In Japan, everyone has a shumi, or hobby. They may consider this a standard part of a self-introduction, sharing one's hobbies. What they don't mention is that when they say "My hobby is...", it roughly translates to "I have been doing this since the first thirty seconds after I emerged from the womb and could probably be world-ranked in it if I wasn't so busy working the clerk counter at Lawson Station". In all honesty, Japanese people take the word "hobby" very seriously. Sure, in the US a lot of people are really good at their hobbies and take them seriously...but Japan just brings the whole thing into a new realm. They do hobbies in a way that only the Japanese possibly could.
I think part of the reason for this is that it is so important in the Japanese psyche to belong to a group, and to define your world in communally comprehensible terms. When you start a hobby, like playing an instrument, joining the art club, or joining a sports team, you'll automatically become a member of that group because hobbies are usually done communally, not solo. It gives you a built-in and socially acceptable community to belong to. Moreover, it says something about your personal identity when you tell someone if you have chosen to devote your soul to soccer instead of painting. It helps you establish your position in the community and your personal identity - without breaking the mold, rocking the boat, or singling yourself out, which are all cardinal sins in Japanese society. Japanese schoolchildren abhor being made to do anything alone, like standing up and speaking to a group, or playing a game to try and win for oneself. If you try to make your students play a game, for example, nobody will win if they're playing as individuals. They'll all brainpool and help each other out so as not to have anyone stand out. If you put them in teams of two or more, though, the competition gets FIERCE! Like I'm talking yelling, pounding on tables to encourage teammates, the whole shebang. But this is because in that case, you're playing for your TEAM - not yourself. Being singled out, for positive OR negative reasons, is the absolute worst thing that can happen to a Japanese person. For this reason, Japanese students do almost everything in pairs or teams, and will only do anything solo if given no choice - and then they will do it as quickly, crappily and reluctantly as possible just to get out of the spotlight. By contrast, when working for a common goal, Japanese people would rather die than fail or mess up.
Which brings us to the band concert played by my Yuri Junior High kids this weekend! Like any Japanese person with a hobby, my kids play their instruments at a more or less professional level. They also, in honor of Halloween, proceeded to do this wearing such accoutrements as cat ears, gigantic sparkly hairbows, and headbands adorned with plushie ghosts, pumpkins and so on. The conductor, in fact, entered by running full tilt into the gym wearing a cape, Mickey Mouse hands (the big puffy white gloves), and a huge yellow sequined bow tie. At one point during the show, two girls left the stage and ran around the gym shouting gleefully and flinging handfuls of candy into the audience, shouting something in katakana that I think was intended to be "Happy Halloween". Those of you familiar with Japanese accents can imagine how comprehensible that was... Amazingly, these events were trumped by a random middle school boy's abrupt appearance during one song, waving a plastic sword, as well as various episodes involving lots of Japanese chattering, waving of a cutout of a hand doing janken (rock-paper-scissors), and the random distribution of small prizes. Japanese school band concerts are definitely a little different than American ones...Not to mention that my school band concerts were gallantly suffered through by all attendees, and these kids could probably sell out shows in most cities in the states...
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