February 19, 2003 - 10:05 AM
Wes Ehrlichman

So the theme of this week's journal entry is, "if you're going to make Wes do something in Japan make sure you let him know exactly what it is he's going to be doing, and plenty of time in advance. Then he MAY not screw it up... but the chances are still pretty small then. What am I talking about?

On the Friday before I came home for winter break I went to the Kindergarten to play Santa in the Winter festival. The word in Japanese for this was "Otanoshikai," which loosely translates to "Fun Festival." Fun is not what it was. At least not initially.

Earlier that week they had contacted me and asked me to play Santa at the Kindergarten. They told me that my job was going to be to dress up as Santa, stand on stage, and say something along the lines of,

"My reindeer caught cold and I need to deliver these presents to Kedouin's good little boys and girls. Will someone please help me?."

Then in the next scene a bunch of kids would come out and drag huge white bags of presents around the stage. That's the entirety of what I was told. They asked what I would do for lunch since I would probably be there during the middle school's lunch time and I told them that I'd like to eat with the kids. They said it sounded like fun, so we made arrangements to do that too.

A few days later I received an invitation from them in the mail. The invitation included a ticket for something, and I flyer explaining the festival. I think it was the same invitation they send to the parents of the kids.

On the morning of the "fun festival" I asked the vice principal of the middle school to write down my lines for me in Japanese so that I could study them. I read over it during every free moment and at around 9:55 I finally left the middle school. The festival started at 10:00, and I really had no idea where the kindergarten was so I was already cutting it a bit close. Kedouin isn't that big though, so I found it pretty much immediately. On the way there I passed a man standing next to a crudely built shack and planting some vegetables. The shack is pretty much right next to Hero's enormous house. I'll never understand exactly how Japanese construction works.

When I arrived just on time I headed into the building. I figured I would have to go in back to put on the Santa Suit so that none of the kids would see me, but instead they just handed me the flier for the festival and told me to go ahead and sit down. They seemed a little apprehensive about handing me the flier, but when I pulled out my invitation ticket it convinced them to give me one. Apparently the ticket entitled the visitor to a copy of the event's flier.

At any rate, I went in and sat down next to the rest of the board of education. The principal to the middle school was there, as was the office lady of the board of education, and even a few of the higher-up board of education workers. I kept wondering if I was doing everything right, I was supposed to be Santa wasn't I? They didn't find a Japanese person that could do it better did they? (not that it would be hard) I stared down at my lines to study a bit more.

As soon as the fest started I stopped worrying and just enjoyed. The first event for the festival was all of the kids standing around singing a song. In Japan everything seems to be about being together precisely. It seemed like this festival was really difficult for the kindergarten teachers for this exact reason. The kids were supposed to sway left to right with the music, but some of them were swaying right to left and the teachers were standing at the side of the stage waving a flag left and right to try to keep the kids going in the right direction on beat. Half of them couldn't remember the words to the song either. It was just hillarious.

Look at the fat kid!

The next part of the festival was a dance routine that the teachers and kids put together for the theme song of the tv show Hurricangers. I'm pretty sure this is the Japanese version of Power Rangers. The word Hurricangers comes from Hurricane and Rangers, but unless you saw some Engrish paraphenalea for the show you would never know. This next part was equally as entertaining, with the boys all wearing colored tights and charging up their power bracelets at certain parts of the song. In the middle of the song all of the kids ran offstage and grabbed some aluminum foil swords then came back on stage and fought each other for a few stanzas. This was definately a highlight of the event.

The boys weren't the only one with a special song. The girls also got to do a dance routine. This one was for a Mini-Moni song. I could be wrong about this one, but from what I understand Mini-Moni is a subgroup of the Japanese Pop band Morning Musume (Morning Daughter). Morning Musume is like Britanny Spears or Spice Girls, only there's 13 of them in one group. Mini-Moni is 3 or 4 of these girls and they sing songs that are targeted at a slightly younger age. At any rate, the girls danced to a mini-moni song. My favorite part of the dance was when the two girls would stand across from each other and wave their arms at each other to the beat. Needless to say, the dance routines were not very difficult, but ultra cute.

