Red vs. White - My first Undoukai 👹🍣🎎 My Japan

Once again, it was time for some new experience, which I was able to cross off my list. Even though I never thought about putting it there in the first place. But if I think about it carefully, I would have realized that it was going to happen inevitably.

I'm talking about my first Undokai 運動会、my first school sports festival in Japan, which I was allowed to attend as part of the audience. And like so many things in Japan, the school sports festival was very different to how I remember my own sports festival, which took place many years ago. Back then, we met at the stadium of the local football club and used its grounds for our activities, which were not really any different from the exercises we were doing in PE lessons. We ran, jumped and threw things through the air and apart from the bigger setting, it wasn't really that exciting. We stayed with our class mates and our class teacher, although of course the other classes were also present. But they were also fighting against themselves.

In Japan, primary school students from all six grades are divided into two groups and are either in the Red or the White team. At the sports festival, these two teams battle it out in various competitions, but the pupils in each year group eventually compete against each other. There are not that many competitions for each individual student to take part in, which is probably due to the sheer number of pupils.

Six grades, each with four classes, with a class size of around thirty pupils makes about seven hundred children, divided into two teams. For the occasion, the school had rented the municipal athletics stadium, which was also filled with parents, grandparents and some older or younger brothers or sisters. I would easily estimate the number of spectators at 1500 to 2000 people, way too much to gather at the local school's sport ground.

In our case, the competitions did not take place at the same time, but one after the other, which of course means it all took quite a while. In previous years, a sports festival like this used to run all day, but recently schools seem to be fine to schedule only half a day for it. Maybe that was enough, as we were facing the hottest day of the year so far.

The children had to be at the stadium before 8 a.m., and the thermometer was already showing temperatures of over 30 degrees in the morning. Of course, there wasn't much shade in the stadium stands, so the audience also worked up quite a sweat. We didn't even have to move for that.

But I still had a lot of fun. Much more fun than I had expected. After the sports festival was officially opened with a short speech by the principal, all the pupils performed a short dance choreography together. They had been practicing for this in school over the last few weeks and now they could finally show what they were capable of. Well, that was interesting.

Afterwards I was given a little surprise. As is customary in Japan, but unknown to me until then, the opening dance was followed by the big cheering, called Ouen 応援 in Japan. The white and red teams lined up next to each other once more, and then it was time to loudly encourage and motivate their own team and get them in the mood for the upcoming competitions. This is a rehearsed performance in which new slogans are chanted each year to annually recurring rhythms. The pupils use drums and loudhailers and move in a coordinated and uniform manner. They also wear the same sportswear, so the whole thing looks really impressive and powerful.

But they not only cheer on their own team, they also cheer for their opponent and encourage them to give their best as well. I thought this was a wonderful idea and gesture, as the other team are schoolmates with whom they want to play again in the school yard on the next school day. At the end of the day, it's not just the sporting nature of the sports festival that is important, but also the common bond between students from the same school.

After the big cheering it was time for some real competitions, of which, as already mentioned, there weren't that many for each individual. There was mostly running, sometimes alone and sometimes in relays. And then there were a few rope and ball competitions, but these clearly had a rather playful and team-oriented character. You couldn't deny a certain fun factor, but that should always be part of an event like this.

The points were shown on the big scoreboard, with red 赤 or white 白 alternately taking the lead. A little healthy competition and rivalry is important and necessary, and even at a young age you should be prepared in this respect for what is coming in life. It can't hurt to learn early on how to deal with defeats and setbacks and, above all, to never give up and keep going. As long as you fight, you have not lost. This is a lesson that we adults should also re-learn from time to time, as we have all too often forgotten it ourselves.

In the end, however, there were two winners. Firstly, the white team, which had collected the most points and thus won the sporting competition against the red team. But the red team could also cheer as they had won the cheering competition, of which we could watch a second round before the end of festivities. Once again, Red and White celebrated and cheered on their own team before cheering on their opponents once more. As I said, it was a great gesture and a fitting way to say goodbye to each other at the end of the event.

It was now almost 1 p.m. and the children and adults alike had sweated enough. Fortunately, I had put on plenty of sunscreen, so at least I didn't get sunburned. Personally, I had really enjoyed this sports festival and I thought it could have gone on a little longer. But ultimately it was probably enough, and I think that most of the teachers and helpers were also happy to finally get out of the sun.

The children seemed to have enjoyed it too, as you could clearly see from the exuberant atmosphere that prevailed among them after the event. Many of them probably didn't want to go home yet either, although most of them must have been pretty hungry by now. And so it was time for us to head back home, where I took a quick shower first. Unfortunately, my day wasn't over yet, because even though it was Saturday, I still had some work to do and had to leave the house again soon. But my good mood matched the beautiful weather, and bother lasted the whole day. And with the memories of the morning in my head, the work ahead of me was almost child's play. Waking up so early on Saturday had really paid off.