Alex Quinn's Japan Journal

2/28/2006, Graduation ceremony at school

The graduation ceremony was surprisingly not boring.  In fact, I was really excited.  These students have been here the whole time I've been here.  They were very excited about graduating.  The speeches were in Japanese, but they were full of nice, sincere messages of good wishes.  Anybody listening could understand the sentiment.  There were many honored guests, including the principals of nearby junior high schools and high-ranking officials from the nearby university where many students will attend.  The whole thing was held in the school gym, but the school went to great lengths to make it look nice and celebratory.  There was a big bouquet of flowers on stage, along with a grand piano for playing along with the school song and the Japanese national anthem.  (Note to self: It's about time you learn the national anthem of the country you're living in.) Unlike many schools in Japan, our school reads the names of every student aloud.  At the end of the 1½ hour ceremony, the students left the gym and only the teachers and parents remained.  At that point, Mr. Takei, the head teacher of the senior class, made a very sincere speech (if you want to call it a "speech") to the parents, congratulating them on bringing their kids this far and giving them encouragement as their kids leave the house and move on to another step.  He has kids of his own and he talked about them, too.  His talk was longer, maybe 10 minutes, but very heart-felt.

What didn't they have?  No prom.  Very few parties afterward.  (I asked several kids.) These kids are focused on college.  Besides, they have a lot less independence than American teenagers.

After the ceremony, the kids went back to their homeroom classes.  Parents were invited to go to the classrooms and talk with their kids, their friends, and their teachers.  Many students roamed around saying goodbyes to the clubs and activities they were involved in, their favorite teachers, and their favorite places in the school.  They have a yearbook and they do get autographs from their friends, but the autographs aren't quite as big a deal as they were at my school in Seattle.  The yearbook is over $200.  I didn't buy one.

A couple students who are particularly good at English stopped by and talked to me for a while.

Masato really surprised me with his English.  I had seen him around, but he hadn't been in one of my classes for over a year, so I didn't remember his name or anything.  But, his English was the best I've ever heard from a student.  Finally, he spilled the beans.  Masato spent a year in Australia.  I'm just so surprised I wasn't aware of him.  We talked for 2 or 3 hours.  I quized him on some slightly obscure English, like "earlobe", "eyelash", and "ankle".  He did surprisingly well.

Kawakami has been in the elective English class for a while, so we've talked many times.  He's very enthusiastic about English, especially funny espressions like "See you later aligator" and such.  He has also helped out in the ESS club a little and he participated in a recent English depate contest.  I'm sorry to see him go.

Most teachers do a significant amount of extra work in preparation for the ceremony.  I didn't have to do any such thing.  In thanks for the extra hard work and in celebration of the graduation, they order special bentos (lunch boxes) for all the teachers, paid by a fund we all pay into every month.

Believe it or not, there's a lunch inside this funny looking box.

It looked pretty good, but it wasn't quite as delicious as I expected.  Room temperature and soggy.

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