Today marked the official end of the school year, and the graduation ceremony for our third year class. The event was quite a do; the gym was decorated with flowers, golden screens, and a red carpet. All the teachers were turned out in their nicest suits. The principal even wore a morning suit. I had a number of questions about the affair, which I later posed to my adult English conversation group, affectionately dubbed "the grannies." The conversation that followed was an interesting discussion on nationalism in Japan, Japanese rednecks, and square dancing.
It started with an observation I made about the Japanese national anthem, which I had never heard before. The song is very short, and sung slowly and in a low octave, so that it sounds more like a dirge than a jingoistic jingle. Called "Kimigayo," it is essentially an ode to the emperor. Translated, it says:
continue for a thousand, nay, eight thousand generations
and for the eternity that it takes
for small pebbles to grow into a great rock
and become covered with moss.
The subject of the emperor made me segue to another question concerning a trivia game a fellow ALT had made up for one of her classes. One of the answers was the name of the emperor. Her teacher told her later that they were not allowed to mention or discuss the emperor in class, that it was "too nationalistic." When I asked the grannies why this was the case, they launched into a long explanation involving the end of WWII and the rise of communism. Like many countries, Japan has a trinity of national symbols: a leader (traditionally, the emperor), an anthem (Kimigayo, an ode to the emperor), and a flag (hinomaru). The red dot of the Japanese flag symbolizes the sun, but that also is associated with the emperor, who is considered the descendant of the god, and the Japanese are the chosen people of god. With me so far? However, for many people, this trifecta is not a benevolent one, particularly following WWII, when the Japanese brutally invaded parts of eastern Asia (mainly China and Korea), and left some lasting scars. As Beatles granny put it: "Japan's flag, and the anthem, and the emperor are symbolic figures of imperialism." This led to some dark associations for many Chinese and Koreans, but for some Japanese as well. In Okinawa, for example, the flag is a reminder of WWII and the subsequent establishment of the US military on the island (which Okinawans despise). Some people, including many within the teachers union in Japan, are communists who object to the emperor on political grounds, and therefore refuse to honor the national flag or sing the country's anthem. Thus, these symbols have become a major source of contention at schools and within Japanese society as a whole, to a point where it is unusual to see the Japanese flag flown in places other than government buildings. When I told the grannies that one of my neighbors flies two flags during national holidays, they were taken aback, and told me this was very unusual. One granny told me that 25 years ago, there was a scuffle in her town when a communist teacher lowered the flag at school. Riot police had to be called out, and the children were forced to stay home for several days until tensions cooled.
At one point, we veered off into talking about school dances, and they wanted to know what kinds of steps people are taught in the United States. We talked a little about ballroom dancing, but I acknowledged that most people don't really know how to ballroom dance. "There is something called square dancing, though," I said, "Which is mainly done in the South, but it's a fun way for lots of people to dance together to the same steps." Some of my grannies started reminiscing about their elementary school days, when they were taught how to folk dance. I asked them what folk dancing in Japan looks like, and High Tech Granny started to perform a search on her iPad. "Do you know the Oklahoma song?" another asked. "Like the musical Oklahoma?" I responded. "Mmm...it goes [starts humming 'Turkey in the Hay']." High Tech Granny then pulled up the following video, which left me speechless for several seconds:
Finally, all I could get out was, "But...that's...they're SQUARE DANCING!" It was a perfect moment of cultural exchange and minds blown. How square dancing became a fad in Japan, we may never know. But it's a beautiful thing.
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