Alex Quinn's Japan Journal

6/18/2005, Culture Festival (Bunkasai) at school

It was most certainly the most fun day so far at school.  The whole day was devoted to a school festival.  Although it is called a "cultural" festival, it's really just a big school festival (read: party).  It had many parts.  First, all day, the kids did skits and other performances.  Every class of kids - 18 in all - did some sort of skit.  And, they were not simple skits.  They had all kinds of meticulously painted sets and costumes and props.  For example, one group of kids recreated the video game, Super Mario Brothers, complete with fire breathing plants that come out of pipes from the ground, boxes in the sky that contain vegetables and money, and enemies.  And, they had music to go with it.  They were all really great.  I couldn't understand all of the Japanese, but they were still fun to watch.  The kids obviously spent a lot of time on their skits.  They usually work hard when they know their peers are going to see them.  It's a big motivator for them.

Here's the only picture I got of the skits.  Doesn't show much.  Sorry.

In addition to the skits, they did various decorations around the school.  Practically everybody in the school, students and staff, folded origami cranes.  I did, too.  Those cranes were put together in huge decorative strings.  They don't really resemble crains, but they are.

Strings of origami cranes made into a curtain.

And, perhaps the most fun part of it all was a bazaar time at lunch.  Each homeroom class of kids (30 kids to a class) set up a booth to provide some sort of food or entertainment.  One group made ice cream parfaits.  One group made fried octapus (takoyaki).  One group made fried meat (yakiniku).  There were groups that had games you could play.  Bubbles.  All kinds of stuff.  In addition to the kids, some faculty set up a fried noodles (yakisoba) stand.  The PTA sold cookies.  And, somebody, perhaps a commercial company, was selling vegetables and melons really cheap.  While this was going on, a group of students were playing loud rock and roll outside.  A little noisy to my aged ears, but the kids loved it and that's what matters.

This class had a game where you try to catch little toys from a pool of water.

This class had all kinds of bubbles you could play with.  For 30 yen (≈$0.30), you could stand there and have them enclose you in a big bubble.  It was a little nerve racking since I'm a bit bigger than the prototypical customer of this thing.

A group of science oriented students were doing some sort of daytime stargazing.

These folks were selling vegetables.

This class was selling parfaits with pudding, ice cream, and all kinds of cold, sweet stuff.

These are students playing rock and roll outside.

They went to great lengths to prepare for this big day.  Notice these kids are wearing matching t-shirts.  It was really neat to see.

Everybody was in a great mood.  These are just some kids who were being goofy in the hallway with my somewhat stoic coworker.

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