大間 SHS Field Day? Or was it sports day...

So I had the amazing opportunity to participate in Oma SHS's Field day. It was a pretty big event and it even required us to come in on Saturday, Oct. 11th for preparations. The whole week was used to prepare for the event! Every day after school, each team, divided by a random selection of classes from the 1st, 2nd and 3rd years would practice their dance routines. The 3rd years led the dances and got to chose the music and choreograph the routine.The colours representing the teams were red, white and blue. I don't know why they chose that and as usual, there was no explanation on why it was like this. I was assigned to the 青組 (ao kumi, or blue team) and it was led by 32 HR. I didn't know the work put into the actual event as I didn't participate in any of the building of the billboards or the painting and design of the posters. I was very impressed at how much the students put into it!

All the students and teachers came in on Saturday and we quickly went to practice in the two gyms and outside. It was mostly the dance routines and a little bit of marching and the Oma traditional dance. The whole day was spent on that and also preparing the field outside for the appropriate use. Unfortunately, that day it was very rainy and windy. At about 12:00 PM, the students were allowed to go home, well the girl students were allowed to, whilst the boys had to work and prepare more. But due to the weather, it was cancelled and they were allowed to go home early. The teachers stuck around until 2:00 PM and then were allowed to go home for the rest of the day. The weather postponed field day until Tuesday!

On Tuesday, I got to school at my usual time. When I got in, my supervisor advised me to help the boys' set up. I went out to where the field was and there was all of the boys from every year setting up something or another. Even the girls were helping out! Something that I noticed is that if there ever was an event like this in the US, the student's would help out to set up, but most of it would be done by teachers or parents or staff. The students here in Japan did everything. There is no fear of suing anyone from doing heavy lifting or using carpentry skills to build the poster boards. It was nice to see that the students put in full effort into their own day as they will benefit the most from it! After setting up for a while, the longest thing was securing the poster boards to metal stands and making sure the strong winds of Oma did not blow it down! There were events such as 100 M, 100 M obstacle, tire pull, tug-of-war, 100 M relay, dance contest and etc.!

At the end, the winners were the white team and the closing ceremony was very interesting to watch. Everyone, and I mean everyone helped take down all the things used for the day!