Graduation

I had an odd day today, not like any of the other ones that I have had whilst in Japan. The cleaners arrived in force very early in the morning, proceeded to clean every visible surface, and packed any left-out items away in the cupboards. Two big armchairs were brought up, flowers were arranged on tables, and places for 14 people were organised. This was all for the tea party that was occurring in the afternoon.

We all attended the graduation ceremony in our suits and best clothes. We sat in the middle of the sports hall, behind the graduands but in front of all the parents. This made for an awkward issue in knowing when to stand up or not. Sometimes everyone had to stand, and other times it was only those graduating. There were a few occasions when we stood up, only to sit down, looking foolish, a couple of seconds later. The ceremony itself was incomprehensible, though a few select students received framed certificates and shiny plaques. Not everyone went up, in fact most did not, and were graduated on mass. The students themselves were rather badly behaved: one of the ones in front of us was on his mobile phone halfway through, and they chatted openly during the process.

Tsuzuki and his wife were there, wearing Oxbridge-styled caps and gowns, with yellow trim. The master and bursar of Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge were on stage as well – the master gave a speech in English, translated by Seb, and ended it with the worst pronunciation of "arigatou gozaimasu" (thank you) that I have ever heard. He said it like the Queen might. We found it funny, though, surprisingly there were no sniggers from the Japanese: they were either asleep, or did not even realise that he had switched into Japanese.

They all looked smart though, with the boys in suits and ties, and the girls in kimonos of a style I had not seen before. The girls had much difficulty going up and down the stage stairs, having to take them sideways, one at a time. It was elegant, though, and they did not seem distressed by it. I suppose they must be used to the restrictions imposed upon them by their national dress.

At the beginning of the ceremony, the national anthem of Japan was sung, whilst facing the giant "Rising Sun" flag that adorned the stage. At the end, they sung the different universities songs: the economics, welfare, and nursing university. The nursing university has a slightly odd sounding name: the hoiku-tanki university.

Binks, Flick, and I could not attend the tea party back at Cambridge House with the Fitzwilliam master and bursar (hence all the cleaning) since we had to teach at Linden Hall. I do not think that we missed much, and we are all Oxonians so I suppose we did not care about meeting the Cambridge people much, either. On the way back from teaching, though, the bus driver gave us some intricate origami that he had made: two swans interlocked, and a turtle on the wing of another swan. It is all very complicated stuff.