#nashikingdom

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Fuji Shibazakura Festival // May 2024

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cherry blossoms near my home // pril 2024

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My School's 100th Anniversary

On Sunday October 10th, my school turned 100. From the minute I had stepped inside on my first day, the 5th, I had been bombarded with flyers and brochures and pamphlets and all that kind of stuff, all announcing the events of the day. I didn’t understand a single word, but the list seemed pretty long. Great! A cool day of celebration right as I arrive! Great opportunity to get to know the staff and students.  

I was kind of bummed to already have to come into work on my first weekend in town, but I figured it was going to be fun. My supervisor warned me to wear my nice black suit, as there would be a short official ceremony. “Cool”, I thought, “I get to show them I clean up well and that I take tradition seriously”. I’m also told it’ll be a full day, so on Sunday I show up, full suited up, at 8am. Turns out, students have simple homeroom until noon. Seems kind of boring, but sure. I’ll stay at my desk and keep it warm until the festivities begin. Finally, 1pm, time to go the gym for the official ceremony, which will surely kick off the festivities.  The gym is full of chairs carefully aligned and organized to separate the students into grades, with teachers off to the side. We sit down, and nobody seems excited. Weird. We are handed the ceremony’s program, and even though I still don’t understand a single word, I understand this : 1pm – 4pm.  

Ah yes, a short ceremony by Japanese standards. I start sweating. I’m not nervous, but the gym is already an oven, with no windows and about 200 people in full suits. I lean over to my closest colleague, who’s not an English speaker, and try to ask her what’s on the program by repeatedly pointing and going "Nani desu ka?". I don’t get much of her answer, except for speech…speech… speech. Ok, so speeches. Nothing else, apparently.  

The first event on the program was a ceremony over Zoom (yes, I too thought I was finished with Zoom) that was held at our town’s cultural center, a mere kilometer away. After the usual 10 minutes of technical issues and the Japanese equivalent of “I think you’re muted”, we were treated to around 1h30 of speeches, all very monotone and serious, with deep bows and polite clapping between each one. Every time, there was an awkward half-clap going on in the gym… Do you clap for someone who can’t see nor hear you? After a short break, the “real fun” began, according to my supervisor. See, in 1988, a young Japanese man named Suzuki Daichi won a gold medal for swimming at the Seoul Olympics.  

Ah, that’s cool, an alumni went to the Olympics and won!  

No! Actually, Mr Suzuki didn’t attend my school, but a neighboring one who, unlike us, didn’t have a pool. So their swim team used ours. Anyway, because of this, my school has always been very proud of being the kinda-home of an Olympian. And today, Mr Suzuki was coming to deliver the a speech, which would last 1h30 (impressive, might I say). They showed a short documentary about his Olympic performance, and I, along with probably every girl in the gym, perked up at the footage of wet beefy 80s athletes in speedos. I’m glad to report Mr Suzuki is as handsome as he was in his youth.  

Again, I didn’t understand much from his lengthy speech, only that it had to do with sports and how they can make life better and how Japanese youth need to be more active. The students didn’t seem all that excited for the last 45 minutes, which was mostly graphs and motivational quotes. I did notice members of the baseball team screamed at some point, so maybe something was said about their sport?  

Anyway, that concluded my school’s 100th anniversary celebration. We got a gigantic, beautiful bouquet of flowers that’s displayed in the hall, but otherwise, nothing much came of it. I’m at least glad that everyone else had a terrible time, even while understanding what was being said. I don’t know which situation is worst. At least I got to zone out.