Japanese Graduation Ceremony

Yesterday I sat through a 2 hour, 15 minutes graduation ceremony for my third year Junior High school students. The day started badly as I’d turned up in a suit and scruffy trainers, assuming I’d only have to change into slippers anyway once we got into the hall.. big mistake. They’d put down special plastic sheeting for the occasion, so everyone could wear their smartest shoes. I definitely have a lot to learn about Japan, I must remember to ask about the shoes situation for any important occasion!

The ceremony started late as girls who’d applied make-up and attempted ‘complicated’ hairstyles were rounded up and poked at and tweaked until they ressembled plain and scruffy schoolgirls once again. I was amused to see several of them hitching their skirts up to skim a few inches of their knickers just before ascending the podium. A highly formal occasion, it became an endurance test in the freezing temperatures, with the endless speeches in Japanese.. interspersed by lots of instructions.. “Rei!” and we all had to stand and bow from the waist, then sit back down again, “Rei!” bowing once more in a different direction, nodding, standing, mouthing the words to songs, one of which had the same tune to Auld Lang Syne.. I became glad of the excuse to move from the hard bench to get feeling into my legs and blood to my head with the bowing.. I understood how the most effective CIA torture techniques include remaining immobile for hours. A slight twitch in the shoulder becomes a dull ache, which becomes a nagging pain, which translates into an excruciating frozen shoulder.. I tried meditation, I tried visualisation, nothing worked..

The naughty kids who tried comedy bowing and exaggerated responses to the formalised receipt of the diplomas kept my sanity. I started to realise the endurance test was nearing its end.. But towards the end of the ceremony two students took the mic to look back on their three years at the school, and the girl started to cry. A wave of sniffling and sobbing started in the students, moved on the the PTA, then the deputy headmaster and the teachers around me.. The last to go were the first and second years sitting beside me. The whole school seemed to be crying.. Some kids were becoming inconsolable, heaving sobs with red faces and running noses. I felt like the only person in the whole auditorium who wasn’t crying.. then I started to get a painful tight feeling at the back of my throat and I realised I was starting to feel weepy with all of this infectious crying all around me. I tried to remember my emotions when I finished school, life was more intense then, and friendships felt as if they’d last forever.. But I also remember a tremendous elation, a feeling of freedom.. knowing I was stepping into the unknown..