Japanese Graduation Ceremonies

The students in the two schools that merged to form the current school that I work in seem to have wanted separate graduation ceremonies very much, which resulted in me sitting through 2 ceremonies today.

I'd always thought that Japanese graduation ceremonies are very formal and rather funeral in terms of the colours worn by the attendees. One of the JETs was sort of told off for wearing a pink tie to his school's graduation ceremony, so I was rather surprised to see male teachers wearing bright coloured ties. Even more surprising were the attire of some female teachers*: not only were some of them in suits that were not black (beige, blue, non-matching jacket and skirt/pants), quite a few of them werent wearing formal shirts or blouses inside their jackets (like polo-tees) or were even in collarless tops.

Apart from that, the ceremonies were rather formal indeed. The graduating batch filed into the hall after their entrance was announced by the emcee, and the national anthem was sung. Then, the homeroom teachers read out the names of all the students in their class, and students had to stand up when their names were called. This is only possible in Japan where schools are small - 2 classes and 4 classes of about 30-39 students for my 2 schools - as I cant imagine them doing the same thing back in my junior college where were about.. 20 classes at least? A representative from each class was given some certificate after that, although I didnt manage to find out what that was all about.

Next came the principal's address, after which the big shot guests were introduced, such as people from the PTA, ward representatives, board of directors, etc. A representative from the immediate batch of juniors then gave a speech addressed to the graduating seniors, followed by a speech from the representative of the graduating class that's addressed to the principal and school on stage. One of the schools sang a song after that - it apparently was a song of thanks to the teachers - but in both cases the school song followed, and then the ceremony came to an end.

It was actually rather short despite the speeches: probably about an hour or so? But oh my.. the first graduation ceremony was for the smaller school, and I think their small size mattered a lot to them, as both students who gave a speech brought up the fact that graduating means that there will be less people wearing the school uniform out on the streets, which made them really sad.

They also seemed to miss the old school building very much. I didnt manage to catch a lot of what the graduating student said in her speech, but I could make out enough to understand that a lot of it was her looking back on memories in the old school, and I think she spent some time taking the audience on a tour of her mental journey through the school building and all the time she spent there.

Both speeches by the students were very emotional; the graduating student was sniffling throughout her 15min speech, which made it somewhat difficult to concentrate! It was rather affecting to see them moved to tears by their speeches and touching too, to see the principal wiping away his tears when they spoke (the principal's speech was quite good too; and he sniffled a bit during his own speech).

That ceremony was somewhat depressing though, and I quite prefered the second ceremony, which happened to also be for the school whose students I teach. I dont know if the fact that this time, it was boys who made the speeches, but the students seemed more forward looking and optimistic about graduating and graduation. It was nice :)

I happened to meet a few of my students on the way home, and they're surprisingly not sad at all about graduating. I suppose it's reflected in how different their ceremony was from the other school - a lot of the graduating students were crying during the speeches - but I didnt expect them to have no sad feelings at all! I think they're really looking forward to post-high school life. One is going to be a hip-hop dancer, another is going for teacher training and the last is going to be a zookeeper. Some interesting fields there!

:)

*: The female teachers who are homeroom teachers of the graduating classes wore hakamas, which is a type of kimono that is usually worn by priestesses in shrines and looks like the korean hanbok.