文化祭: Cultural Festival Vignettes

Every year, junior high schools across Japan have a bunkansai or "Cultural Festival." Each school has different traditions and practices, but in each, the students work diligently as a group to perform for their peers. At my school, the bunkansai is separated into several sections. First and foremost, each class prepares a special choral work, which they will sing in front of a panel of (teacher) judges. This is especially important for the third year students as it is their last large group project.

Some third-year students practicing on the steps of the school's gym.

(Let me know if you want a video clip of the performance)

The first and second year students watching the older students' performances. Notice each student is not only wearing their required dress uniform but a surgical mask as well. All students, teachers, and parents were required to take influenza safety precautions. So, I was once again bedecked in my own personal glasses-fogger!




If you look closely behind the students, you will see a huge poster that they created out of tiny (approx. 1in x 1in) squares of paper. Each class was given a huge strip of paper and a mini "map." This team-building exercise required the students to work together for several weeks to cut out the paper squares, determine their correct locations and glue them accordingly. The finished panels were connected and the banner was unveiled during the bunkasai.



Another aspect of Shinohara JHS's bunkai is a presentation of personal accomplishments in various subjects. Exceptional students' work was on display for their peers, parents, and others from the community to view.



Some third-year students viewing a poster display of the second and third-year classes "life experience days" ("Life Experience" post for further info).

Beautiful Japanese calligraphy

(I have no idea what it means! I couldn't find it in my dictionary!)

A stone inkan (personal seal) and wooden carrying case made in Industrial Arts class.

One of my personal favorite displays: Japanese characters incorporated into 3D pictures to represent what they mean. For example, the top left one is the character cha which means tea.

Not all of the presentations were visual. During the concert, one student, Emi, presented an English speech. She had competed in a city-wide English speech contest earlier in the year. Although, she didn't win, I was so proud of her. She is an amazing student -- she has so many talents, but beyond that she is sweet, caring, and has a beautiful smile (when I can get it out of her!) Please enjoy her speech (and my very horrible video skills). Yes, I realize its not perfect and a little strange at times, but she improved so much over the weeks that I can only be proud of her strides and her attempt to move from a monotone orator to one with more emotion. I can't imagine being in her shoes and presenting a five minute speech in Japanese! It was such a joy to coach her.

Two very talented piano students also performed. I couldn't help but remember the many piano recitals I used to play in as a student!
Not to be outdone by the girls, several boys wrote and acted in a couple of hilarious skits including one that required two boys to dress up as girls (above picture -- the "girl" in red is actually one of my best boy students) and another about two new Assistant Language Teachers (ALTS -- i.e. my job title) from Peru and Mexico, respectively that came to teach the students English.

Then there was one of the most anticipated acts of the day -- the really, really popular boys singing "We are the World" by Michael Jackson. The main third-year English teacher taught the entire grade level the song and showed them the movie of the making of it. The boys were really inspired by Michael Jackson's supposed desire to assist Africa and decided to make their own version. Frankly, I am not a Michael Jackson fan and don't idolize him as the Japanese do, but when I first saw the boys perform I didn't know if I should laugh or cry. The mere fact that they had the guts to get up in front of their peers and sing a song in English shows a lot of determination (plus, it shows the huge trust that they have in one another -- they still remained "cool" after this performance). You can tell that they spent much time practicing, studying actions, and vocal tendencies of the performers they were emulating. Before you watch this clip (the entire file was to huge too download) please remember that these are fourteen and fifteen-year old boys (who are going through hormone changes and cracking voices). Only one (the second singer-- who is actually our principal flutist) is a musician. All the rest are the school's star athletes (track and field, soccer, volleyball, and basketball). The entire song is actually sung in English. Enjoy and merrily laugh with me! Oh, how I love my kids!!!