Undo Kai
The most salient example of Japanese discipline is Undo Kai, the fall sports festivals for elementary and junior high school students. The kids arrive back from summer vacations to be herded into the sweltering school yard to begin Undo Kai preparation, two weeks of intense dance, singing, band, and marching practice. The end result is a very impressive six hour show where the red team competes against the white team in games, races, and group activities to see who gets bragging rights for the remainder of the year.
Being a spectator at Undo Kai is great. Families gather under tents and have picnics, rooting on their children through the eyepieces of their handy cams. The first festival I attended left me amazed at the amount of logistics necessary to pull off such a festival. It put my grade school plays and Christmas concerts to shame. By the time I finished the second festival at another school, I had been helping the students prepare for four weeks and had been behind the scenes enough to know that the convivial atmosphere of Undo Kai was a far cry to what the kids had been subjected to during preparation.
Two weeks of the curriculum is devoted to the festival, a large proportion of which consists of standing in line and mastering the choreography of the dance routines. It goes without saying that elementary students are not very interested in standing in line for hours each day. This fact is lost on most of the teachers who scold the students, often violently, for sitting down, goofing off, or any other “childish” behavior. My final impression of the festival is that it is frighteningly militaristic and marks the beginning of students grueling indoctrination to the Japanese “get in line” society. This term may seem harsh to those who haven’t been to Japan, but it would only take a few minutes in Tokyo to witness the long procession of black suits on there way to work each day to realize that this description has merit.
The systematic way in which the elementary students at my schools are guided into group conformity is only the tip of the iceberg in comparison to what goes on in junior and senior high school. At this point, the added pressure of Japan’s infamous testing system is introduced, a voluminous collection of facts deemed essential knowledge for entrance into competitive high schools and universities. Perhaps this is the purpose of Undo Kai. It is an early reminder that this ride isn’t necessarily going to be fun. On the surface it will look like a blast, with proud parents rooting on their children to the finish line. But in the real race there is monotony, and dull memorization, and at the finish line their is no medals or trophies. At the finish line there is a black suit that is worn for life.
Tags: Japan, Teaching English
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