For the next event all of the boys and girls got together and sang jingle bells. It was the Japanese version so I only knew it was jingle bells by the tune. At this point I started to worry. I opened my flier and skimmed for the word "Santa." It was coming up soon and I still hadn't memorized my lines perfectly. I kept repeating the lines over and over in my head as they sang jingle bells.

The next event was an old man in a red bowtie playing Harmonica. I think he may be the principal or something because I have no idea why he would be playing the harmonica at a kindergarten. Honestly it felt a little out of place, but not nearly as much as you might imagine. I must admit that it was pretty good. The audience liked it so much that they had him play three or four songs. This may have been the constume changeing time, but noone told me a thing so I just sat there watching, repeating my lines in my head.

The part where the flier had read "Santa" was coming up next and I still hadn't put on my costume. As the old man started putting away his harmonica I heard a sound behind me. A chubby Japanese man with round eyes was pounding on the glass. He motioned for me to head backstage. I made my way through the crowd of parents that had grown so large there were a few sitting on the ground in the front row.

I found one of the kindergarten teachers and asked her where the Santa outfit was. She said they didn't have time for that so I should just run backstage, stick my head out from behind the curtain, and say my lines. I did as she said. I stuck my head out and started saying my lines,

"Uhhh, uhhh. Cold. Reindeer caught one and... Uhh, uhh." I stuck my head back in to look at my cheat sheet.

"English, OK." They start whispering. "English, OK!" I couldn't do it though. I had to prove myself.

"Uhhh. Deliver. Present. Boys and Girls. Kedouin. Santa." I stuck my head back in and heard a courtesy clap coming from the other side of the curtain.

"Ok." I say out loud to myself, relieved that the worst of it was over. The chubby man found me and pulled me to a different part of the building. We went into a walk-in broom closet of sorts and he pulled a scraggly old Santa outfit out of a box.

"Please," he said.

He left me alone and I put the Santa suit on. It was a little hot in the broom closet but I didn't know what else to do so I just hung out in there for a long time. "Ho ho ho," I practiced my best Santa laugh. Just when I started to wonder if they were just planning on leaving me in the broom closet for the remainder of the show just to save me the embarassment, the chubby man came back and took me out of the broom closet.

  
This stuff was apparently going on as I was backstage.
(The principal took the pictures)

As he lead me to the stage I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. The beard wasn't the fluffy Santa beard that I've come to know from books and TV, it was more like the aged man beard that you would wear when playing a wize mountain hermit. I suppose it's possible that this is the impression of Santa that Japanese people have. Either that or the school just bought the cheapest Santa suit they could find. This second option is a lot more likely.

So the old man pulls me to the stage and they say, "Are you ready?"

Ready for what? I think. They hadn't given me any instructions beyond what had already happened, and they opened the curtain on a confused looking Santa who just stood there. I looked out at the crowd and it was probably the closest thing to stage fright that I'd ever had, but mostly because I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing.

"Ho ho ho?" I said, sounding like the most timid Santa that has ever existed. "Ho Ho Ho," I repeated with more force. "HO HO HO!" I repeated even more loudly. I wasn't fooling anyone though. I had no idea what I was doing. The teachers noticed this too, so they started playing a rendition of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. At this point my main goal was to make Santa not look like a jackass. I think I succeeded in exactly the opposite because as soon as the music started I began to dance around really terribly. I'm not the best dancer as it is, but when you take a rendition of Rudolph the Red nosed reindeer sung by a Japanese woman who or may not have passed high school English and me in front of a crowd of parents, children, and many of my superiors my dancing skills spiral downward to nothing. So I'm hopping around stage pointing fingers around to the beat preying to god that the song will end. They cut it off in the middle to save everyone the embarassment.

At this point I spouted out a few more "Ho ho hos" and they started asking me some questions. The first question they asked was completely impossible for me to understand.

"Ho ho ho, Santa doesn't know very much Japanese," I answered.

"How old are you Santa?" she asked.

Quickly thinking I answer, "1500 years old."

"Wow that's old!" she says to the audience and they kindof halfway clap.

