Undokai

Undokai was held on Saturday 10 September and began at 9.05 precisely – the opening ceremony, a boring affair that meant little to me was conducted with solemnity. Of course the teachers and students had all been at school for long hours before that. I went in at the usual time of 8am but when I got up at 6.45 they were all already across the road at school preparing.

The first event was the skipping competition. Whole classes trying to skip with one very long skipping rope. This small piece of bizarreness set the tone for the whole day. The three legged race was of course whole classes tied together. There was also the run along each others backs race. One kid is elected runner and runs along the backs of their classmates who after being trampled run forward to reform the bridge they are creating. What about the insurance I hear you cry – it seems that anyone who hurts themselves is supposed to just suck it up. These kind of activities build toughness – at least I think this is the attitude behind it – helped by the fact that insurance companies don’t seem to control the country. And its great all the crazy activities they have look like great craic – til I saw the one kid who had been elected back runner who never stood on a single back – he got necks every time and his classmates practically fell away screaming in pain every time. All in all though the day was enjoyed by all.

Later in the day the events took a weirder still turn when the Star Wars music came on and one boy wearing a white hat supported by three other boys attacked other similar groups until he had scalped his opponent or knocked him off his human mounts.

The girls performed a traditional Hokkaidan fishermans dance which sounds boring but which was really cool – lots of shouting ‘Soran Soran Soran’ and Mexican waves to symbolise the sea.

The crowning moment of the dangerous activities had to be the traditional military/athletic display that the boys put on. They spread out across the pitch in twos and threes and following screamed and whistled instructions displayed their prowess. Handstands and balancing was succeeded by pyramids. In the one in the picture here they go from a pyramid like this to lying out flat and collapsing on top of each other. The finale is the pyramid where they are all standing up straight and there are three layers of them.