Sports Day was today, and it was quite an experience. The weather cooperated for the entire day, and it didn’t start raining until I got home. The kids did great, and it was a lot of fun to see the flags that they had created for each class. The amount of creativity and detail that went into them was amazing.
They had the typical track and field type events, but then they had some other unusual relays. Some involved wearing the uniform of their sports club, and I felt sorry for the kendo guys that had to put on all their armor and run around the track beating each other up.
One event took me by surprise – the event was called “bouhiki”. The girls split up into two teams of about 100-200 people each. Each team stood on one side of the field, and between the two teams, a number of large bamboo poles were placed on the ground lengthwise. At the sound of the starter pistol, 400 screaming Japanese girls charged to the middle and started trying to drag the poles back to their side. They were pulling these poles all over the place, with sometimes 20 or 30 girls at one pole, pulling it in opposite directions.
The event I was looking forward to, “kibasen” is like some kind of strange sanctioned street fight, and was a lot of fun to watch. For this event, it is only the boys that play. Three boys support one other boy on their shoulders, and walk him around. Kisaben roughly translates to “cavalry” in English, and the rider wears a hat that must not come off no matter what. There are many “horses” in the first round, and while they play “We Will Rock You” by Queen in the background, the horses circle and finally start to scuffle. Once a player loses his hat, he has to leave the field. After the first round, the remainder take each other on one-on-one.
All together Sports Day was a lot of fun. I got a free lunch – a bento box from one of the nice department stores in town, and it was delicious. Much better than the cafeteria food I’ve had before. After the long day out in the sun, I was looking forward to the party that night.
About a week ago, the Hanshin Tigers, usually the bottom dwellers of Japanese professional baseball, clinched the Central Division title. The Tigers play right near where I live, and so the whole area is excited about their success. The train line I take to work everyday also owns the Hanshin Tigers, so I see advertising all the time on the train, telling me how great the team is and how I should be buying season tickets for next year.
I went to Akashi and met Mr. Komuri and friends to celebrate the Hanshin Tigers victory. He had a giant “keg” of sake, completely made out of wood. Mr. Komuri is a huge fan of the Tigers, and he bought the keg to celebrate. The sake takes on a bit of the wood flavor, which I guess is part of the appeal. We met at a bar that served Guinness on draft, and had three dart boards. The name of the place was “Donkey”. Not “The Donkey Bar”, or “Donkey Pub”, but “Donkey”. I went to “Donkey” last night.
The keg needed to be broken open, and there were several large hammers to use. Mr. Komuri had taped the game when the Tigers had clinched, so he replayed that, and at the moment of truth, he cracked open the keg. Everyone cheered, and then they sang the Hanshin Tigers song, which has two lines in English so I could only join in briefly. We passed around cups of sake. The cups are also made of wood, and for some strange reason, they are square. Drinking a lot of booze can be hard enough, but then putting it in square cups really ups the challenge level.
Everyone had a great time, and there was plenty of food to eat – shrimp, sashimi, sandwiches, and quiche, of all things. Another foreigner from Texas came in, so I talked to him a little bit. He’s got a teaching gig in Takasago that he wants me to take over, but I think my timing would make it impossible. He has been living in Japan for quite a while, and he’s going to move back to Texas.
About half the party took off, but I was still hungry, so I joined a couple of the other teachers and we went to get some okonomiyaki. The little Japanese pizza-type things are delicious, but very hard to eat with chopsticks. The restaurant that we went to was a bit of a locals only place, and everybody watched me carefully. The owners of the restaurant were very impressed that I knew how to use chopsticks, and they were very patient with my limited Japanese.
After the restaurant, I went back on the train with one of the teachers at my school who lives in the same apartment. He’s a computer teacher, and he speaks only a word or two of English. It was a real challenge to converse with him, but I think we managed. He seems like a genuinely nice guy. He called ahead and his wife was waiting for us when we got to our station, and she drove us home. His wife was extremely outgoing, and I think she was really excited to meet a foreigner. I got home relatively early, thanks to the ride I got, and so now I’m looking forward to a domestic weekend – doing chores, laundry and cleaning house. I’ve been running around so much lately, this will be a relief.
