Toyotama Taiikutaikai

This is going to be a long and largely unpleasant post.

My frustration with the handling of the hot weather came to a head one day at my small high school--the one in Toyotama. Every summer, high schools have a field day called 体育大会, or tai-iku-tai-kai. I went to the one for my main high school last September. For some reason, Toyotama has its field day right smack dab in the middle of July.

Unlike for my main high school, I wasn't required to attend this one. Instead, my supervisor there asked if I could make it, and told me the kids would like to see me there. I'm a sucker for that line of reasoning, so of course I agreed. The shindig began at 9, but I hadn't spoken to my parents in a week, so I stayed in to talk to them for a while. I got to the school at about 10:30.

By the way, this is my smaller high school: there are only 130 students, with three grade levels having three homerooms of 15-20 students each. This makes for a very cozy group, especially compared to Tsushima High School's 700 students.

Both of my high schools have a huge dirt field used for everything from track to soccer to baseball. I can only assume this is a fixture of Japanese high schools. There were tents erected and chairs set out for the parents, teachers, and various townsfolk who came to watch. There were also two tents and some chairs set out on the other side of the field for the students, but they spent most of their time out in the sun.

The activities themselves were great fun: I arrived in time for the end of what looked like a drag show. No, seriously: each homeroom of each grade was parading a boy escorted by two girls, and the boy was dressed up like a girl. One was in an evening gown, another in a girl's school uniform, and another in a leather jacket and fishnet stockings, carrying an electric guitar. Each contestant gave a short introduction speech, with most of the guys affecting a lisp or some other accent.

Next up, two boys from each homeroom took the field. Each one was presented with a large sack of rice. They were told to start, and one of each pair of boys hefted the sack over his head. It was a strongman contest: the last guy holding the sack up would win. They all made it thirty seconds; a few dropped out at about a minute. About half had dropped out by 1:30, and by two minutes, there were two boys left. One of them was a lean second-year; the other was a burly third-year boy, easily the biggest student in school. They stood unmoving, rice sacks over their heads, for another minute or two. They both started shaking a little, and let the sack rest on their heads. After a total of about five minutes, the second-year gave up. The other guy shall heretofore be named Ox in my mind.

After that, the students began the races. There were about ten different relays and dashes: one 100m and 200m each for boys and girls, and 200m relays for each grade level's homeroom. The most impressive was the final 200m relay for the clubs. Each club's members changed into their uniforms: basketball, volleyball, tennis, badminton, track and field, photography, and band. (The last two obviously didn't have uniforms, though they did change into something different.) The baton for each team was an object associated with its sport: basketball, volleyball, tennis racket, birdie, baton, camera, and electric guitar, respectively. Yes, the photography club members ran with a camera around their neck, and passed it to the neck of the next runner. The band runners did the same thing with the guitar. It was highly amusing, and everyone had a great time.

Around this time, we broke for lunch. The sky was a beautiful blue, with no clouds anywhere, and there wasn't even a hint of breeze. The temperature was somewhere around 90, with high humidity.

Returning from lunch, we did a few fun events. First was tug-of-war, with the grade levels squaring off against each other. The faculty comprised the fourth team in the bracketing--a quick call for volunteers got our team together. We just barely beat the third-years, who had Ox at anchor. Next up was a race called the mukade. Teams of six people line up and tie one rope to all their left legs, and another to all their right legs. Sort of a three-legged race writ large, the only way to run the race is to coordinate your steps. All the feet flying rather resembles a mukade (centipede); hence the name. There were three different teams of teachers for that one. Everyone got a kick out of my running, since I'd come in flip-flops, and decided to brave it barefoot rather than risk tripping over them halfway down the line.

The grade levels then performed dance routines. They all had matching costumes for the occasion: the first- and second-years dressed in tie-dye shirts, and the third-years wore their full school uniforms. The first- and second-years danced to salsa music. The third-years donned white gloves, and lined up single-file facing the crowd. With a student beating on a drum fashioned from a fifty-gallon steel barrel, the students performed a synchronized dance. The gloves made for a pretty cool trailing effect.

