So let me take you inside a junior high school graduation. (For those of you reading who already know what it's like, skip down a few paragraphs...) First, EVERYONE sits in the school gym. The students clustered tightly in the middle/back, the parents further forward, the graduates in the middle front, the teachers on the sides, the band sits in the back with their instruments. It's March, so it's freezing cold. I have my hands tucked under my leg to try to keep them warm, but it's not easy. This is a formal ceremony. Most the female teachers are in black dresses and suit jackets with pearl necklaces and corsages. The art teacher made corsages for every teacher so I got one too - they smelled so good :)
This thing lasts over two hours, is extremely boring for a non-Japanese speaker. It incorporates singing the national anthem, singing the school song, and standing up to bow MULTIPLE times. The principal has long coat tails and white gloves. The vice-principal just has the white gloves. The girls bawl their eyes out, and the speeches are long. Seventh grade boys that would usually be talking amongst themselves and fidgeting sit silently, their feet in front of them, their hands in their laps. There's not a peep from the mass of students or parents, despite their being crammed together like sardines.
About 20 minutes into this somber event, a man slips in the back; he's wearing a full suit with vest. A teacher stands up and ushers him to an empty seat. "That must be embarrassing," I think, imagining the poor kid who's graduating with the knowledge that their father was too busy to be on time. Honestly, I had no idea. A few minutes later, another parent steps in late. But this one sent more red flags. He was wearing track pants and a athletic jacket. He looked slightly disoriented as a teacher tried to lead him to the parents seating. As he walked past my seat, was it my imagination, or did I smell alcohol? Unlike the first latecomer, this guy was talking in an audible voice to the teacher. The senseis around me craned their necks and made faces at each other. Then, to everyone's embarrassment, this guy went traipsing into the crowd of seated students. He walked across the middle of the gym in plain view of everyone past the halfway point. Meanwhile, the principal is giving the students his graduation speech. I thought the worst of it was over, but it wasn't. He proceeded to come back across the gym a second time and then he found his kid, a graduating ninth grader sitting near the aisle in close to the back of the group. His boy stands up and the father starts talking to him. Meanwhile, the principal, fully aware of the spectacle occurring in the middle of the gym, tries to remain composed and drones on. After a few excruciating moments, several of the male teachers accosted the drunk fellow and started physically forcing him away from his son and towards the door. The boy sat back down and the teachers took the dad outside. I could still hear him talking on the other side of the wall behind me.
By this time, I was in agony, for the boy, for the other students, for everyone. This type of thing would have been overwhelmingly embarrassing for any kid in the U.S. but in Japan, the embarrassment has got to be 5 or 10 times that. My heart was aching. I can't imagine being that boy - humiliated by his own father in front of over a thousand people, hundreds of which are his classmates. The sad thing is, this type of behavior embarrasses EVERYONE in Japan. The ceremony is ruined. It's awful.
I've been kind of on a rant this week against parents that disadvantage their children voluntarily. Today was one of the worst examples of it that I've ever seen. My heart goes out to that poor boy that graduated junior high today.
No comments:
Post a Comment