Sports Day

Called the taiikusai in Japanese, Sports Day (or the Sports Festival, 体育祭) is one of two things that public schools across the nation are supposed to have in common (the other being an annual Culture Festival, or bunkasai, 文化祭).  The closest thing to it that I can remember from my grade school days in Hawai‘i would be Field Day, in elementary school.   But I wouldn't quite rank my Field Day up there with the taiikusai at my present workplace.  

The primary reason is the Endan, the musical and cultural performance that lies at the heart of the festival.

These banners always seem to appear miraculously on the day of the festival, but actually the students make them.  I don't know how they do it on such a scale, but they do.

Students also make these bases for their respective teams (red, white, and blue).  The structures are part of the story that they tell in their performances.

The Red team

The White team

The Blue team

Students made most of these things, these props, and had to plan, rehearse, and execute the performances.  They scrounge up cardboard from wherever they can, e.g. convenience stores in the area, and they recycle materials from home; they make paper mâché.  They have a small budget for buying materials, but most of it they make.  As for the costumes, a lot of help comes from parents and grandparents in sewing.  
Most of my Japanese team-teachers have told me that their own taiikusai experiences, as students, were quite different--barely prepared in advance and on a significantly smaller scale.  Some have said that theirs were boring.  Others recall theirs with fondness.  

At our school, different teachers have different feelings about how hardcore our students are in preparing for these two yearly events.  It takes a lot of time out of the classroom schedule, time which could be spent on more academic matters.  Students are also frequently exhausted from the after-school and weekend hours and efforts they put in.  On the other hand, the amount of responsibility that they willingly take on seems fairly massive, to me; their initiative and creativity can astound spectators, year after year; and they appear to enjoy a good amount of internal motivation.  Perhaps most importantly (for those who believe that looking back happily is important), they seem to cherish their memories from these days.  Parents and graduates have their own interests in the taiikusai, as it provides a setting for which to come together; for alumni, the Sports Day after they graduate is often the first time they return to high school and reunite with many of their old classmates (outside of Facebook).  In the years ahead, as the faculty changes and people drift apart, these festivals may serve as the last opportunities for graduates to bid farewell to this part of their lives.