As I said previously, last weekend was my school's (Futajima's) culture festival. We had spent a very busy week getting ready, especially with the first year students. All the first year students wrote a short paragraph in English describing a friend or family member. I had to read over all of their paragraphs and correct them every time they wrote a new draft. A few needed to be corrected on the final draft (with sticky notes so it wouldn't mess up their nice papers) as well. So that's somewhere between 130 and 140 paragraphs I read and re-read. Then on Friday we grouped all the paragraphs by class and taped them to giant pieces of paper, which we hung in the gym for parents and other students to see during the festival.
The entire school became a display case for student work, not just the gym. Most of the classrooms and hallways were decorated with work the students had done. There was a huge variety of work ranging from science projects to stitch work patterns to ikebana (flower arranging). There were painting and calligraphy projects hung up and small ceramic desserts the students had made in art class. The special class did a short research project on recycling and made tote bags out of newspaper for other students to take. The third year students made books describing a school trip they had taken to Nara, Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe. The set up took a long time, but seeing it all during the festival was well worth it.
The festival itself started at 8:45 A.M. on Saturday. Students, parents, and teachers all gathered in the auditorium and our principal started opening ceremony. Pretty much everything in Japan has an opening (and closing) ceremony. My school day starts with an opening ceremony, which consists of the head teacher saying good morning and giving out any announcements. The principal and vice principal sometimes give out announcements as well. The opening ceremony for culture festival was led by the principal of Futajima. She thanked everyone for coming and talked about how hard all of the students had worked to prepare. Then three of the students who participated in speech contest came up and did their speeches for everyone. There was a projector displaying both the English as the students spoke and the Japanese translation so everyone could follow along.
After the speeches, the special classes had the stage. They sang two songs and each student had a chime with a different pitch. They rung their chimes in an order so that it accompanied the song they were singing. The first years went next and they also sang a few songs. They also did a dramatic reading of a story I didn't quite understand, but there were pictures accompanying it. The students would take turns telling the story and everyone would say certain parts in unison. The second years were up next and they also started with some songs. The second song they did was "When the Saints Go Marching In." It was very fun! It is a very repetitive song, but they did a different little dance each time they repeated it and even had props. The second years did a reading as well and then it was the third years' turn.
The third year students all did skits. There were four skits in total, one done by each class. The first two classes did their skits and they were very fun! The plots were sometimes a bit strange to me, but both stories had the message of coming of age, finding friendship, and growing into their own selves. Some of the key plot points from these first two skits were magic stones and teacher/magicians. The students had a really great time putting on these plays and everyone seemed to enjoy them.
After the first two skits we took a break for a few hours to let parents and students walk around the school and see all of the work the students had done. I really liked this time because I had a chance to walk around as well and not only see all the work, but spend some time with the students. We had lunch after we were finished looking around and headed back to the auditorium. We started back up with a great performance by the choral club, then back into the third year skits. The other two third year class' skits had pretty much the same messages at the first two, but this time the plots had more to do with runaway students and puzzles that could summon demons and witches. These second skits also had considerably more cross dressing than the first two. After the skits, all the third year students got up and sang a song together. They were then joined by the other two grades, so all the students were up on stage. They all sang the school song and then it was the teachers' turn. I went up with all the teachers and we sang a song together before closing ceremonies.
I went out with the teachers to an enkai (work party) that night and had a great time! I even went to nijikai at karaoke and sang some Japanese songs with my coworkers. I came back to Kokura fairly early, though, because I had plans on Sunday. My JTE Sugiyama invited me to an English concert in Kokura. I met her at Riverwalk the next day and the concert was really enjoyable! The opening was a high school band in Kokura that was very talented! One of the songs they even managed to dance to despite all having instruments that in some cases were bigger than them!
The main act was called "Voice of Virginia." A preforming arts college in Virginia sends it's top students ages 24-27 to Kitakyushu every few years to preform popular English music. Virginia to Kitakyushu may seem a little random, but Norfolk, VA is Kitakyushu's sister city. The songs they preformed were a huge range, from disco to Motown to a three song Adele set. They all sang and danced and even brought a live band with them for their music. The whole concert only lasted about an hour and a half, but it was really fun. It was also really nice to spend time with my teachers outside of school.
After the concert we went downstairs to Starbucks for a coffee. Riverwalk is getting all decked out for Christmas already with a giant Christmas tree made entirely of Christmas lights. Even Starbucks was selling exclusively Christmas mugs and take home coffee.
Sugiyama and I sat outside and drank our coffee and chatted for a while before we had to go home. It was a great end to a great weekend! And coming soon on Nov. 15th is Illuminations, when the entire city starts all their Christmas lights up!
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