Cultural day at Tashiro
Last Friday my school had its cultural day, which is similar to a festival/assembly in the States. The kids sung, performed skits and speeches, and gave presentations. Honestly, it was a very boring day for me. After the English speeches in the morning, everthing was indecipherable, except the Carpenter's song "Yesterday Once More," which some 9th graders gave a Japanglish rendition of ("ye-stah-day once mo").
Just a small percentage of parents showed up to watch the goings on on stage and gaze at the posters hanging over the walls of the gym. Sadly, the size of the audience didn't justify the number of hours the kids spent preparing for the day. Every afternoon for the past 3 weeks they had been practicing the same two songs. At 3:00, as the day ended, the students, teachers, and handful of spectators clapped one final time. Shortly after, an army of 7th graders tore the posters off the walls, stacked the hundreds of chairs and tables, and brough the gym back to its basketball-playing state.