go but I suspect half the time I
was shooed away because trying to explain would take too long. I also noticed
that many parents were helping and once the students had put away their chairs
they all stormed the schoolyard to work. It was quite impressive how quickly
everything got done.
And so my
first Sports Day drew to a close. I say “first” because the week after I had
another Sports Day with my Elementary school. But I had survived the first, how
different or hard could an elementary Sports Day be? I mean, it’s little kids,
they’re not going to expect them to make human pyramids or anything.
…Right?
Photograph disclaimer:
I know my policy has been avoiding pictures entirely but after talking to some people I'm relaxing it a bit. I am blurring everyone's faces and resizing the images to protect identities. I don't know why anyone would want to but please don't repost any of the kids pictures anywhere without asking me first.
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