The first, second and third year students line up, 16 classes, each class split into boys and girls rows...for safety. They are all wearing the school’s white P.E. t-shirts and retina-blistering turquoise shorts. Each class has been assigned a different coloured headband. They resemble a squad of recently militarized hippies – a Japanese rainbow army faction. The headmaster, dressed in his daringly flared tracksuit finishes his opening speech, the murky slate-gray clouds open and a bolt of lightning strikes the block of public housing opposite the school. Welcome to sports day.
Events start. A 70 metre sprint, accompanied by the chase music from a 1980’s Hanna-Barbera cartoon. The school’s P.E. captain, a 3rd year girl, wins her race and turns to laud it over the 5 slightly rotund and asthmatic girls she has been suspiciously chosen to race against. Her eyes are aflame and her face is twisted into a grimace of pure evil. I glance at the head of P.E. He looks satisfied. Everything is as it should be. Two boys have been chosen to man the PA system. They utter inspirational monotone commentary on the races: “Blue is fast”. “Wow, now Pink is fast, too”. I feel I can sense a touch of cruelty in their voices when they say “Try a little harder, Purple”, to the boy who, tripped by the baseball captain in the next lane and, having completed three quarters of a forward roll on his face, is now lying in the dirt crying.
The slight drizzle turns to a full-blown downpour. Parents disappear into the cover of the ground floor classrooms. Teachers swear under their breath, stand in the rain and try to catch the eye of the Headmaster or Vice-Principal, to show him that they are working very hard and haven’t buggered off undercover. I sit undercover in the equipment tent, having buggered off out of the rain.
The events continue. I breathe a sigh of relief to hear that, due to the rain, the P.T.A. race has been cancelled. It is time for the team events. For the 3rd year girls, this means the nauseatingly titled “With One Heart”. In less saccharine terms, it is a 30 legged race. The announcer boys needlessly and rather patronisingly explain to the crowd that to succeed in “With One Heart”, the teams must embody the Japanese spirit of teamwork and the school ethos of helping your fellow man. The races begin. The crowd first laughs as, utterly failing to work as a team, Pink all fall over in a cloud of dust and splayed legs. Then all turn away slightly as the blue team, having suffered a similar fate, scream to blame one another. We cheer as finally, in the third race, a team, more through luck than design, manage to make their way down the 30 metre course without falling over. Finally we watch, open mouthed, as purple and green both drag themselves over the finish line, their faces contorted into masks of pain and hatred, and a small fight breaks out between a group of girls in the purple team over exactly which individual girl the whole team’s unmitigated failure should be blamed on. Truly, Yamato Damacy.
The 3rd year boys take to the field bare-chested. Younger girls crowd the touchlines to cheer their school idols. The boy’s event is called “Cavalry Battle”. There are two teams. Each team is made up of 3 classes. These classes form cavalry regiments. There is one general per team. The students are split into groups of four. Three students form the horse, one boy at the front and two at the back who place their arms on his shoulders. The Knight then sits on their arms to complete the fighting unit. The aim of the event is for a team to remove the headband worn by the general of the opposing team. Any Knight who is forced from his steed is out of the game. This time, younger announcers, taking a cue from their forerunners, explain to the crowd how the cavalry battle is an ancient Japanese pugilistic tradition resurrected for our modern times, veritably chess-like in its tactics, truly an example that Japan has not lost its Samurai spirit. In other words, it’s a big, fuck-off ruck.
The first round exemplifies these qualities. The winter team, rally round their general in a defensive display that astonishingly does actually quite resemble a display of defensive chess. They send a group of three or four battle units forward to attack. The summer team, rather more characteristically, sends everyone forward in an all-out banzai suicide attack. The don’t notice the winter team’s attackers and their general is surrounded and fighting viciously to hold onto his headband within seconds. Punches are thrown. I think I see one of the attackers actually bite the general. I look around at my fellow spectators to see if anyone else has noticed - their eyes are glazed with bloodlust. The general doesn’t last long. First round to the winter team.
The injured are pulled from the field. The school-nurse and her assistant, by this point in the day, experts in field-triage, bandage and splint the injured and sent them back into the, by now, blood-splattered arena. The second round. If the winter team win this it is all over. This time, both teams move into defensive formations. I glance at the elderly gentlemen sitting next to me. Splittle drips from his mouth, he screams at his grandson to FIGHT and to KILL. I look away, rather scared. The teams again attack. Knights fall. The summer general sends his cavalry on for one final attack. They manage to surround the winter general. He throws punches, lashes out kicks. Suddenly his mount shudders! The summer attacker’s “horse” has realised that if he starts punching the horse of the winter general, it may make it easier for his knight to attack. The winter general looks shocked and taking his concentration away from his attackers for a split-second screams at his horse to stand-the-fuck-up. He realises his mistake too late. The summer knight rips the headband (and a sizeable handful of flopping mullet) from the general. The summer team cheer.
The excitement of this school-sanctioned fight, coupled with the questionable tactics of the summer team, prove too much for the winter general and his army. A massive fight breaks out. The teachers sprint in to try to separate the two teams. Punches are thrown, not only by the students. The crowd bays encouragement. I laugh. A father in his overexcitement starts to run onto the pitch. His wife screams at him and like a scolded gorilla, he slopes back to the side, grunting incomprehensibly. The teams are finally torn apart. The final round will be only the two generals and their mounts. It begins. The Winter General is knocked from his mount and loses by default, despite his headband being intact. The summer team sprint onto the pitch and carry their general above their heads off to the sidelines, a hero. The winter general pads off, screaming and throwing the line-marker cones. One hits a bespeckled first year boy.
The headmaster mounts the stage once again. Apparantly he has not been watching for past 8 hours as he salutes the students and thanks the audience for yet another faultless sports day. Bloodied and bruised, the students wander home, revenge to be had in the classrooms and corridors in the weeks to come…
