Oi San Nensei! Cheer the f*** up!

Yesterday was graduation day at my only Junior High School, Yuri JHS. Firstly I would like to apologise for lack of pictures, unfortunately a hyperactive 8 year old at Yashima primary school has broken my camera.

These perfectly choreographed ceremonies are an elegantly poignant climax to three years of hard graft. They also make a lot of people cry. And I mean EVERYONE. Graduating students, their younger peers, parents, teachers, I even considered crying just to fit in better. I do wonder whether given the same level of ceremony a similar event at my secondary school would have elicited that many tears. Back home I remember feeling that the end to my five years at Saint Francis Xavier school was a bit of an anticlimax. I finished my last exam, left school to go home and play mario tennis with my friends, and that was it.

The japanese approach is the very antithesis of that. Yesterday, the san nensei (third year) graduating students filed in slowly to constant applause, walking through the younger students with intricately rehearsed precision. They sat, and one by one were called up to receive their certificate of graduation, again a slow march with each student taking an identical route through the crowd onto the stage. The headteacher gave a speech about dreams and ambitions, which had at least half of the graduating students crying. Then the older students turned around to face the two younger year groups, and sang goodbye songs to the younger students, the younger students responding with goodbye songs of their own. The tears were really flowing now, the girls in particular stuttering through words of their song as they fight back tears. A boy in the back row wept openly, but belted out the school song with unmatched gusto as the tears rolled down his cheeks. The graduates then slowly filed out of the hall, first year girls handing everyone of them a single rose. 15 minutes later staff and students formed a guard of honour outside for the departing students, and with constant applause ringing in their ears, tears running down their cheeks, they left the school building one last time.

I totally had more fun, mario tennis is f***ing awesome.