deaths and births

Today things are converging and chaos is seeping into this foreigner of a town foreign to him. Today is the day that all the teachers of Kumamoto are told whether they will continue or move on. Yes, they are given almost no notice as the new school year starts in April; they do not know until the entire year here is finished--they may be sent to any other school in the prefecture. Also today there was the graduation at Yamaga and Hokubu elementary schools. I went to the bigger one (at Yamaga).

Spring is also well on its way here. The weather is much warmer now; it's even sunny.

The thing about graduations here is that they are more like funerals than weddings. The tone is very sad, very formal, and yet hopeful. Students, parents, and teachers often cry. Sometimes it is extremely cold in the gyms that lack proper heating, but this perhaps only contributes to the profundity of the event. Every person in the school was involved in today's ceremony. Younger students stood up at designated times and praised individual students. They had memorized their lines and their time to stand and it was seemless. Even second and first graders were fully involved. Then the fifth graders all formed an orchestra at the end to see the sixth graders out the door. The whole school of kids sang for the graduates as they walked through student-held arches with colored tissue paper wrapped around them. They were wearing suits and presenters would bow a total of eight times (four as they approach the stage and four as they depart it).

You may think that these ceremonies are ridiculous and overdone. They certainly seem so at first. But after being here for a while and becoming part of this town I have come to appreciate these events, even in their tedium. I think that they are one of the few, rare ways to show people that their lives are taken seriously: that they are so important that a whole school, including all of the administrators, will take an hour or two in all seriousness to show their respect. Even if it is a required, annual event it still seems to get the good message across. All too often in America people are only shown this kind of respect once they are already unable to hear and see it, once they have already died. Perhaps it is good to give respect while one can still benefit from it.

I've noticed a few times that culture here sometimes mimics the processes of nature. The students who leave every year are like the falling leaves that then become replenished. Like the leaves the teachers have no choice when or where they will fall. So in about 40 minutes the teachers in my office will know if they have fallen off the tree or if they have remained attached for another year.

And here is a poem sent to me by a former student of my mom. It was sent to her by chance and she noticed that I too like to relate things to leaves and trees and stuff so she sent it to me. (thanks Beth).

The Trees

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Philip Larkin