2004-05-23

Hold on to your hats and glasses...it's the
KOFUDAI ELEMENTARY SPORTS DAY REPORT!

Last week was supposed to be Sports Day at Kofudai Elementary, but bad weather postponed the festivities until this weekend. I wasn't sure if they'd be able to do it THIS weekend, because it was COLD and soggy yesterday. When I woke up this morning it was foggy and still cold, but we ended up going anyway. And sure enough, they had everything set up when we arrived.

Kofudai is MAYBE 25 kilometers away from the college, which for all the Americans (in other words, everyone who reads this) is about 15 miles. It takes between 30 and 40 minutes to get there because Japanese people like to drive SLOW. The drive is pretty, though, so I shouldn't complain too much. John and Amanda have reason to complain, since they do the drive every week and thus are inoculated to the nice surroundings. The SDA elementary school is right in the middle of what looked like a decent-sized town. The problem? Like most Japanese towns, this one has a hideous lack of parking. In fact, the school had NO dedicated parking lot, so everyone had to park along this ridiculously narrow street. There were cars parked along the street for several blocks. Fortunately, we ducked into a side lot that was owned by the school but which parents and other passersby might not know about. So we got decent parking after all.

We walked in and the thing had already started. They were in the middle of their warm-up exercises, or at least I THINK that's what they were doing. In fact, I would be absolutely sure except that the little kids on the field weren't the only ones doing the exercises. A whole bunch of parents and spectators were doing them, too. Maybe it's some deep-rooted need to join in what the "group" is doing, or wanting the kids to feel supported, or just the cool thing to do, but to an outsider I tell you it looked totally bizarre. Maybe the music they were playing added to the effect, but it seemed like we were walking into the middle of some cultic brainwashing session. "When the music plays, you must kill all foreigners." "WE...MUST...KILL..." Okay, maybe it wasn't THAT freaky, but it was still pretty weird. All these normally staid Japanese people suddenly seized by DAS TANZENGEIST and spontaneously combusting the disco infernos within.

Oh, and the music. I wish I had a video camera to get a recording of the music. Unfortunately, I have no such recording, but wait--YOU TOO can experience it in your imagination! First take "The most eclectic music CD ever". Auld Lang Syne? Good. "It's A Small World"? Check. "I've Been Working On The Railroad"? Sure. "Hey Jude" and "Yesterday"? Nice. Now take every song and throw them all through a John Philip Souza remix and that's what we were listening to ALL DAY LONG. You have not lived until you've heard the fanfare from "Stars and Stripes Forever" used to transition between "Yesterday" and "Hey Jude".

So what'd they actually do? It was like any number of outdoor sports festivals at American elementary schools, except the games they had were really different. Some of them looked like a lot of fun. One of them had two baskets set up on poles and a bunch of what looked like rolled-up socks on the ground. Two teams would rush at their respective baskets and just grab the socks and throw them up at the basket. Since the projectiles were soft, you didn't have to worry about hitting anyone, so the whole point seemed to be just grab as many socks as you could and chuck them at the basket. Each basket had a closed-off net so they'd catch all the rolled-up socks, and after a certain time they'd stop the throwing and count how many socks they actually got in the basket. As they counted each number, a little kid would hit a drum. It was AWESOME. The most joyful, spontaneous, chaotic game of basketball ever. Another game was a relay race surely dreamed up by some Japanese hippy on a bad LSD trip. Parents ran the relay with kids and grabbed envelopes with "tasks" to do...in the middle of the race, they'd have to roll giant rubber balls or other weirdness. One team had to lead a donkey (yes, a real donkey!) across the finish line. Mrs. Yamaji got stuck with having to drag a tire with Takashi sitting in it. For those of you who don't know, Mrs. Yamaji is tiny even by Japanese woman standards...she might weigh 50 kilos soaking wet. I thought there was no way she'd be able to do it, but she was a gamer and struggled across.

They even roped me into playing some of their insane games. One of them was a "race" where the objective was to grab an ampang (bean-filled pastry) hanging from a clothesline...with your MOUTH. Some of the kids who did the thing were all amped up and didn't even bother grabbing the ampangs, they just plowed into the things full-speed with their heads and knocked 'em off the line. Of course, this meant that they had to pick them off the ground--yes, with their mouths. So hardcore. I thought about doing that but was afraid that since I'm much bigger than little elementary kids, and because my head is so huge so as to hold my glorious brain, I might knock the entire line down and bring the game to a screeching halt. The group I ran in was filled with old big guys, so I actually had to wait to grab one of the ampang(s). They also caused the line to shake and move all over so I couldn't get a beat on my target. I finally cheated by grabbing one between my chin and my chest and running across the finish line with it tucked into my neck.

The other thing that I ended up doing was a relay race. They had a bunch of teams, mostly comprised of parents and older kids who were (I think) alumni of the school. There was also a Teachers' team that I somehow got dragged into, probably because I was with Amanda and John. Our team did really well--I ran the leg immediately after Amanda, and we held the lead for our team. Unfortunately, the second-to-last guy on our team tripped and fell and so we ended up coming in 2nd or 3rd. Of course, we all surrounded the guy who fell and beat him to a pulp like evil dark ninjas just to show the little kids the CONSEQUENCES OF FAILURE! We EAT our wounded! Teachers are to be FEARED bwahahahahahahahahaha

The relay was the last event. Afterwards, the kiddies lined up in formation and a bunch of quasi-military formation marching and flag taking-down occurred. Then more group warm-down/stretching exercises, which the parents and friends also participated in and gave me the weird zombie/cult vibe all over again. The three of us got out of there as soon as everything was officially over to avoid the impending APOCALYPTIC traffic jam caused by 100 cars trying to leave on a road designed for horse carts.

All in all, a good day. I finally got to see families from the college all together, picked up a few game ideas to steal when I go back to the States, sat and talked with Amanda the whole time, and got a free lunch on top of it all. Yeah. I HAD FUN.