The Athletic Festival

Elementary and junior-high schools in my hometown have so-called “Athletic Festivals” every year. The festival is a sort of amalgam of an athletic meet, physical exercises, dancing performances, and other random competitions. I don’t think there is anything like this in the United States.

This year’s athletic festival at F Elementary School was different from those in my days. First, they introduced competitions among parents and neighbors into an athletic festival of the school. The festival thus created an occasion in which the school, the family, and the neighborhood could interact with one another. Second, there were some 1st and 2nd graders who pumped up their arms when they won competition. I don’t know whether they learned those gestures from TV coverage of sports games, but we didn’t do that at athletic festivals. (That is, they are emotionally more expressive than we were, which I think is a positive change.) Third, I saw at least three or four non-Japanese students and parents. To have foreign friends was unthinkable when I was an elementary-school student. I envy these youngsters who are growing up in this exciting age of globalization.