Bunkasai
Trip Start
Jul 27, 2006
1
24
93
Trip End
Ongoing
Tomogaoka,
Japan
Saturday, October 28, 2006
On Saturday I went to school early and went through another day of boredom. Since I am new at the school- and seen as a child since my language abilities are lacking- I was given no responsibilities. It's easier for my co-workers to run around like chickens with their heads cut off, than take the time to delegate a task or two to me. I had the entire morning to look around the school at all the displays. Many classrooms were transformed to show off the students' work
Choral Performance
. There were rooms displaying word work, fake food replicas, drawings, paintings, other art work, reports on a school trip, media slide shows, etc. In addition to the displays in each room there was also a stage performance which included each grade singing a song and then the best class in each grade performing a song of their choice. The brass band performed, the 5 best English speeches in the 3rd grade were given, and there were a few skits performed by the students. The third grade has a set of twins so they did a comedy skit together. My favorite part of the whole day was the brass band performance. It was AMAZING!
A group of girls performed a skit that tied the songs together, they were on a mission to find treasure pieces from all over the world so they traveled to Disney World and we heard a song from there, they went to the Caribbean and we heard a song from The Pirates of the Caribbean, etc, etc. After the girls gave their skits the lights would go down, the band teacher would take the stand and then the band would start up in the dark- soon after the strobe lights would start and it was like a disco party. The audience clapped and jammed to each song as if we were at a rock concert. AND to top it off they gave an encore! After the last song the audience started clapping and chanting 'encor-re' and after 5 minutes or so the band performed a final song. This was very surprising and unlike our quiet and silent band performances in the US.
The day was much more relaxed than SPORTS DAY- but had a similar feel in that so much preparation went into it and the parents came to see the students perform. SPORTS DAY presented the students' athletic ability and CULTURE DAY seemed to present everything else from language, to music, to sewing skills...
