Last week Friday, I attended my first Japanese graduation. It was enormously different from every graduation ceremony I’ve ever been to. When I think of graduation, I think of general joy and excitement about what lies ahead. I think of noisemakers and general rowdiness. Last week’s ceremony contained very little of these. The staff all wore black suits (the principal wore a coat with tails), and the students wore their uniforms. The students marched in, and later up to the stage, with military-sharp turns and four count, 45 to 90 degree bows. Everyone cried. One of my co-teachers had to pause while reading the names of the students in his homeroom class to wipe his eyes. The principal, vice-principal, and representative from the BOE all had tears running down their cheeks. The previous class president, as representative of the graduating class, cried through the entirety of his speech and had to step away from the podium twice to compose himself. I had difficulty understanding the speeches, so I gave up trying to understand him through sobs and watched the students react to his words. Perhaps the image that will stay with me the longest is of the interaction between two of the “cool” graduating boys (you know the type, 15 year old boys who think they’re amazing and therefore have little need to pay attention in class except to make jokes). One of the boys sobbed into his hands, the other (sitting directly behind him) tapped him on the shoulder and offered him a pack of tissues. The boy in the front took one and offered the pack back, but the boy in the back shook his head and patted him on the shoulder, which just made the boy in the front cry harder. That’s the moment I started to cry.
The students collectively sang their class song from the chorus contest in November. They struggled through it (even though they’ve been practicing for a week), and the second the song was over, there was a collective sob from about 75% of the students as they started crying harder. It was crazy.
One of my students ran up to me after the ceremony with a letter in her hand. She gave it to me, and managed to say (in Japanese) “Thank you for taking care of me” (which is a common thing to say in this situation). She apologized for not being able to speak in English at the moment (I was impressed she could speak at all since she was crying so hard), but continued to thank me. Then I did something essentially forbidden in Japanese culture. I gave her a hug. At first she tensed up as if she was thinking “what is she doing to me?” but she quickly relaxed and started crying into my shoulder. I miss hugs.
Anyway, no event in Japan is complete without a follow-up 宴会 (enkai: dinner party). We celebrated graduation at a Japanese-style restaurant. Dinner was delicious and accompanied by large amounts of alcohol. I think the most interesting question of the night has to be “Hawaii… In Hawaii… tobacco… good taste? Good taste?” My response was, in Japanese, “I’m not really sure, but I think they taste the same, but in Hawaii many people smoke marijuana.” The look of shock on their faces was amazing. They then asked me how Hawaiian beer tastes. Anyway, I didn’t drink that much because I had to get up early the next morning.
On Saturday, I went on a trip with the office staff of my school. Actually, I think the administrators (principal, vice-principal, and head teachers) were the only men invited, but all the female staff members were invited. I believe this is because we went on a nature walk to see the flowers. It was pretty amusing because the women would fall behind (looking at flowers or stopping to sample something at a booth or buying omiyage (souvenirs)), and the men would wait and smoke until we caught up. I think this happened four or five times.
We had lunch at a really nice restaurant. I believe this lunch to be the most expensive lunch I’ve ever had, beating lunch in Ginza by quite a bit. Lunch was 8000 yen ($80.80 American based on the exchange rate at 7:15 this morning). It was delicious, but not really memorable. They did a lot of creative things with ume (pickled plum) and tofu. We had ume juice, some sort of cold tofu in bamboo, grass tempura, and the usual sashimi. Overall, I felt pleasantly full after lunch, unlike usual staff meals (like Friday night) where I feel like I ate too much. It was a good day.
Sunday was another day of soccer. The group was significantly smaller this week (I think because of St. Patrick’s Day today), but I still think we had a good time. I’m not as sore today, which I would like to attribute to being in better shape (but in reality we cut practice shorter). Oh well, I can believe what I want to believe.
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