School Ceremonies Part 2: For Those Special Occasions....

A weekly school ceremony is the Japanese school system’s way of torturing foreign English teachers. But these frequent gatherings pale in comparison to ‘special occasion ceremonies’ – lengthy, tedium-inducing jamborees from hell where the staff pull out all the stops. These momentous occasions in the yearly agenda of any Japanese school, thankfully, happen with less regularity. But what they lack in frequency, they make up in sheer insanity.

The two biggest ceremonies of the year in a Japanese junior high school are the ‘graduation ceremony’ in which the 3^rd year students are bid farewell, and the ‘welcoming ceremony’ in which the incoming 1^st year students are inducted into their new school. Each of these over-the-top ceremonies, which commemorate what in most countries is a rather minor blip on one’s personal history, make my weekly Monday morning gatherings seem like a walk in the park. Not a glamorous park - perhaps one riddled with strung-out addicts and disposed needles - but a park, nonetheless.

These ceremonies creep up on the calendar like a pair of drunken elephants, arriving within weeks of each other in the spring, after a great deal of organization, fanfare and a general ‘the world will end if this isn’t done properly’ mentality. Weeks of preparation are undertaken by the staff and students. Choreography is rehearsed. Strategies are planned. Protracted speeches are penned. Tissues are prepared in anticipation of the crying masses. Suits, skirts, and traditional Japanese costumes are pressed into creaseless sheets of softened fabric. And, a video of the previous year’s tiresome ceremonies is studied by the teachers in the staff-room as they discuss ways to improve the flow of events, which, to me, pass as comfortably as golf ball-sized kidney stones.

Several days in advance of a ‘special occasion ceremony’, the gymnasium is transformed from its typical, dimly-lit character, into what resembles a traveling medieval road-show - minus the horses, armor, and un-bathed maidens. Green plastic sheets are strewn across the scarred floor and lined with rows upon rows of rusted folding chairs. A lengthy red-carpet is taken from storage, shaken of dust, and stretched down the centre of the room. Ruffled, multicoloured flags and wax-paper designs are placed along the sides of the expanded red carpet like throngs of paparazzi; tripods and cameras are carefully assembled in areas with good sight lines. Lastly, a garden variety of flowers is arranged along the stage and podium, and the walls are draped in bright banners to cover the imprints of poorly guided basketballs of past. Preparations are so intense in fact, that on the eve of the latest ‘special occasion ceremony’, several teachers from my school spent the night sleeping in the nurse’s room. This enabled them to get up at the crack of dawn and work on the final touches required, proving that Japanese teachers are more dedicated to their school than Robert Downey Jr. is to getting back on the smack.

On the morning of the ceremony, pandemonium ensues. The baseball diamond quickly transforms into a makeshift parking lot as the gym is flooded by the students’ family members, dressed in their finest garments and carrying digital cameras and pride-filled hearts. The staff members stand rigidly in rows at the gymnasium entrance - adorning their finest suits, complete with flower lapels and shining cuff-links- greeting spectators as they arrive, and ushering them to their seats. Just prior to the ceremony’s commencement, everyone in attendance rises to their feet as a throng of local dignitaries is marched in; former principals, distinguished members of the community, bureaucrats from the board of education - a group of nearly twenty geriatrics in total, all grinning the same expression of fake enthusiasm and walking with cautious, frail steps.

Then, heaven help me, come the speeches; an endless barrage of repetitive well-wishing and congratulatory sermons. First the principal addresses the hordes with one of his longest numbers of the year. The panel of worthy guests is then introduced, each standing, one by one, to say ‘congratulations’ or ‘welcome’ or whatever the occasion requires. Several of the VIPs then take turns making lengthy inspirational orations to the group of students (whom they have probably never met before in their life). And, in the case of the ‘graduation ceremony’, a pre-selected student presents a lengthy speech to the principal. Last April, this speech was given by a boy who sobbed uncontrollably throughout the entire delivery, providing for quite the spectacle; a demonstration of family-like attachment between student and staff that I could never imagine witnessing in a Canadian school, let alone most Western families.

The whole ‘special occasion ceremony’ process can take upwards of three hours. Speeches are interspersed with several long renditions of the school anthem and, at the graduation ceremony, impressive choir numbers performed by the students, who moan wildly, crying while singing songs of affection and farewell. The audience rarely, if ever, claps, and not a single spectator or participant, staff and students included, has a dry eye.

Why such great lengths are gone to for junior high school ceremonies is a mystery to me. Perhaps it is because Japanese students work so much harder than their Western counterparts and thus take middle school much more seriously. Thinking back to my own days as a junior high school student, we had no induction ceremony in grade 7. Rather, we were given a confusing class schedule and a locker combination, and left on our own to find our way about the school halls, receiving intermittent beatings and froshing from older students – our own welcoming ceremony of sorts. I can’t recall having a graduation ceremony in junior high school either, but instead had a shoddy boat cruise down Winnipeg’s (in)famous Red River, eating horrible buffet-style food, and ending the night in a nauseous state - but not from the swaying of the boat.

Junior high schools in Canada simply don’t demand the same type of dedication from their students as they do here in my adopted home. In my school days, we weren’t required to clean the entire school twice a day as the students do in Japan, but instead had a team of paid adult custodial engineers who dealt with daily abuses from ungrateful little punks. And things haven’t changed. Western students don’t have hours of homework and mandatory after-school programs. Nor do they spend 10 hour days at school. Rather, they loiter in front of public buildings, discover the joys of fermented agricultural products, and develop a keen interest in after-school botanical experimentation. Or, so I’ve heard. And thus, there is a certain emotional attachment absent in most Western schools; the student-institution relationship lacks somewhat in sentimental value.

I didn't cry when the students a year ahead of me graduated from junior high, but was rather happy, seeing as I would now be amongst the ‘clusters of superiority’. Nor did I cry when I said farewell to the teachers in my junior high school for the last time, knowing that I wasn't graduating to a high school in Mongolia, but was rather moving to one just down the road. But, this past April, as I witnessed more than one hundred 1^st and 2^nd year Japanese junior high school students wail hysterically as the 3^rd year scholars, also crying, marched out of the gym in army formation for the last time, an image was permanently penned on the mushy inards of my mind. It is an image that I hope will stay with me forever. The kids cried like their parents were being shipped to serve in the Iraq war. And I have to say, it was quite touching. I think I almost cried myself… well, almost.