In Japan, Sept and Oct are not just the months of cool weather and colourful scenery, but they also mean months of strengthening their bodies throughout atheletic carnivals. Elementary schools get into an atheletic mode as soon as the summer vacation is over and kids start preparing for different events that will be shown to their parents and visitors. As well as youngsters, some residential regions get together and have such atheletic carnival for all the residents in order to instigate harmony within the neighberhood on top of the physical benefit. The pictures I was able to take were from the regional atheletic carnival that were held at an elementary school nearby the seminar houses of KG (I do not remember the name of the school, sorry!)
The most interesting thing to this festival that seems quite ordinary to those who would imagine running, huddling, jumping
and etc, is that they go beyond these basic atheletic events! Of course, the relay running was the highlight of the carnival, which was at the end of the whole day of carnival. However from 9am, they had something for everyone (even for me!) to have a good time all together. Some ran, some popped ballons with their bottom and some threw little bean-filled balls into a basket. People were divided into 5 teams according to the area they live in and each participated in various events with a team spirit and cheered (almost yelled!) for their own team to put more and more effort, regardless of the age, sex or nationality (in my case). At the end of the carnival, I realized how many new local people from elementary school kids (asking me in doubt if I was really a foreigner) to housewives I've gotten to know a little and how absorbed I was in their culture!
1 comment:
Very nice post! I am glad to see that you are out experiencing various aspects of Japanese society and culture. You do a good job of capturing them with your camera and text.
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