The Poetist

What time is it? Party time! October 6, 2007

Drums.  This morning I awoke to the sound of beating drums and the loud and high-pitched voices of children.  The leader shouted something and the group shouted back, in unison.  What were they saying?  I don’t know.  Maybe… “What time is it?” “It’s party time!” “What’s the best school around?” “Mitaka Municipal Dai-San Elementary School is the best school around”  “What do we like?” “We like math!”
This is not the first time I’ve awoken to such noise; in fact, almost every morning I hear music playing and children shouting.  My house is surrounded by a pre-school, an  elementary school, and a junior high school; let’s just say that sound travels very well around here, and between the three schools it sounds like somebody is always having recess.  And it seems like they give recess a soundtrack too.  Yesterday the music sounded like it came from the West Wing; I’ve also heard Queen, the Beach Boys and contemporary pop music.

After the call-and-answer session it sounded like races began.  The sound of an airgun marked the air then I heard the competitive and hurried sounds of children cheering on their schoolmates, because of course the more urgently you cheer the faster your teammate can run.  I had to see this.  Although I wake up to it fairly often I had yet to witness it.  I jumped out of bed, threw on whatever clothes were nearest to me and hopped on my bicycle.  When I came upon the open gravel field and saw the huge crowd of adults, presumably parents and the like, I realized this might be one of those school festivals I’ve heard about from my students.  Children practice songs, dances, sports and possibly other things, in preparation for a school-wide festival allowing students to showcase what they’ve learned and practiced.  I was able to get close enough to get a couple of good pictures and some video, but I didn’t want to stay too long lest some parents think it was wierd for a random Gaijin to be watching their children. I leave you with my parting shot: