Going Away Ceremony & Party

So, the third years graduated in mid March, right? School continues for about a week afterward, and then spring break starts. Then the teachers find out whether or not they'll be moving schools. Teachers are reshuffled to new schools, usually within the same town, at a very rough average of three years. Spring break is just about two weeks, so the teachers who are changing schools get about that amount of time to clean out their desks and move to an entirely different work place with largely new colleagues, where they might be teaching a different grade level.

If you're saying, "what!?!" with a certain amount of sympathetic indignation, I'm right there with you, and the story gets better. Occasionally teachers will be moved from elementary school to junior high and vice versa. Teachers who work in different towns can request to be transferred to their town of residence, and these requests are sometimes granted, but the opposite is true as well: teachers can be assigned to a different town entirely. That might not sound terrible, but even driving from one end of my town to the other takes about 45 minutes, and that's not even counting Shingu, the mountain hamlet which is one of the four towns that merged into Shikokuchuo-shi several years ago. Add that on to living half an hour away in the next town, and you could have a significant change in commute. Also, the teachers have no choice in the matter.

However, they're not the only ones in this position: government officials of all kinds are rotated in a similar fashion, and can be transferred to and from fields as different as HR and accounting. There's something to be said for variety, for shaking things up, and for developing a workforce skilled in many areas, but there's also something to be said for building up experience in a given field, and for being better at one job than another. However, that's the way the system works, and it fosters a plethora of goodbye parties at the end of March and welcome parties at the beginning of April, since April is also the beginning of the fiscal year.

At school, there's a special going away ceremony for the teachers who are leaving. If you're beginning to think there's a short ceremony for almost everything in Japan, I think you might be right. The going away ceremony takes place during spring break, actually, and all the students, including the recently graduated third years, come to school in their uniforms to see it. I'm pretty sure the majority of them have no idea which teachers are leaving before the ceremony. I was at Higashi-chu for the ceremony because I'm no longer going to that school (the number of ALTs in town has increased by one, reducing my number of schools somewhat in a not entirely unpleasant fashion).

There were twelve teachers moving to other schools, including the vice principal. We all got on stage, bowed, and sat down. We stood one by one as the principal introduced us and informed the students how long we'd been at the school and where we were moving to, and bowed to the students. Then we got up one by one, bowed to the people to the left of us, to the right of us, and to the students before saying a 1 or 2 minute goodbye speech. Then the bowing in reverse order, and sitting down. It was by and large a serious affair, with admonitions to the students and a few tears, but there were also a few jokes. I myself started out by saying "Good Morning," and then exclaimed indignantly at the paltry response I received, which made a lot of the students smile, and they replied much louder the second time I said it. My speech was in both English and Japanese.

I went last, and so once I was done, a procession of student representatives came on stage two by two: one to say the thank you speech, and another to give out flowers. I was fortunate enough to get the speech in both English and Japanese; the English bit was written and said by one of my favorite students, a small but spirited rising third year girl named Nanami who came to my English conversation class for adults as well. Then we all got off stage and waited while the students and remaining teachers made a column for us to walk through with their bodies and a few flowered arches. After the ceremony was over, several students came up to say goodbye and thank us for our instruction personally.

That night, there was a going away party for the teachers at the local hotel, Grand Foret, which has several banquet halls. There were round tables for most of the teachers and the PTA members, but those of us leaving had a place of privilege on a long table facing everyone else. In addition to a lovely kaiseki ryori feast, there was another double round of speeches: each teacher leaving was called to the stage and given a goodbye speech by a colleague, and then the teacher him/herself would make a farewell statement to everyone. This was much more informal than the ceremony, of course, so there was a good deal more humor, especially amongst the younger male teachers. I was sent off by Yumi-sensei, who is not an English teacher, but a very kind Japanese teacher who would always come up and chat with me when we had some free time. Not being aware of the need to make a speech beforehand, I improvised somewhat successfully!

Though I do miss going to Higashi-chu, it's nice to have one of the many goodbyes I will have to go through out of the way, and life is a little less hectic with one less school. It was also nice to experience the going away ceremony as it's experienced by teachers here, so for a short time, I could feel like one of them.

Hiroshima

I met up with my mom’s friend Satomi Murao in Hiroshima during the long weekend we have in late March. Murao-san lives in NJ but comes back to Japan to visit her family every year, and she always takes her mother traveling. They were headed to Kyushu and were planning to stop at Hiroshima, which is only about two hours away from me, so we met up at the station and went sightseeing together. Murao-san and I had both been there before, but her mother had not, so we started off by heading right to the Peace Memorial Park.

The park is very beautiful now, since most of it is on an island between two of the many rivers in Hiroshima City, but it’s located directly where the atom bomb was dropped (the hypocenter). It’s a little hard to reconcile the fact that this gorgeous park, overflowing with tourists, was a scene of nuclear aftermath only 60 years ago. Until you see the Genbaku Dome, the Atom Bomb Dome, which is the only building that was preserved as a reminder of what happened. Being very close to the hypocenter, everyone in that building when the bomb was dropped at 8:15am was immediately eviscerated.



Our next stop was the Hiroshima Museum, and once you see pictures of burn victims and wax figures of people with their skin melting off, and read about children dying slowly and in pain from leukemia and other radiation-related diseases, you realize that those who died instantly were incredibly lucky. No matter how you feel about the decision to use the atom bomb or about nuclear war in general, it’s important to see what the consequences really are. Children and grandchildren of hibakusha (atom bomb victims) still suffer from many illnesses directly related to radiation exposure, although Hiroshima itself is now perfectly safe to visit and live in. Murao-san’s mother, who was 8 or 9 at the time, lived in a rural area far from Hiroshima during the war, but she told me about the scarcity of food and lack of school supplies then. Below is the children's monument in the Peace Memorial Park: the strings of origami cranes are sent in by school children from all over Japan and all over the world.



Then we took a taxi, train, and ferry to get to Miyajima, an island off of Hiroshima which is an essential part of any trip to the city. It’s well known for its red shrine gate out in the water, which really is incredibly beautiful. I had been there before, but I had never stayed in a Japanese inn, a ryokan, and rarely eaten kaiseki ryori, which is a lovely smorgasbord of local specialities and delicious fish. We had a leisurely dinner in our room before watching the ryokan’s taiko performance.





Then we headed out to look at the shrine gate at night, and since the tide was particularly low, we were able to walk all the way out to the gate and say hi! It really is huge and awesome, and it’s got some friendly barnacles near the bottom, where it’s usually covered in water. We were really lucky to be able to do that.





On Monday, we walked around the main part of the island, went through the actual shrine that goes with the gate, Itsukushima Shrine, and patted a few sacred deer, which roam around looking for food or sit and relax in the sun. Murao-san and I braved a lot of stone steps to see Daishoin, a temple up a little towards the mountains and covered with Buddha statues. My favorites included a set of happy Buddhas with the animals of the Chinese zodiac, a circle of the eight Dao gods in the water (not really Buddhist, but that’s no problem in Japan!) and tons of adorable statues of Jizo, a bodhisattva who looks after animals and children, all over the place.










We grabbed lunch at a place specializing in oyster cuisine, since oysters are one of Hiroshima’s famous foods. Then we headed back to Hiroshima station so they could continue their trip, and I was very sad to part with them! They were so kind to include me in their adventure and give me a taste of Japanese-style travel.

Graduation

The school year ends in March and begins again in April in Japan. Why? I think it's mostly because early April is supposed to be cherry blossom season, although of course it differs throughout the country. Today was graduation at schools throughout Japan, and I attended the graduation at Kita-chu, the largest of my schools. There are some similarities with American graduations (well, that I've attended), but there are also some key differences.

Almost all Japanese schools public and private have uniforms, so instead of suits, kimonos or graduation robes, the third year students wear their uniforms for the last time. The teachers, formal guests and most of the parents wore plain black suits, which are considered most appropriate for a formal occasion. I was very happy that my one suit happens to be black with infinitesimal pinstripes, but I was one of very few women with suit pants instead of a skirt, and then of course I stick out no matter what. However, a handful of mothers wore beautiful kimono, and the third year's English teacher, who has taught these kids all three years, wore a gorgeous cherry blossom kimono with burgundy hakama pants.

The graduation was held in the gym, which doubles as an assembly room on many occasions. The parents and school administration filed in first, followed by the first and second year students and their teachers. The third year students and teachers came in last, of course, and the students entered in boy/girl pairs before dividing in gendered seating sections. The vice principal announced that the ceremony had begun and introduced the principal, who went up on stage and said a few words. Then came diploma time, but rather than hand each individual student his or her diploma, the principal only gave the first student his diploma on stage. I hear that most schools do hand out diplomas individually, but Kita-chu is rather large at over 180 students, so they chose not to. Instead, each homeroom teacher read out the names of his/her class, and each student stood up and said "Hai!" (yes) after hearing her/his name. After the whole class was called, they sat down as one, and the next teacher came to the podium and started in.


Then the principal gave a much longer speech, and he was followed by a representative from the Board of Education and the head of the school's PTA. There were also brief greetings from the honorary guests, mostly town officers and principals or vice-principals of the elementary schools that go to Kita-chu. This, as you may guess, was the somewhat boring part.

