Every junior and senior high school has what is called a sports festival at the beginning of the fall term. The kids practice their routines, their games, their competitions for a solid WEEK and then "present" to their parents, family, community, etc. in a day of games and stuff. I decided to go to the Kudamatsu jr. highschool one because it's closest. Amazing! The creativity of the games were unreal...like camp games or something. And all the families out to support, despite the rain in the morning...the field was all sandy muck. The kids went barefoot and most were splattered with mud by the end.
Here a group of boys perform various feats of strength, each manoever is cued by the banging of a huge taiko drum.
A bunch of girls did a dance to Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now". Seriously. Queen is big here.
There were three teams: White, Blue, and Red. Each had a flag that was flown mightily by these boys during the various games.
This was fun. It's hard to get the scope of this tug of war, but it was epic. The rope was at least 150m long. Before it started, groups of kids from each colour ran around the perimeter of the field to the spectators and were yelling and cheering ...at first I thought they were beseeching the crowds to cheer for their respective colours...but then I realized they were asking spectators to join their team for the tug! I'm not sure why, but this tug of war thing made an impact on me. The day was rainy, the field was mud, and yet parents and siblings and aunts/uncles, grandparents all came out to support their kids. It was great to see them out their mucking about in their nice clothes and shoes, coming back all sweating and splashed with mud. It was an eye-opening experience...the way families are with each other, how the community is together.
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