Sports day

Yesterday morning Kaori invited me to go to her nieces' "sports day" at their kindergarten. It started at 9am. Ouch. I don't usually wake up until about 930-10. oof. But, well worth it. It was really fun.

Kindergarten is a bit different in Japan. It is four years, from age 3-6. So, Kaori's nieces, aged 3 and 6 both go to the same Kindergarten. As you can see, it is a huge school. Total, about 18 students. Kaori's family lives in the country in Japan. And apparently, nobody else does. Kaori told me she went to the same school when she was a kid and there were about 60 kids at the school when she was attending. Sad to see that sharp a decline.

Here are basically all the kids lined up and doing their intro run.

Oh, yeah, sports day. Maybe I should explain what that is. As far as I can tell it is a huge deal in Japan. A time when parents can come out and see their kids. And the school gets to show off their kids. All of my child students have had sports days over the last month. And they basically cancel classes for a week to practice for their sports day. I guess it is a big thing.

I don't know what other sports days are like but this one was basically the kids do little athletic routines interspersed with the parents doing activities. They came out to music and did a little intro run.

Maiya's intro run. Notice the moms standing in the background. Moms are very helpful in Japan when teaching. I take advantage of my students' moms all the time.

Noa's intro run. She is the one in the mid-back in the shorts and polka dot shirt.

Some more intro runs.


Different hats for different grades. Light green-3, blue-4, green-5, orange-6.


And then everybody did exercises. No pictures of this since I was doing exercises at the time. Yeah, not knowing what I was getting into, and having to go to work later, I was wearing a dress shirt. But luckily jeans instead of my suit pants. I should have known when I saw all the dads wearing track pants. Of course that seems to be the style here, so....

After we did our exercises the little kids (age 3 and 4)came back out and did a little cheerleading routine.

Lined up to cheer.





Okay, so Maiya didn't really do too good a job at the cheerleading.

After that the relatives of the students were called out onto the "field" (rocky/sandy area?) for a tug of war competition. Well, I was neither a parent nor sibling, but I was called out as well. So I guess relatives and white people.

And we tugged! And we won! And this is what I won:

That's right, toilet paper! Toilet paper that says "We appreciate your kindness."

Japan...

After that, the kids came back out to do a ninja obstacle course.

First, they had to invade a castle


Then, they had to walk through fire


after which, they had to spin around yelling "ai, ai, ai!" because the fire was hot (duh!)

And then, they had to throw ninja stars into a basket.


And, of course I didn't get a picture of it, but this one little girl was having the damnedest time throwing the shurikens. In her defense, it was super windy out. Anyway, the teacher holding the tree steady kept creeping forward to get closer to the girl. She started about three feet from the tree, and by the time she finally got one in she was about six inches away from it. It was very very cute.

After that the kids did a hula hoop dance.





And then it was grandparents vs kids in a basketball game



The person holding the white basket, for the kids, is Kaori's brother, Noa and Maiya's dad. Brave guy!

After that the kids did a jump rope thing. But for some reason I stopped taking pictures.

And then the fathers were called out for an embarrassing parade. I don't know what else to call it. They had to dress up and look for the mothers who were dressed up and hiding around the field. It was very very funny.

Here is Kaori's sister-in-law (sorry, I forgot their names) dressed up as a drunk grandmother.


My favorite part, her mustache.

After that we had to leave to go to work.

Overall, it was a very fun morning. And I got to listen to a ton of Japanese, which is always helpful. The head teacher spoke really slowly apparently. I thought it was great, I could almost understand her. Everyone else probably thought she was a stroke victim. Either way, I appreciate it.

I highly recommend anyone coming to Japan to go to a sports day. Something different than looking at my umpteenth temple. Yes, they are nice, but I am pretty much templed and shrined out at this point.

Nothing

There has been nothing of note going on lately. I have been working and that is it.

I have not eaten any new food. Gone to any new places. Done anything at all worthy of writing about.

That is all.

I don't really know how to talk about this

His name is Jiro Isoo.

He was an amazingly fun person. He was one of my favorite students. He was so excited to learn English. He loved English culture and was very interested in graffiti art, which is somewhat unusual for Japanese people. When he had trouble with something and then finally got it he would shout "YES YES YES!" loud enough that people in the lobby of the school could hear him. He was always quick with a joke and a laugh and seemed to be loving life every day. He would talk to everyone and anyone and make them laugh and have a good time. He made a quick friend of Jessica when she visited, asking her questions and making her laugh and relax when she was feeling in over her head. He loved music and art and would talk about both with enthusiasm almost every time I saw him. I never heard him complain or say a bad word about anyone and I truly enjoyed having him in my classes every week.

He passed away last week.

He was on vacation and riding an elevator up to his hotel room when he feinted and hit his head hard enough to cause internal bleeding in his brain and his death.

I hope he didn't feel anything, he deserves as much.

We found out tonight when his mother and brother came into Geos. I was in the middle of my normal Friday 5 hour marathon of kid's classes when I went up to the lobby to see my manager crying and my co-worker talking to these unknown people.

And I don't want to make this about me, but dammit, this is my blog, so I guess I am going to. I felt so terrible and I don't deal with death and sadness in any kind of appropriate way in America. And here I am looking at his mom with her eyes filled with tears and I can't even say I am sorry because I don't know the words. I had to ask Kaori to translate for me. And his mom came up and just took my hand and said "thank you" over and over and I had to get out of there because I was going to start crying.

And I just can't express myself and I wish I could have told his mom just how great a person he was. And why the fuck is it that someone who loves life and has such a good time dies so young while miserable fucks like myself who hate themselves and their lives just continue to make the world awful. And why is....no, fuck it. This is not about me. This is to honor one of the all around best people I have ever met.

This is for Jiro, an amazing person who was taken far too soon.

YES YES YES!