[  Mood: Happy ]
[  Currently: Watching BSG while uploading pictures to Photobucket ]
This month, both of my daughters have had graduation ceremonies. Natsumi finished high school, and Sayumi finished college.

Natsumi will be starting at Nakamura University Business College in about a week, working on a 2-year degree, following which she plans to go to Osaka for 2 more years in a cooking school. Then, assuming she doesn’t change her mind over the next four years (how many times did I change my mind during my university years? a lot), she’ll join her birth-father in the family business, a traditional Japanese restaurant in Arita, a small town famed for porcelain.

Sayumi isn’t sure what she wants to do for a living, but she’ll be going to Shanghai University for a year to study Chinese language, starting in October. She majored in Asian Culture Studies in university, focusing on China.

This is the gym at Natsumi’s high school, which happens to be a girls’ school. (Most Japanese high schools are private schools.) The girls are in their uniforms, standing at attention. They must’ve practiced standing up and sitting down a lot–they did it with military precision.

The ceremony was about as unbearably boring as any graduation ceremony, but during the valedictorian’s speech, and then again during the singing of the school song, the sniffling and sobbing were almost deafening. I had to suppress laughter–as a teacher, I’ve been to a lot of grad ceremonies, and there are always a lot of tears. Whereas American grad ceremonies are always cheerful "Thank God it’s over!" affairs. The speech was mostly along the lines of "Thank you to all the teachers; you always helped us, and now we will miss you so much…we promise to do well in the future!" The parents cried like babies, too.

Nobody but the valedictorian receives a diploma in the main ceremony. Everyone else receives them from their homeroom teachers back in their homerooms, so that’s where Natsumi is here, looking at me like, "If you take one more picture, I am going to kill you":

And here she is with her diploma:

As a farewell present, she also received a honkin’ big kitchen knife. I was all like, "Why do they give the students kitchen knives? Is it because they’re girls? Are they supposed to stay in the kitchen?" Junko told me that the high school used to be a school for cooking. Oh.

Natsumi’s homeroom teacher, reaching for a handkerchief to wipe away tears, as the girls are about to give him a bouquet of flowers. He had one of the most ridiculous combovers I’d ever seen. You just gotta have some affection for a guy like that.

The homeroom teacher-in-training, also crying, as are most of the girls at this point. She’s wearing a hakama, an alternative to a kimono for people who want to wear traditional Japanese clothes on a formal occasion.

The graduate with her proud parents, wearing her school uniform for the last time. As soon as she got out of there, Natsumi went downtown with some friends, where they all got their hair dyed and styled for the first time in their lives. Japanese kids cannot wear makeup, have any piercings (including ears), dye their hair, or wear their hair any way other than 2 or 3 approved styles, depending on their school. There are a few exceptions, but nearly all schools have very strict uniform codes. Graduation day is the busiest day of the year for beauty parlors.

And now for Sayumi’s graduation. This is in the auditorium, from the balcony where Junko and I were sitting. 99% of the girls wore hakama, which in recent years seems to have become the de facto uniform for girls graduating from university. 99% of the boys wore black suits. And almost everyone kept themselves awake during the interminable speeches by text-messaging on their mobile phones.

Another look at fashion. The guy in the middle is dressed kind of like a Buddhist priest. I later found out that all the graduates of the various martial-arts clubs dressed that way. And no, he’s not meditating–he’s sleeping.

Up on stage, the top students of each college in the university accept their diplomas. As with the high schools, the mass of students receive their diplomas later in sub-ceremonies.

The sign, by the way, reads "Year 18 of the Reign of Emperor Akihito, Fukuoka University Graduation Ceremony." Sayumi attended the same university where I taught; in a way, we graduated together, because I start work at another (more prestigious) university next week.

Outside, the cheerleader squad awaits the graduates.

Sayumi with her mother.

Sayumi with her best friend, who happens to have gotten a job as a stewardess with Japan Airlines.

The karate club, tossing a member in the air.

The dropped him, by the way. Ouch.