Luckily, next came my favorite part: the singing. The remaining students, as they were formally called (first and second years), sang Auld Lang Syne in Japanese to their sempais, the third years. Then the third years got up from their seats at the front, gathered in choral stance and faced the audience. They sang three songs, all of which they had been practicing for months for the chorus contest in February. The last song was the quintessential graduation song, 旅立ちの日に or "The Day of Setting Off." During the song, many students started crying, including an entire section of sopranos, and I admit I shed a few tears myself! After the song, they returned to their seats and filed out with their teachers, many of whom were sobbing as well.


Afterward, the rest of us left the gym, and the teachers and students formed a send-off wave at the back of the school, where he waved and said goodbye to the third years as they walked away. In reality they clustered in the parking lot, where the scene resembled graduations I've known closely: students in groups, with their teachers and their friends, asking their parents to take countless pictures. I joined this scene and was gratified to receive several requests for photos together.

I was also invited to the teachers' party that night, which was awesome; everyone was in a great mood and most people were drinking. I particularly love the administration at this school, so I spent a lot of time talking with the principal, vice-principal, and the dude in charge of daily affairs. I sat next to and chatted with a very kind and fun teacher, who sobbed prodigiously when he walked out with his class and when teased about it, replied, "Really? Which teacher was crying?" But he and many other teachers continually mentioned how much they enjoyed teaching this class, and that they had never cried at graduation before, but this time, they were really emotional. And part of it, which I felt as well, is that they'll never see most of these students again.

霙!? Mizore?! It's cold!

Mizore, you ask? Sleet, I tell you. Sleet is falling in my town and leaving a layer of flavorless sorbet on the roads, buildings, and cars. It's also reversing the warming trend we've had going the past week, for which I am exceedingly displeased. It's not snow, which would be fun, or rain, which would at least bring a pleasant sleepiness with its moist melancholy. It's sleet, and it drives me to complain at last on this blog about the winter in Japan. I've been refraining, having heard enough about the weather in NJ and elsewhere this year to think my comments would not be well received by folks in far more frigid places, but there's a special level of cold here that doesn't really exist at home. We call it school.

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of hearing me go on and on about the heating system or lack there of in Japan, either in person or by phone, let me provide a short introduction. There is really no central heating in most of Japan, save for the northern island of Hokkaido and parts of northern Honshu. While it's true that it doesn't get as cold here as it does at home, the thirties and forties are pretty common in winter, and it does occasionally fall below zero. In order to stay warm, people use a variety of heating options we don't go for much in the US. On the electric front, there are space heaters, mini heating/AC units for one room, electric blankets, futon pads and carpets. There's also the kotatsu, which is a coffee table with a heating unit and an inflammable quilt, under which you curl up happily; I'm sitting in mine right now. In my area, kerosene heaters are big because they heat the whole room much better than the room units do, and gas is cheaper than electricity. Insulation isn't great, though, so people also bundle up a bit even inside houses.

I've always been somewhat adept at layering and was once called the queen of layers by one of my classmates at college, but I've really perfected the art at school, where there is little to no heating. The teachers' room usually is heated, but the classrooms rarely are. At one of my schools, the windows are left open almost all the time, because that apparently helps prevent influenza. That's a whole other story. The students can't wear anything over their uniforms, so many of them are layered, too, but the girls are wearing skirts, remember! Even when the windows are closed, the schools are built to be extremely open, with drawbridge-sized entrances and windowed hallways. So it's very, very cold at school sometimes.

With the sleet coming down, the administration at the school magnanimously decided that the kerosene heaters in the classrooms could be turned on for the first ten minutes of each class period. During one of my classes, the teacher left the heater on for a whole fifteen minutes before realizing his infraction and turning it off to the dismayed cries of my freezing students. And this is the school that actually has heaters in the classrooms; I'm pretty sure one of my other schools just had class without heat as usual. Eeek!

However, my favorite moment was at the end of the day. After the last class period, we have cleaning time and then the students return to their homerooms for the end-of-day meeting, a fairly brief affair that usually begins with an announcement over the PA system and is followed by the start of sports and club activities. After school activities run until around 5, and all students must leave the school at 5:30. When the announcement came on, it was one of the male teachers rather than a student, and he started out by saying, "Regarding club activities..."

Ah, thinks the American. They're gonna cancel the clubs so that the kids can go home early. That's nice.

"Regarding club activities, due to the weather, please end activity before 5 and leave the school by 5:10." Because leaving twenty minutes earlier will make a huge difference, right? Especially when the vast majority of the kids bike and walk to school, eh?

And lastly: "Please enjoy looking at the snow." Rather than playing with it. And it wasn't snow, it was sleet, but the poor kids here get so little snow that clearly it was good enough to make snowballs and snowmen with. I saw a few!

Here's to the eventual arrival of spring!