Graduation day
Yesterday was the Junior High School graduation ceremony.
It was emotionally draining. For these kids, this is one of life’s checkpoints that marks the end of a huge slice of their childhood. These children will have been together for over 10 years, from kindergarten, to Elementary School, and then to Junior High. Leaving Junior High takes many of them in different directions. Based on their personal choice and outcome of entrance exams, this peer group of friends will soon be attending different high schools all over this region. For many, the graduation ceremony was a stark reminder that they are growing up. For all who had been involved in the teaching and raising of these children - teachers and parents alike - the occasion was one of both celebration and sadness. My tears reflected everyone else’s.
And so on to the inevitable enkai. Smile cynically for a second with me, as we ponder the cultural ethic behind celebrating your childs graduation by leaving them at home and going out to get utterly shitfaced with the teachers.
This was an enkai I almost didn’t attend. Why? Earlier in the day I had asked where the location was. Since I am obviously a huge gaijin imbecile who has the tracking abilities of a one-legged tortoise, the location was deemed information that would be just TOO dangerous to let me know, and various people jumped through hoops to try and fit me in the car of someone who was going. My internal monologue sighed and I sat back down to play with my ball of string and squeezy toy bone.
At 6:40pm, I received a telephone call. The party was scheduled to start 10 minutes ago.
“Jon-sensei, where are you?” “I am at home. I am waiting for X sensei” “uh- X sensei is here” “ah. Ok, just tell me where this place is and I will be there as soon as possible” “hold on!” cue an extremely long pause “Jon! Y sensei is going to come and pick you up now!” “ok- but you really don’t need to -” click
Y sensei arrived and apologised. Her apologies were met with my own, and we set off to the enkai. I noticed that the window was open, so I pressed the button to close it. Just as it closed, the car stopped. We had arrived. It was no more than 30 seconds away from my house.
“Its very close to your house!” said Y sensei. “Yes. Yes it is” I replied, the nuance of frustration lost in my forced perma-grin.
During the enkai, parents chatted with the teachers, whilst sharing large amounts of alcohol. Inexorably, conversation would turn to their recently graduated children.
“Jon-sensei, I am the father of ilqwyueihasjhuauioqwe, do you know?”
Is a question that came up frequently. Remembering Japanese names is not my forte, so more or less every time I was asked this question, I would immediately think “oh crap”, swiftly followed by “wheres my beer”. By an hour into the enkai the world became more beery, happy and a bit more wobbly, and thus whereas before I would pause, think for a second and say “ah yes, I think I know”, my replies soon took the form of,
“oh! You are ilqwyueihasjhuauioqwe’s father?! I know him! He is a great student! Wow, you really look like him too! Here, drink this!” choosing a gender for this child pretty much at random.
Further into the evening, a group of old ladies called me “cute” (kawaii). This does have a positive connotation, but its also the kind of thing you might call a small baby, or a puppy.
At about 9:30pm I decided I was terribly drunk and scraped myself off the floor to go home. I flopped onto my futon (poetic license - in reality if you flop onto a futon you are likely to cause internal haemorrhages), completely forgetting to prepare a delicious packed lunch for the next days Elementary School picnic, for which I had been told explicitly not to forget to prepare a delicious packed lunch.
