Bunkasai! 文化祭

It’s been a while since my last post, since we literally have not had a day’s break in the program for nearly two weeks now, but we have a few posts lined up to get out, so there should be a few more out in succession now. First, a short one on the school festival.

Every year in Japanese elementary, middle, and high schools, the students and faculty organize a festival to celebrate student achievement, talent, and school spirit. They call this the Bunkasai, and our students were able to participate in this year’s event because of a fortunate change in timing for construction (it’s normally held in September). This two-day event gave us a chance to see what the students do, and also gave us a chance to interact more with students in a less academic context (although we still gave them homework to do during the event, and I’ll have more on that later).

The performance opened with a group of taiko drums, although the students learned that it is more commonly called “wadaiko” in Japan. There was a packed house for the performance. You can see Anh and Nadya in particular in that second video.

After that opening performance, the students went over to the gym to see the 1st-year students’ exhibition. The students conducted a research project on various topics, ranging from vampires in literature to fashion marketing to the relationship between exercise and academic achievement. The homework to the students was to find out three things from those presentations that they understood. Many students decided to take pictures and have their host families explain the posters to them later, since the presenters were still first-year students and spoke quietly in a loud room using lots of specialized vocabulary. At first, I thought this was less than ideal, but it has since proven to be a very good model for the students as to what to do during a presentation, and you’ll see the results of that two posts from now!

Right before one of the presentations begins in the 1st-year Exhibition

After that, the students scattered everywhere, eating cotton candy, or looking at the calligraphy, or listening to folk song performances, or simply hanging out with the students or their host families. This made taking pictures rather difficult, but the IUHPFL students were very popular with the Osaka SHS students, and essentially everywhere they went, people asked for pictures with them.

 

 

Nadya and Anh looking through the student art

 

Osaka SHS guys in a picture session with Summer. In the background in yellow, another student is dressed as a giant chicken trying to sell yakitori to visitors

 

Austin and Jacob with one of the host mothers near the food booth

Mackenzie catching some shade in one of the tents eating the students’ homemade tteokpokki, which is actually Korean, but is also popular in Osaka

 

 

 

Wayne and Chase meeting a new friend through sharing pictures of the first few performances and some experiences around Osaka they had had with their families

Dustin in particular got quite into the festival, and decided to participate with me in the “Janken” tournament, a staple at many school festivals. Janken is rock-paper-scissors, and  very serendipitously we had told the students how the game is played in Japan beforehand. Dustin made it all the way to the semifinals. I was knocked out in the first round.

Later that same day, Dustin and a few of the guys also decided to join the crowd dancing for the Folk Song Club. I think I’m not alone in having not expected that particular reaction, haha.

Many of the students–Crystal, Savannah, and Jacob especially–spent most of their time outside and accordingly turned a pretty deep shade of red by the end of the first day.

Savannah and Crystal with two Osaka SHS guys outside with the booths

On the second day, there were performances all day from the 2nd-year classes, ranging from an all-male rendition of Beauty and the Beast, to a solo rendition of Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You, to comedy routines and a chorus performance. It was really quite diverse, but the highlight for us was that Summer took it upon herself to get involved in the dance performances. She learned the dance from the other students in just a few days (everyone else had been practicing for weeks), and much to my surprise as someone who is terrible at karaoke in every language, seemed to know most of the lyrics to the songs, as well!  Unfortunately, right now the audio is blocked because of copyright issues, so I’m having to go with summer watching a dance right at this moment, but I’m going to try to overlay new audio over the old video of summer actually dancing so we can show that, too.

We also later got to see the actual Yosakoi performance whose rehearsal we had seen a few days earlier.

Finally, the students were greeted again by the Principal of the school at the Closing Ceremony, and then several stayed to help clean up or hang out with their friends.

Savannah during the Festival Clean-up

Dustin helping take down one of the tents

Chase and Higashida-san, one of the students he met. Chase got his surprisingly philosophical t-shirt from his host brother, who had ordered an extra one (each 3rd-year homeroom class bought enough for their students, but Chase’s brother found a way to get him one, too)

And at the end of the day, we finally got to take a picture of all of us together on the stage,  by ourselves and with the Student Government who helped us get involved. Quite the event, and just the beginning of an exciting weekend. More on that to come!

In all fairness to Jacob and Austin, we were actually told to make a funny pose for this picture, haha, so they are actually the only ones actually following those instructions