Its the first week of March here - and that means several things in Japan: entrance exams for junior high school students, the end of the year for senior high school students, graduation, and the Naked Man festival! I'll start with the entrance exams ...
In the states the high school you go to is determined by where you live and everyone automatically gets in.
Here, however, all the junior high school students have to apply to various high schools and then take a rigorous exam to get accepted. Lots of these students go to extra "cram school" for 3 - 5 hrs every day after their regular school just to prepare for this test! In fact, its a lot like applying for college in the US! The security surrounding these exams is intense as well, with every teacher doing everything they can to make sure not a single snippet of information leaves the school before the exams start.
After the testing is finally over and everything has been graded, all the students who took the test (and their anxious parents) are invited back to the school to see the unveiling of the results. They all stand around in our courtyard and watch as some teachers on the 3rd floor of the building lower giant wooden boards covered in numbers. The numbers are the student's testing ID numbers ... if their number is displayed on the board, they got in! If their number is not there, they failed. There was a lot of joyful screaming and also a lot of crying that day...
Just in case a school doesn't get enough students during the first testing period (we didn't), two more are scheduled in mid & late march.
March 1st was graduation! Its basically what you would expect for any other graduation: speeches from the principal / vice principal / a student, lots of pictures, lots of crying, and the handing out of diplomas. The diploma-giving is one area where this is a big difference, though. Whereas in the states (where we celebrate individuality) the diplomas are handed out to the students one-by-one; here one representative from each home room (there are 6 total) comes to the stage and accepts one diploma with everyones' names on behalf of the entire home-room. I found that to be slightly odd, but sensical in a culture that emphasizes groups and teams.
In another cultural note - some of the JETs here recently participated in a very interesting festival called "Hadaka Matsuri"or in English: The Naked Man Festival.
As you may have guessed by the name, this is a festival involving (nearly) naked men. It takes place at the end of February, and basically what happens is at midnight a bunch of men wearing only socks and fundoshi (otherwise known as sumo-wrestler diapers) run together through a city, around a sacred pond, and into a temple where they try to grab a lucky stick. The man who grabs the stick will have good luck all year.
It's very hard to actually get the stick, though, because: 1. literally thousands of other men are also trying to grab it, 2. there is a lot of pushing and shoving 3. the Japanese mafia (the yakuza) sometimes make an appearance and punch people in the face (I was told that was indeed the case this time!).
All-in-all, this is a uniquely Japanese (and slightly dangerous) experience. Ian and I decided not to go and I think it was probably for the best. 6 of the other JETs here ran in the festival, and 2 fell down the stairs (by "fell" I mean were pushed), and another one got his head stepped on and developed an unsightly rash on his leg from rubbing against so many fundoshi.
Here is a link if you want to read more about it:
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