School Culture Festivals

This was a while back (before the election), but I went to culture day activities for both of my middle schools on consecutive weekends in early November.

The schools were very different in what they put on—while one of my schools had myriad performances (including taiko drumming, koto playing, and, during lunchtime, tea ceremony), the other one centered largely on plays that were put on by both of the 9th grade classes. They were pretty hilarious to follow; both were based off of the well-known American stories, Snow White and Alice in Wonderland (apparently not well-known in Japan), and both had great twists from the students. My personal favorites from each: a scene at the end of Snow White in which the prince and Snow White duke it out with the witch and her henchmen to the battle theme from Final Fantasy 7 (and with similar arrangments of the characters on either side of the stage), and a scene at the start of Alice in Wonderland in which Alice's sister reads her a story—in this case, Spirited Away, as a dozen students run out on stage and act out various scenes simultaneously.

Both schools ended the day with a chorus competition, as each class performs the school anthem and another song of their choosing. I got to help with the judging at one school, and at the other I got to jump in on the singing (which was a unique challenge—sight read music I'd only practiced twice before, in hiragana. I would pick my spots to jump in with full voice, and spent most of the rest of the time following a half-second behind the guy singing next to me in a weaker voice). Events culminated with the best class receiving a prize (mostly bragging rights)…pretty entertaining on the whole.