Both years of my time thus far as an ALT, I’ve found time to attend one or two local high schools’ Culture Festivals, known in Japan as bunkasai.

Sadly, we don’t have one at our junior high for one simple reason: our school is huge! We have about 800 students, which ends up making seven classes of 40 kids each per grade. Trying to force this many kids to come up with a presentation/performance of some sort and decorate their classrooms would be a huge deal (if Sports Day is any indication), so I was able to go to some high school bunkasai instead!

This year and last, I went to the local technical high school, where they focus on electronic, mechanical, or engineering craft. Each class only had some minimal decorations, but some of the basic activities in each room were quite impressive (some not, of course – it really varies by class). Last year, they had remote control cars set up that would drive above the lines painted on the course, following them seamlessly. And this year one of the hits of the festival was a picture area that you could dress up in wigs and Halloween accessories at. Once they developed the picture you were invited to do rakugaki (graffiti) on them at your leisure, then have them laminated. It was like an at home version of purikura, or print club booths. Then there are several classrooms decorated with woodwork or art made by students as well.

This year was a bit different, as a fellow ALT was invited to play with the brass band during the performance section of the program, which was held downstairs in an open, airy room. Promptly afterward, just as the year before, students began performing cross-dressing renditions of several well-known pop songs at the time.

I also decided to drop by the other local high school for the latter half of the afternoon, where unfortunately things seemed to be wrapping up. One class had decided to do a tapioca cafe, which looked great but a teacher said they had already finished selling for the day. Another group, however, had made a maze in their class, which was actually a bit tricky despite the limited space! The theme was a haunted house, but it was a rather cute, pastel haunted house in my mind. :) Their main program, ongoing in the gym, consisted of several teachers and students executing unique musical performances. Several of them were quite good, but their brass band was absolutely fantastic at the end and completely stole the show.

After attending the high school cultural festivals, I’ll be honest – I kind of wish my base school had one of its own!