Undokai

Undokai, or Sports Day, is a tradition in Japanese schools. The day is equivalent to field day, except that events are practiced ahead of time and performed for parents and family members. Zoe's preschool held their Undokai celebration in early October. This happened to be close to the Japanese national Sports Day holiday which commemorates the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, but I don't think Undokai has to be celebrated in conjunction with the national holiday.

Undokai was scheduled to be outside, but we were experiencing a huge rainstorm, and so it was moved to the auditorium. It was actually a relief that it wasn't outside on a blazing hot day, and the indoor venue allowed us to see and hear a bit better. You can see Zoe's class above. Her class is called Kugani and has children ages 4-6. I would say just over 1/2 of her class speaks Japanese as one of their languages. There are students in the class who are trilingual, and a few like Zoe who are bringing down the curve with monolingual skills.

The best part about Undokai is that every class participates. The preschool also serves as the main daycare facility for OIST employees, so there is one class of infants. The teachers wheeled them out in their baby buggy limos, and lined them up three at a time. A RACE! A crawling race! It was one of the best laughs I have had during my time in Okinawa. Some of the babies were just learning to crawl. A few, like the one in the background of this photo, couldn't yet crawl. Those babies sat in a bouncy seat that was placed in a large box. The box was then pulled by a parent. You could almost see the parent calculating his moves: do I run so my kid wins? Do I go as slowly as possible since I am kind of cheating? Am I embarrassed that my kid can't crawl and is already behind in the race of life?!?!? Okay, so it wasn't high stakes, but it made for good comedy. The best was the one kid in class who could walk. He started crawling, but then he stood up and made a run for it. Ain't no use in pretending just to make your friends feel better about their crawling skillz.

Zoe's class had two "events". The first was a basketball game. Her class was divided into teams, each team with their own basket. Zoe is in the photo above in hot pink biker shirts, of course. All I have to say about this event is that we won't be relying on athletic scholarships for her future plans.

The Kugani class then performed the final event, which was a traditional Okinawan dance that they had learned with the help of some talented and kind OIST volunteers. The dance was accompanied by sanshin musicians which was really neat. I love that people cared enough about their traditions to share them with a group of young kids on a Saturday morning.

The dance move shown above is Zoe's best skill. It involved, according to her, sneaking like a monster. I don't have proper documentation that this was indeed the authentic interpretation.

Big Sister was proud of Zoe and excited to see her after the performance. Maddox never got to see Zoe's preschool performances when we were in NC, so it was a treat for her to see this one.

We ended the day at Thai Food, a restaurant in nearby Yomitan. The girls chose the seating arrangement which placed all the ladies at our own table. That's a whole lotta strong and smart ladies in one photo! Tune in next time for more adventures...