undokai

Blogger is being stupid and I have limited opportunity to post anything so these two posts may be strange. It has been a while, ne! Ne is my new eh. The Japanese use it at the end of the sentence like eh or hey. Had my second sports festival two weekends ago and it was hot. I had the privileged position of firing the starting gun but basically it was given to me because it required no preparing and also no thinking. It was better than simply sitting and watching while all the other teachers were working their butts off, though. My head teacher, who is the closest thing to a modern day samurai, and I, had a who can wear the most red clothing competition. We decided it was a tie because although I was wearing black pants I had on red shoes. I should have won though because at the end of the day my scalp was red as well. It was much more interesting this year because I understood more and was present at the preparations for everything. I posted alot of pictures of the bean bag toss game because I though they looked interesting. For those who didn't know I have weird double jointed arms which is evident in my action shot! My team unfortunately lost the day but we won the dancing competition!

After was the obligatory nomikai and many of the parents and teachers proceeded to drink their brains out. After the first party I ended up carrying my elementary vice-principal to his car because he was completely incapacitated and his wife is quite small. The second party had karaoke and we were subjected to two hours of a horrible genre of Japanese music called enka.

Modern enka came into being in the postwar years of the Showa period. It was the first style to synthesize the Japanese pentatonic scale with Western harmonies. Enka lyrics, as in Portuguese Fado, usually are about the themes of love and loss, loneliness, enduring hardships, and persevering in the face of difficulties, even suicide or death. Enka suggests a more traditional, idealized, or romanticized aspect of Japanese culture and attitudes, comparable to American country and western music.

Perhaps the content of the lyrics are similar to country music but the sound is not and it was a rough two hours. After sang the normal "country road" with my jhs vice-principal and was glad to go home and crash.