がんばろう!

In the last days of life before adulthood hits them in the face like a sack of bricks, my 3-4 boys performed a remarkable feat. My boys pulled their late-night-partying, motorcycle-drag-racing boot-ays into school at the crack of dawn. Then they drove up north and ran back down. Yup, they RAN from Nago to Ginowan.

Ok, you don't live here so that means nothing to you. In a car, this trip is 1.5 hours on the normal highway, 45 minutes on the expressway... I think its about 80km. 3-4 ran a relay race along the coast, which lasted from 9:30am to 3:30pm. Above, you see their triumphant and weary return to school. The first thing you're probably thinking is that Okinawans seem obsessed with relay marathons, which is true: they are obsessed with marathons in general. But that's not the point.

It is misleading that class number 4 is called the "sports" track. It makes it sound like all its members are extremely athletic. That's not the case. Rather, it's one of those tracks that kids get shuffled into if they don't have a special talent. There`s two IT tracks (1 and 2), and there are tracks for smarties like the international track (5) and we-want-to-go-to-college track (3). Then there are those for people who are all definitely not going to college, and have no idea what will become of them... these are 4, 6, 7, 8. And though the 4 tracks are cool kids at school, they are among those whose anxieties post-graduation run the highest.

This marathon was a がんばろう! ("ganbaroo!") race for the 3-4 before graduation. Ganbaru is a verb very important to Japanese culture. In this case it means, "let's give it our all! Try our best!" The marathon was a tool to pump up the kids` courage for entering the next stage of life; to give them faith in themselves that they can aim to do something difficult and accomplish it. The photo below shows the school awaiting their return. I, of course, found myself sniffling into a hanky... this kind of thing always hits a chord in me. The 1-4 and 2-4 tracks were excused from class to be a part of the return ceremony. In Japan they pay more attention to the relationship between elders and juniors than we do. The 3-4 sports course boys are the role models and seniors (senpai) of the 1-4 and 2-4 sports boys. So below you see one side of the walkway lined with 1-4, and the other side with 2-4, cheering their graduating senpai on.
After they returned, the seniors were asked to stand and give words of wisdom and advice to the youngsters, and the youngsters stood and gave words of encouragement to the elders. It never fails to amaze me how different Japan is in one respect from America: kids here have the capacity to be very serious and sincere, even in front of large groups of peers. They can go from goofy slackers and too-cool-for-school bad-asses to laying their hearts out on the table in a second. Below, one of my best buddies from 3-4 gives a little pose as he crosses the finish line.

Ganbatte, boys! Here comes the rest of life.