Musings: *Sports day* redundant & irrelevant annotations – Dave Olson's Creative Life Archive

Musings: *Sports day* redundant & irrelevant annotations

Oct 13 Obligatory sports day dispatch

Preamble: “Sports day” isn’t really a great translation but every year at schools from preschool on up, there is this kind of well, sports day, the word in Japanese is undokai. And they can be laborious, tedious, nonsensical, & uninteresting which, really I don’t mind all of those things – especially at the preschool age, there’s not really sports competitions, it’s more like choreographed exhibitions a physical movement – it’s the absurd volume (music and PA) and the general noise and the commotion and the exuberance which are a bit too much for me.

Protip: earplugs & valïum… Looking a little bit mysterious w/ black cap, mask and sunglasses but wearing a Japan national team baseball shirt to appear friendly. Also using disabled foreigner privilege with a chair instead of sitting on ground.

I’ve been to Dinosaur Jr. concerts in small venues which i thought is the loudest a humans ears can tolerate and then you come to a small preschool sports day, outside, with a lousy PA and I think will have Pete Townshend level tinnitus for the rest of my life

And since this is Japan, parents came early to set up tripods and their brand new video cameras / and there was an apology for starting proceedings one minute late :)

Lil sumthing to scare the kids:

I will say for the record that with all the talk i hear from other folks about being “treated differently” (either as parents &/or their kids) there’s a complete nonchalant indifference to me or obviously double culture kiddo here and any/everywhere in sedate reserved #Okayama

And gratefully is a complete lack of small talk, chitchat and the usual “what is your country?” “are you an English teacher?” etc

No, I’m just a goofball… Not smiling with my eyes (and yes, I am wearing a mask outdoors) #peace

Q: How is your Japanese? Do people try out their English on you?

A: My verbal Japanese is comfortably conversational & colloquial. However reading and writing skills minimal #BlameMyBrain I communicate with regular folks almost exclusively in Japanese. Very rarely does anyone try English – almost never except 1-2 medical doctors.

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