She asked me another question and I repeated, "Santa doesn't understand much Japanese."

It was obvious this was going nowhere so they handed me a white trash back with some candy in it and told me to toss it out. At this point I had to make a judgment call. Did they want me to give the candy to the audience or to the kindergarten kids that were seated neat and orderly in the front row on the left side. I chose the mothers and grandmothers in the audience. To avoid putting out any eyes I took my time and walked around yelling "Ho Ho Ho," handing little sacks of candy to all of the old women. I wasn't sure who I had given it to, so I'm sure some people ended up with two sacks. I was relieved when I started to run out. I headed back toward the front and the chubby Japanese man ran out with another sack full of candy.

"Oh boy!" I said, and I went out into the audience giving everyone candy that I'd missed. I ran out just before reaching the office lady at my board of education. She was the only one who I didn't give candy to so instead I gave her a big hug. Japanese people don't hug though and she cringed away. To the kids it must have looked like Santa was attacking her.

So I said a few more "Ho ho hos" and went back to my broom closet to change. When I returned I was able to see the last bit of another dance routine. They really take this thing seriously making the kids learn all this stuff.

After the festival I hung around while the parents left. "Nice dance," one of the mothers said as they passed me. The principal just smiled at me and shook his head as he left. The plan was to stay and eat lunch with the kids, but at this point I wasn't sure if they'd even want the kids to see my face.

At this point, all of the kids headed into the classroom to get all of the costumes from the festival put into their proper places. The moment I walked into the room they started bombarding me with questions. Here's where things started to look up. First of all, they held no bad feelings about me ruining their christmas play. Secondly, I could actually understand them! I guess my Japanese is reaching the level of a Japanese preschool kid. Somehow that's both sad and comforting at the same time. I answered a few of the questions and then started picking up kids and flinging them around in the air. They LOVE this, and I always get a string of kids lining up to get flung around. I usually only do one at a time, but the kindergarden kids are so small that I can fling around two at a time and not break a sweat.

In between flinging kids around this

Eventually all of the kids started fighting over where I would eat lunch. I guess the classes are separated between the younger students and the older students, and they usually eat lunch in the separate classrooms. One girl was constantly holding my hand and dragging me around asking me if I was going to sit with her at lunch. I told her that I didn't know because I didn't want to let her down if I happened to sit with someone else. Because I was there though, the school decided to group both classes together and eat in the cafeteria. This was really cool because I didn't have to decide who to eat with.

In order to get ready for lunch each of the kids brought out a pair of plastic chopsticks and some rice in a small lunchbox. Since Japanese people constantly have rice cooking, the kindergarten students are expected to bring a little bit of rice from home to eat with their school lunch. I thought this was interesting.

At this point I've stopped flinging the kids around and instead I'm asking them all of the simple questions I can think of; like what character is on their lunchbox and how old they are. One of the kids returns the question and asks me how old I am. When I say 24 he gets a look in his eye like, "hmm, you're 24, but Santa's 1500 years old. I guess you're not Santa after all." It was really funny.

When lunch finally came out, the girl who was obsessed with me got her wish and I sat at her table. The Japanese tradition for Christmas is to eat cake, so that day the kids and I all got a piece of cake with our lunch. One kid immediately dropped his onto the floor. That's what kids do. The girl across from me didn't eat a bite the entire lunch. I don't know if it had anything to do with my presence, but it was a little sad.

After lunch I was expecting to go home, but instead they handed me a big white bag and asked me to hand out what was inside. Inside were a bunch of stockings with Santa or Reindeer heads sewed onto them. I handed out the stockings to everyone but they had to wait until everyone had theirs to open them. On the teacher's word they opened the stockings up. Inside the kids found candy, small toys, and school supplies. I couldn't figure out how the school couldn't afford to give the kids rice, but it could give every one of them a really cool looking stocking filled with cool stuff.

Soon after giving out the stockings it was time for me to head back to the middle school. Before I left though, I got pictures taken with all of the kids.

Younger Kids

Older Kids

I really hope I get to go back to the Kindergarten sometime before I leave. Luckily if I go again I won't have to play Santa!