It takes a Village....

For about two weeks my school has been having sports day practices. Sports day are basically "fun" distractions for kids. I use the word fun loosely since really its not studying but it's basically standing out in the BLAZING DEATH hot sun for hours on end, staying up all night preparing, making costumes, and doing a lot of work.....so I suppose a very Japanese High School notion of fun.

The track team has a meet on the day of the festival, but this being Japan, they can not simply stand to the sides going "Nah, Nah, Nah, boo, boo I don't have to do that~" Instead they smooth the field with brushes (when I say field I mean giant sand box) draw the lines into said field (as the "track", baseball field and any other sport held in my school is basically held in a giant field of sand, and all measurements and tracks and lines must be drawn in by said students)or even pick up the large rocks that have some how migrated into this field of sand.....

Well, the past few days there have been MASSIVE storms, thus all the lines the track and field kids have spent hours drawing in had faded away. So they broke out their 400 ++ meter long measuring tapes and measured the fields out. At the end of the day the wheel to wind up the massively long measuring tape had a piece break off. It was the handle to wind up the said tape. So cue in 2 students, and 3 teachers all trying to get this thing to wind up. It is a big deal, as its about 400 meters laid out in a tangle (thats 1/4 mile worth of tape)and they are doing all sorts of things to wind it up. At first they try to just use the nub to wind it up, then someone brings a hammer and they hit it a bit...which obviously does little, finally they use a nail and with the power of hammer jam said nail into the existing nub. Problem solved right? Now only 2 teachesr and two students needed to stand there untangling the mess while one girl winded it up... all was good and fine till the nub broke off (I guess pounding it with the hammer sure didn't help)

So once again all 5 were fiddling with it, the teachers soon realizes well the kids just gotta wind it by hand. And so this is what the two students did, they jammed their tiny hands into the spool and slowly, painfully slowly were winding it. Did I mention on the side of this wheel were holes, holes were you could probably stick the nail in to and use it to wind up said tape....well there was. And I stood there looking at them, thinking how long will it take them to figure this out. Well about 15 minutes into the whole mess, and about 5 minutes of the girl winding it by hand. I came in grabbed the nail told the girl to stop and showed them the way. They were amazed...and I was stunned.

Granted, this seems like common sense to perhaps people in the west. But, what is common sense? Common sense is just what people around you would most likely do or know. To Japanese, instead of sitting there by yourself figuring it out (which is what an American would do), common sense is to get into a group and discuss it. This is what kids do in class (gasp I've been asked a question in English...CONFERENCE!) and it is also common sense to them to not think outside of the box but to use things for their intended purpose. A NAIL....AS A HANDLE!!! SAY IT ISN'T SO!

This makes it sound like I'm criticizing but in a way I'm not. In some situations this would be a great idea. As a group some things just get done faster and more heads together is better than one. The west conception of doing it yourself and reaping all the rewards makes people pompous and pig headed, not wanting to ask for help. Also when you fuck up since it's all on you, your more inclined to hid it.

Still, it was measuring tape and it tooke 6 people to wind it.....holy shit! I guess it was a nice excuse to sit under the shade out of the blazing death sun...so perhaps thats the real reason...