Teams

I've seen many amazing things during a year in Japan. I've seen a man walking cats; I've seen Mount Fuji at sun rise; I've seen three year old children pretending to be carrots and dragons and bean filled bread. I've seen water that lights up and stars that fall down, and trains more packed than trains have any right to be. I've seen typhoons and snow and palm trees and rice fields; parks filled with pink blossom and restaurants filled with beds and cafes filled with kittens; Cinderella speaking Japanese and dogs wearing dresses and men in suits sleeping on benches in the middle of the day.

But I've never seen anything quite as amazing as my school's Sports Day.

I didn't like Sports Day when I was at school, but - in fairness - there wasn't much to like. It was one day every year when the popular children - also known as the sporty, flexible, genetically agile children - got to show off by running faster and jumping higher and throwing further than everyone else, and everybody else stood around in bored huddles trying not to look bitter about it. Parents were roped in to watch up to the age of 11, but this simply meant that there were more witnesses to the en mass humiliation: more people to hide behind their hands when you tripped over the sack or dropped the egg or brought your pissed off three-legged partner down in a heap on the floor. After 11, the parents were removed (probably through request), and then you just had to endure six or seven years of never, ever being high fived for any activity you attempted in public again.

So, when they started talking about Sports Day in Kitago, I was predictably unexcited. There is nothing more depressing than being one of 400 reluctant and bored children, unless it's being forced to watch them being reluctant and bored when you're supposed to be on holiday. Even when I was allocated a team, I wasn't particularly bothered. 'Teams' meant nothing when I was a child, because it was never about working as a team. What colour t-shirt you were wearing was pretty irrelevant when you hadn't actually contributed towards the scoreboard at all, and - when the winners were cheering at the end, and the losers were throwing things at each other - they made it pretty clear that you had no call to either be upset or jubilant about it with them, because you hadn't been a part of it in the first place.

It was therefore with much surprise that I got to school at the beginning of this term and looked at my schedule. I had three lessons to teach in four whole weeks, because the rest of the time was allocated as "Sports Day practice".

"Practice?" I said to Harai in surprise. "Do you mean they all do PE non-stop for three weeks?"
Harai frowned at me.
"No, practice Sports Day means practice Sports Day."
He can be frustratingly obtuse sometimes: mainly because the concept of any other way of life - of any way of being anything but totally and utterly Japanese - never even occurs to him ("why would I want to go abroad?" he asked me once, despite being the English teacher. "I don't like abroad").
"But... What do they practice?"
"Sports Day."
"What is Sports Day?"
"Sports Day is Sports Day."
"Sometimes," I told him, getting up to make myself a frustrated coffee, "you can be a pain in the butt, Harai, you know that? And if you didn't make me laugh so often I'd probably move my desk."

It took me another 24 hours to realise that Sports Day in Japan is absolutely nothing like Sports Day in England: it is Sports Day. It's not a day to show off individual merits: far from it. It's a whole school celebration, and the only opportunity the students have to show mum and dad just how well behaved they are, and just how perfectly trained they can be, and just how harmoniously and peacefully and uncomplainingly they can work with their classmates. There are no individual sports: even running, the only thing they can do on their own, is divided into the two teams - red and white, the Japanese national colours - and they're running for their colour, not for themselves. Everything else is a group effort, it lasts the entire day, and mum and dad and grandma and grandad and aunty and brothers and sisters and far-flung third cousins bring tents and beer and picnics and camp out around the edges of the field from as early as the evening before.

It is, in every single respect, a festival. And not least because of the dancing.

There are three hundred children at my school (not including kindergarten), ranging from 5 years old to 15, and every single one of them danced. In between the astonishing group sports - relays, tugs of war with 100 people on each side of the rope, en mass ball throwing and getting the littlest student to climb over the bent over backs of his classmates wearing a pointy straw hat - there were dances. Dances like no other dances I've seen: practiced to within an inch of their lives, perfectly co-ordinated and done with utter enthusiasm by even the smallest child. The five year olds did '5,6,7,8' by Steps, the six year olds did 'Oh Mickey, you're so fine' and the seven year olds danced with yet more pointy straw hats to the theme song from Pokemon.

It was the older students, however, that truly astonished me. 200 students, all performing the Soran Bushi - a traditional fishing dance from Hokkaido - at the same time, with the same energy, and with the same dedication, wearing exactly the same outfits. Over and over and over again. Every day, in the midday sun, for three weeks, without complaining. Until - come Sports Day - it was one of the most amazing, moving things I have ever seen: a true representation of the wonderful spirit of Japanese education. That of harmony, and diligence, and passion. And untiring, unquestioning obedience.

They put their entire hearts and souls into the whole day, just as they had undergone being screamed at by the PE teacher for 3 weeks solidly beforehand (hence, incidentally, my dream). They marched in perfect time, like a tiny army, and they saluted at perfect angles, and they bowed simultaneously, and they sang their school song and national anthem with gusto. They painted their own team mascots and they swept the field and re-did the white lines and helped each other carry chairs and pin up flowers. They cheered each other on and when one of them tripped over they ran to pick them back up again. There was no bitchiness, no jealousy, no snidiness. The two children with Downs Syndrome were included in every single sport, and gave speeches at the end along with the leaders. And, when it was over and the parents had tipsily filmed every single second of it, the whole field - a thousand people - cheered the winners and cheered the losers. Equally.

At the end of Sports Day in England, there was a sensation of relief. Of being glad that it was all over for another year, and of vaguely aggressive team dynamics: violence towards those that did well, resentment towards those that did not. The culmination of hours of boredom and ego struggles: of showing off and humiliation and feeling not quite good enough. At the end of this Sports Day, my students cried. The 15, 14, 13 and 12 year old leaders - many of which were boys - stood in front of hundreds of people and openly sobbed their hearts out: gave heartfelt speeches of thanks to their team mates for trying so hard, and for giving so much, and for working so well together. The little ones sat on my lap and chatted to me in excited Japanese: told me that they would be a part of it next year, wouldn't they, and would I help them run as fast as the big boys did? And - as bemused as I initially was ("why are they crying, Harai? They just won, didn't they?") - it didn't take long for my own tears to form. Tears of pride in these wonderful, warm children, and tears of gratitude that I had been part of a beautiful Japanese tradition that very, very few foreigners ever get to see. A tradition much more precious than drinking tea or visiting a shrine or wearing a kimono. Because it's a tradition I have actually been part of, and given my heart to.

My team won, as it happens: the red team whooped arse. But the sensation was one I have never experienced before, being - as I am - a naturally competitive and independent and possessive pain in the bottom. One of genuine joy and satisfaction and happiness for every single member of my team - myself included, despite not running anywhere at all (although I did carry a number of chairs) - and also that of matching joy and happiness for every single member of the one that lost: the team we had run against. Who were equally as brilliant as the team that belonged to me, and I was equally as proud of.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with encouraging independence and ambition, but the English school system does it absolutely the wrong way. They make it about the self - about winning, or losing, on your own - and so this continues into adulthood: the feeling that you try hard only to be better than everyone else. Sports Day in Japan is the opposite. It is about warmth, and teamwork, and effort for the sake of others as well as yourselves. About passion for the whole, and not for the individual; compassion, and respect, and emotion, and obedience. About being part of something bigger than just you.

And - as a foreigner, accepted as part of the tiny, rural Kitago community with enthusiasm and grace - I am infinitely grateful that I am allowed to share a little piece of that.

To be a part of their team.