World of Wati: Undokai: Sports Day

October is usually the month for schools around Japan to organise undokai, or sports day. Undokai is usually held on weekends either Saturday or Sunday. They even have a national day for it. Since it is held on a weekend, the school will have a day off in lieu.

Different schools organise undokai in their own special way and both parents and teachers get busy working together in preparation towards the day of the event. The kids also get busy practising their games and performances coached by their sports teachers.

In Wilkie's kindergarten, undokai is more about the spirit of sports and games and the spirit of sportsmanship. Every kid, even those who need special assistance, is a winner, there are no losers. Every kid takes part in a programme or more. Even dads get to participate in a tug of war. The event includes dancing, running round the track in turns and some pretty amazing acrobatic stunts. The whole experience was both fun... and a little boring. It was fun when you see your kid's turn to race and dance, and boring when there was quite a lot of waiting around. But all good fun nonetheless, and the weather, being early autumn, was a perfect 23 degrees.

The sports day reminded me of my time in primary school, where my school provided special snacks for everyone. But not at Wilkie's kindergarten or other schools to my knowledge. Parents had to bring obento or packed lunches to eat at lunch break during the event. You pick a spot, any spot and lay a mat and literally have a picnic on the school ground. We live 5 minutes walk away from the school, so we opted to eat at home, and then return to school an hour later to continue with the event. At the end of the day, each kid was presented with a plastic gold medal, plus a cheap plastic frame with a photo of them and their friends in action (taken when they were practising prior to the event)

**Start of rant** The ONLY bad thing happened on that day, was a bunch of parents and adults smoking right at the school entrance. Smoking IS allowed in the school, although, in a designated area, the spot was ill picked. Smoking in the school premises SHOULD be banned. I was felt so sad and so angry when I saw a baby, being carried on a baby carrier by his/her smoking mother, being surrounded by other smokers and breathing all that unfiltered unhealthy cigarette smoke. I was so shocked that this is even allowed and treated in a casual manner. The principle, surely is the responsible person for setting the rules, obviously, this is not one of them. There is only one entrance and exit to the school, so no one escapes the cigarette smoke if there happens to be smokers. Alas, this is Japan, where smoking is considered healthy and nothing to be worried about. Even if there is a non-smoking sign, there is no penalty if you did smoke. Even the local doctor whom we see regularly is a smoker himself. ** End of rant**

Anyway, here is a bunch of photos of Wilkie in action. His house team is red.