All along, I had noticed that the majority of the spectators under the tent were drinking not water, but tea. This struck me as silly but not dangerous, as they were all comfortably in the slightly-less-sweltering shade. I can't be sure, but I'm fairly certain the students were drinking tea as well, on the rare occasions when they were out of the sun long enough to have a drink break. As I began noticing just how uncomfortable I felt merely standing in the heat, I was prepared to chalk this up as yet another example of just how hardy Japanese are raised to be.

It was about this time that the trouble started. I noticed a couple of students being led by a friend or two into the school, only to see the escorting students return alone. After we finished the mukade race, I was walking past the students' tents, and saw one girl sitting, surrounded by friends, and sobbing. Another girl had her face buried in her hands, while friends fanned her.

Of course, the teachers were acting. Unflappable, one or two would help the sick students into the school infirmary. I watched as no fewer than six students were led inside. After the dances, the students lined up in front of the principal's table, presenting themselves for his closing remarks. One of the girls collapsed onto the dirt, and had to be helped inside.

Through all of this, none of the assembled spectators budged. As far as I could tell, there weren't even rumblings about the goings-on. I didn't get the feeling that they didn't care, but it never seemed to go beyond silent concern.

Even when the first ambulance arrived, parked directly behind the spectator tent, and paramedics used a stretcher to carry out a bawling girl, and drove off, the activities went on without a hitch. This was followed by a second and a third ambulance soon after; still the event continued. By the end, a small murmur had finally begun to spread, but still nothing was said openly.

The event ended as planned: the principal and the head of the PTA gave speeches, thanked the students, and we all applauded everybody. The crowd dispersed, and students and faculty began breaking into teams to help take down the tents. I excused myself.

I can't remember the last time I've been this angry. I was mad at everything: the students, for not standing up for themselves; the parents, for not standing up for their children; the teachers, for not speaking out for their students; the administration, for not having the wherewithal to call the whole thing off; the prefectural government, for not using their authority to call the whole thing off for the administration.

I was just as mad at myself, for not doing anything to help. I remember consciously deciding not to intervene, that the onlookers were every bit as aware of the heat as I was, and that it was for them to resolve. I reasoned it that way not to shirk my responsibility, but rather to force them to face the consequences of the harsh (and to me--despite all the relativism and open-mindedness I like to think I embrace--stupid) circumstances they were subjecting their children to. The bottom line, though, is that I failed to help the students every bit as much as the parents, teachers, and administration did.

They didn't even have to call the whole thing off to solve the problems. I remember my field days, and Florida in May is just about as sweltering as Japan in July--we would spend the better part of a whole school day in the sun. We had cold drinks for sale, though, as well as water fountains, water breaks, and air-conditioned facilities for emergencies. They could have set aside ten- or fifteen-minute mandatory water breaks every hour or two for all participants. They could have reduced the number and intensity of the running activities.

They could have held the thing in any one of the other eleven months not part of the hottest time of year.

What made me even more furious was the fact--of which I was aware before, during, and after--that the other two high schools on the island don't have this event until September. It's still hot in September, but there are more cloudy days, and there's a pretty constant breeze.

The following Tuesday, when I made my next trip to the school, I heard the full tally: eighteen students admitted to the school infirmary for heat-related illness, with six taken to the hospital by ambulance. Classes had been called off the week prior, to focus on practice for the field day, so the students were all run ragged. The principal and vice principal spent most of Tuesday in the infirmary helping the nurse with the 20-30 students who came because of heat exhaustion.

That afternoon, something almost unheard of happened: school was dismissed early. For a school system where normal classes run until about 4 p.m., extra classes last until 5, and school-sponsored activities run until about 6 or 7, the concept of "dismissal" is hard to grasp. Due to the heat, though, school was to be dismissed after 3 p.m. I asked a few of the teachers, and none of them could ever remember any school dismissing early on account of heat.

When I discussed this with the teachers at my main high school, they all agreed that it was ridiculous for Toyotama to have their field day in July. This--hearing Japanese censure the actions of their fellow Japanese--went a long way to restoring my faith in the system here. Until then, I had been left to think that this sort of thing happens all the time in Japan, and goes unchallenged and unchanged.