Autumn is upon us, and in Japan that means one thing: School Sports Festival, a special event held at all elementary schools where kids run relays, do tug-of war, have egg toss competitions, perform dances that they've been practicing for months, and so on. Known as undo-kai in Japanese, pronounced "OON-doh-kai" and having nothing to do with the undo feature on your computer, the Japanese tradition of a special day when kids can show off their athletic abilities to their parents began in 1874 when an English teacher named Frederick William Strange organized the first "outdoor games" as a way for Japanese to learn about Western sports. Today, Sports Festivals are held across Japan, which turns out to be quite profitable for companies like Panasonic and Sony, who are all too happy to sell this year's hot new video cameras to all the oya-baka ("parent-fool"), the word for parents who go ga-ga filming their own kids. Saturday was my daughter's last Sports Festival of elementary school, and we dutifully gathered to cheer her on during the various events she was in. It's an annual tradition at the school that the sixth graders treat everyone to a brass band performance of the theme to Space Battleship Yamato, aka Star Blazers, and everyone did a great job.
3 comments:
Sounds very similar to the English "School Sports Day" - that most schools in the UK hold once a year. Kids compete against each other in sporting events - but there are often parents races too. Some of the sports can be quite silly - like running with an egg in a spoon, or doing a race where you have to jump in a sack, or where husbands and wives run i pairs with their inner feet tied together.
Not sure if these date back to Victorian times, but if they did it would explain a Brit importing them to Japan.
Ah, so it is totally British thing, thanks for letting me know. Americans are also confused by "Christmas Cake" in Japan, but it also turns out to be from the U.K. (or Scotland, not sure).
Ah yes - Christmas Cake. I'm English but it is something we have every year. It is often a deep, rich fruit cake (lots of mixed fruit and nuts - cherries, raisins, currants, walnuts etc.) infused with quite a lot of booze (brandy usually), covered in marzipan, and then covered in hard royal icing. Often decorated with festive scenese.
I think most of the UK Christmas tradition also dates back to Victorian times (much of it imported from Germany) which is probably when the UK had influence in Japan?
Post a Comment