Last weekend was Tsuyazaki's Bunkasai, or cultural festival. It's my third now, and, it's not they get better, but I understand more Japanese, so I can appreciate them to a greater degree. And I do think this year's 3rd graders were stronger, performance wise, than the last couple years. Really good group of kids this year. The 3rd graders put on plays, while the 2nd graders make displays about the week they spent out in the real world - at "job training" a couple weeks ago, and the 1st graders make displays about nature and the environment. Plus everybody makes paintings in Art class. Cool stuff.
The kids opened with the best student performed taiko performance I've seen since I've been in Japan. I was actually kind of surprised they were as good as they were. They rocked pretty damn hard.
Sadly, I couldn't get any decent pics of them performing. Even this shot right after is pretty "eh." I snapped in total about 250 that day, but between my camera quality, low light and zoom, I only got about a hundred decent shots.
The 3rd grade plays are always kinda interesting. The last couple years there's always been one or two fractured fairy tales. They resemble the stories we grow up with in the US, but are always a biiiiiiit different.
This, for example, was a version of Little Red Riding Hood, featuring, if I understood correctly, not just wolves but a coven of demons, witches and midgets.
And every year there's at least one "serious" play. Last year there was a play set on a bridge where a girl debated jumping to her death. This year the play was set in the afterlife, where the souls of folks were examined to determine whether or not they were reincarnated or "deleted."
You can see the "birth" door there on the left in the 2nd pic. Always a game show vibe here in the land of the rising sun.
Then came a version of Pinochio unlike any I have ever seen. A version that featured, not only, a dude drawing down with a rifle on our little wooden boy, but then puppet-lad turning the tables on his captor and then blowing a hole in him - complete with requisite graphic overacting and special effects.
Now take a second. Think about all the ways this would not fly in America. You can start with guns in school and go from there.
Man do I dig Japan sometimes.
And also, though I can't swear to it given my paltry Japanese, at the end I'm pretty sure our little wooden boy sacrifices himself to become a cord of firewood to help the old man, his wife and their cat through the cold winter.
Seriously.
The last play was about puppets come to life, and therefore is actually the least odd of the day.
A few weeks ago the 2nd graders spent a week at various places out in town in the "real world" and their Bunkasai contributions were posters detailing their experience. Everything from firefighting training to nursing to working in the old folks home... really cool stuff.
The 1st graders do a series of presentations, sculptures and painting about nature, the ocean and all sorts of that kind of thing. The Japanese love of nature made visible and what not.
Most of the rest of the pics are random shots of the kids throughout the day, being kids. But I couldn't not mention that this young lady is easily one of my favorite students. 1st grader, nice as all get out, smart, and to top it all off, a great little judo player.
I'm really lucky to meet some really nice kids in this job.
And, top it all off, I got a bag of genuine Kona Hawaiian coffee at the school bazaar for a buck/100 yen. Can't beat that.
Bonus points for having the elementary school kids work as the cashiers... they start 'em young here in Japan.
Rest of the pics here:
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| 2007-10-13 |
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