Green Day On Sports Day

undokai
“Don’t want to be an American idiot.”

Metallic sounding guitars fill the school grounds with power chords paired with Billy Joe Armstrong’s radio-cracked voice. The high school’s undokai or Sports Day is about to begin. For weeks and weeks the students had been assiduously practicing. They have sweated through their eyes. They have cheered and rallied behind their assigned color. They have run around in circles like racing greyhounds for hours on end until the ground looks worn through and through. They have practiced waving their pompoms in unison. Their perseverance has paid off. Their feet now move perfectly in mindless unison as they chant “ICHI-NI, ICHI-NI, ICHI-NI!” around the grounds. One two, one two, one two.

“Don’t want to be an American idiot.” Bam doo doo doo doo.

They march in strict lines, their feet all wearing the same white sneakers with red stripes. Their uniforms match and are starchy and white. The school is divided up into four teams: red, blue, yellow and green. Bright, massive, impressive looking banners, hand-painted by the students provide the backdrop for the turmoil, sweat, joyous victories, sorrowful losses and bizarre games that are going to take place here. A dragon, a lion, a tiger and some blue rabid monster thing will all look on as their underlings attempt to make them proud.

“Well maybe I’m the faggot America!” wails over the loudspeaker.

And the music cuts. On that lovely note the opening ceremony is ready to begin.

The principal welcomes everyone to the event. In return a student is called up to the platform and bellows back at the principal how bloody delighted he is to be there. I can’t help but wonder to myself how that would go in America if an American Idiot were to follow suit and do such a thing in English:

“THANK YOU, YES SIR, I AM JOYOUSLY HAPPY TO BE HERE, OH REVERED PRINCIPAL. OH BLESS YOUR COTTON SOCKS. WE WILL ALL DO OUR UTMOST AND VERY BEST UPON THIS EXCEPTIONAL DAY THAT YOU HAVE BESTOWED UPON US MOST KINDLY. PLEASE EXCUSE ME. I WILL GIVE IT MY ALL. THANK YOU. EXCUSE ME FOR MY APPARENT RUDENESS.”

His voice is penetrating, powerful and the principal’s hair is blown backwards by the strength of the words. The student tromps back to his place in line and turns quickly back to soldier-like attention. The principal’s salt and pepper hair flutters one last time and then finally settles back down. The Japanese flag is raised and duly admired by all.

No Japanese opening ceremony would be complete without the highly regimented completely ineffectual callisthenic routine that puzzles me to my very core. Bright, shiny, clunky piano music comes on over the staticky loudspeakers as a disembodied Japanese male voice happily dictates to his minions to bend, turn, swing their arms up high, try to touch their toes, reach for the skies and hop in place like a gimpy bunny.

I am transported back to my kindergarten gym routines. We are four or five years old at the time, completely uncoordinated and bear a striking resemblance to limp marionettes separated from our puppet masters. We attempt to figure out what to do with our flailing limbs to bad music that would make any human with ears cringe.

I snap to with a jolt as the chirpy piano music switches into cut time and the hoard of people before me, all sharing a similar fashion sense today, start waving their lethargic looking arms around their heads halfheartedly in half-ovals.

Finally the sunshine piano callisthenic music comes to a cadence and the ‘warm-up’ exercise (the effectiveness of which is highly doubtful) draws to a close. It’s time for the real competitions to begin.

The kids run. The kids sweat. The kids bind their legs together with ropes in groups of 20 to form centipede-like formations. They then scamper around the schoolyard, arms tightly woven under each other’s armpits, chanting “ichi-ni, ichi-ni!” as they attempt to keep in strict time lest they become an incapacitated insect scrambling on the floor legs up in the air in panicked confusion.

The kids form human bridges. A small first year boy wearing dark-rimmed emo glasses goes skipping across his teammates as if he were simply walking across the street. They run to keep up with him. As soon as he has passes over them, they dash to the back of the line so that his Human Brick Road never falters. He reaches his destination, a pole, and scampers up it, planting his flag at the top with lightening speed. In a former life he was a sailor. Or a nippy koala with a fondness for The Cure.

Another group of boys heave large blue plastic gasoline containers full of water above their heads with a loud “OOOOOOSH.” The game is simple: hold the massive thing over your head for as long as possible. Their stamina is impressive, but little by little, one by one, their young muscles give out on them. A boy on the far left lets out a groan, and readjusts the weight above his head as the water starts to leak. Little by little the water drips out, making his job somewhat easer, cooling him and lightening his load drop by drop. The number of contestants eventually diminishes to two. The remaining boys waddle towards each other, their faces red and contorted, their entire bodies dripping, their teammates rally behind them crying, “GAMBARE!! GAMBARE!! GAMBARE!!” Which roughly translates as, “KEEP THAT DAMN THING UP, YOU WUSS. THAT’S IT. DON’T YOU GIVE UP ON ME, MOTHERFUCKER. YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE IT, YOU HEAR!?!!!” Much is inferred in Japanese.

“I wanna be the minority. I don’t need your authority. Down with the moral majority, cause I wanna be the minority.”

Billy Joe Armstrong is back, more indignant than ever. The students return after an hour lunch break, ready for more action. The song fills the schoolyard with irony as several hundred of the exact same shoe go tramping around the field.

Eventually the games reach an end. The numbers are tallied, the winning team declared.

The day cannot close without the same highly regimented calisthenics routine. The clunky, peppy piano music returns and acts as the remaining bookend. As the principal makes a closing speech thanking everyone for their hard work and awarding the winning team a trophy that looks as though it has been in the school since the 60’s, several girls start bawling. Wailing. The epidemic seems to spread and soon the whole front row of girls is red faced and howling. I can hardly blame them. They have run around in circles for the past six hours, tied themselves to other people, fallen in dirt, been trampled on and pretended to be rather repulsive looking insects.

But one thing is certain; American Idiots they are not.

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Published:
9.14.07 / 7pm
Category:
classroom antics, amusing incidents, what i call life