Undoukai (serious)

Beautiful fall weather, akibane as it is called in Japan, is a magical thing. Somehow today, the hollow chill of Autumn faded away, replaced by the scent of dust and of an earth baked by the heat as the sun beat down from a perfectly sapphire blue sky. That sky was hemmed on all sides by an imposing cement building, its dark windows and broad doors somehow characteristic of a school. On its other side was a tangle of trees and plants, home to an impossible number of bicycles (and normally a playground). Perhaps the sheer number of bicycles bespoke the fact that there was nothing like silence in the background - the sounds of scuffling feet, mild chatter, and instructions spoken over a loudspeaker were anything if not deafening. This, my friends, was the backdrop for the local undokai, or sports festival.

Let me say only this: if you have the chance to attend one of these, and better yet, to participate, do so! Events range from any number of races (simple relays, relays where you hold a ball behind your back and grab bread in your mouth before running to the finish, others where you fill a ladel with water and try to be first to fill a bottle of water several yards away, etc.), tug-of-war, rock-paper-scissors, etc. Few of these are singular events, which makes for a wonderful group dynamic. Of course, that group dynamic actually is quite interesting, as it is normal to thank each member of the group after each event, bowing your head a bit and then continuing conversation as if nothing happened. There are also prizes for almost everything, and by prizes, I mean toilet paper, tissues, food, and other house supplies. Haha! You have to love the people here for their practicality, and indeed, I was as happy to get seaweed and bread as anyone else.

I saw similar attention to group dynamics when I went to tennis lessons yesterday. I practiced with many people much older than me, but felt that I fit right in (I have been teased for years about appologizing and smiling constantly while playing). True, these were hardly championship games that we were playing, but the sportsmanship was still admirable.

In terms of people much older than me, I can say also that at today's undokai, it was not only children and their parents running the marathons. There were sixty and seventy year old men and women running, grinning, barroling into each other on the dirt track. Several of them took nasty falls, and like an old ninja in an anime, sprang right back up and kept running. The elderly here really are amazing. I hope American grandparents can one day be able to live their lives with such vigor (though there certainly are some American grandparents who do just that already, of course).