Bunkasai: Culture Festival

It was a spectacular few days at my base school. It is largely an excuse for all of the students and teachers to take their minds off of school for a few days and let their hair down, and boy do they.

The event at both of my schools was divided into three sections; first, was the first year students and their class banners (nothing terribly exciting there).




Second, is the second year students, they do a costume party and dance competition between their homeroom classes. (also, not terribly exciting, but more fun).



And the last section of the festival is the drama plays by the third year students. I only saw half of the plays at my base school, Rakutoh, but they were all very well done. The first play was about the Hiroshima atomic bomb and the days proceeding the event. It was about a family torn apart by the war when the father left only 2 weeks before the bomb, August 5. When he returned home, his home was destroyed and family vaporized. It was quite depressing. The acting was quite good and i was entertained.

After the play, there was a bit of a humming silence where no one wanted to talk but some whispered here and there. It was at this point, that for the first time in my life, I was ashamed to be an American. I slouched in my chair and sat, quietly waiting...praying for the next play to start before anyone noticed that there was an American in the room. To the playwrite's credit, there was very little mention of the Americans at all in the play. It was largely a historical perspective based on human emotions, not on a Japanese post-war perspective.

The other two plays were relatively boring. One was about sexually transmitted diseases and depression...i think. And the other one was about Japanese racism towards foreigners, in which a Korean student was killed. Very edgy i think. This is the final song of the play where everyone stood up and started singing.


Overall, the week was really fun and I am sad that i had to work yesterday and missed half of Third year plays. A large majority of my students were sad that i missed their play on wednesday, but i had lunch with them today...i think that made up for it. I also have some random pictures of students and of events that will be posted here. There were also several class bands that played on stage today. (video to come a bit later)