Here we are at the Karuizawa Elementary School "Undoukai" (Sports Day). It is big part of life in Japan, and is almost like a festival of sorts for the community. Some new friends of ours invited us to watch, and we actually saw a number of people we had met at various other places - including church!
All students are split up into the Red team and White team and compete for team points (notice their hats). The above picture shows a very team oriented game, the o-tama korogashi, where each team has a huge ball that they have to pass down the line of 100+ students, carry it around a pole, and then back to the starting point. The Red team won both attempts at this one.
This game, was quite amazing. Called kibasen, or cavalry game, it is played in teams of four. Three team members form a base, called the horse, and the fourth rides on top. The object of the game is for the "rider" to steal the caps of riders from the other teams. It actually was quite aggressive. A thowback to the old Samurai days! (In case you're wondering, the White team won this game quite handily.)We learned a lot about Japanese culture: the importance of community, the pre-eminence of "team" over "individual", and the importance of tradition and protocol to the running of events.
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