Summer vacation?

August is just about here in Osaka, and with it, the students are now in the middle of their summer vacation. In fact, they have been since the middle of July. With it, is a conspicuous lack of classes, and what you’d think would be a conspicuous lack of students. But perhaps I should really be saying summer “vacation”, because, you see… the students are still here.

Summer vacation in Japan is not a time of unmitigated relaxation and fun-having the way that most of us Americans are used to. Instead, it seems that the Japanese philosophy is that through hard work, you can overcome such frivolous things as “fun” and “idleness.” During the summer break, club activities continue straight through, and Japanese students (who are basically all expected to belong to one club or another) are made to attend on days their club is in session, which is at least once a week. And if that weren’t bad enough, there are also several mandatory assembly days where the entire student body must come in to be harangued for several hours about not giving in to the temptations to have a good time, and being always studious and upright. (I wish I was exaggerating as much as you think I am.)

And that’s not all. One of the hallmarks of summer vacation for Japanese students is the homework. Not content with simply making kids come to school during what (to me) is a sacred time of relaxation and fun, teachers (at the behest of the Ministry of Education) also saddle them with large amounts of work for them to complete over the course of the break. On the one hand, I can see the logic in this: the academic year starts in April and ends in March, so the students will still be learning the same material when they get back, and this will help keep their skills sharp for their return. On the other hand, it does take away quite a bit from the supposedly “carefree” nature of summer, and there are plenty of students who wait until the very last week of vacation to do it all, thereby negating much of the value it’s intended to have.

Between the clubs, mandatory assembly days, and piles of homework, the summer break for Japanese students is a far cry from what most of us are familiar with. But what do the Japanese students think? When I told the kids that not only do American students have nearly twice as long for summer vacation, but they also have no homework, I got a range of reactions from disbelief to outright envy. Poor things. But believe it or not, their, their situation is actually better than Japanese children a generation ago had it: up until the early part of this decade, students had a mandatory half-day on Saturdays during the year, and even more school-related activity during summer “vacation”. Not that it gives them any less of a raw deal now, of course.

As for me, I’m still coming into the school pretty much every day, in spite of the lack of classes. Instead, my time is taken up by reading, studying Japanese, working on various English-related projects, and walking around, engaging students in conversation. (Sample conversation: “Hi, [name]. How are you?” “I’m fine, thank you, and you?” “I’m hot.” “Me too.”) Because of this, it’s not quite as boring as I expected it to be, though I certainly still have a bit more free time during my work hours than I’m quite sure what to do with. I do have some vacation time though, and as a matter of fact, I’ll be headed to Tokyo this weekend (or last weekend when you read this) to meet up with a friend and do some sightseeing. I’m looking forward to that, as well as having a justification to ride the Shinkansen there. After all, the journey is half the fun, right?

P.S. An update on my cicada situation – I believe I wrote in my article two weeks ago that cicadas were “entirely harmless” to humans. As it turns out, this is not the case. I found this out when I got beaned by one while riding my bike to school. They may not look like much, but those things pack a wallop, and they seem incapable of flying in a straight line. Luckily, I don’t think it left a mark. That’d be quite the bruise to explain…