It's all about The Carpenters!

On Saturday, my second school held its School Festival. This is actually a "Special Needs" school that I go to once a week (I'll write more about the school itself in a later post.) The school actually has many different levels, from elementary to high school and other special courses, but this was the high school's festival.

This is the third high school festival I've attended at this school, and each year they have also asked me to sing as their "special guest" in the enore. (After playing three songs, they act like they're finished until the audience chants "On-core-eh! On-core-eh!" and the band members act really surprised and then call me up on stage.) I guess it might have been a bit of a surprise for everyone the first year, but now people in the audience expect it. I don't mind doing it (it's actually fun to be a part of their festival and practice with the band members every week) but the problem is that it is not usually music I know all that well or would really choose to sing myself.

The Beatles and Carpenters are really popular in Japan. You hear their music in the background while shopping (kind of like Musac) so perhaps that is where my annoyance with The Carpenters, in particular, grew. Whenever I go to karaoke with Japanese friends, they almost always ask me to sing their favorite song from one of the two groups.... which is usually a bit of a problem because I don't really know their songs all that well, but they don't seem to mind. I think they like these two groups in particular because of the easy-listening, feel-good appeal. (Not exactly like Bon Jovi!)






For the first School Festival two years ago, I sang The Beatles' "ObLaDiObLaDa" (You know it... come on, get out your tambourines and sing along: "La, la, la, la... life goes on...") Actually, that was a fun one, and again, not so easy for the average Japanese to sing with the R/L challenge. Ra ra ra! Then last year, it was "Sing" by The Carpenters. I sang that as a duet with another student. This year, it was the Carpenters again... "Top of the World," which I sang with two other students.

In fact, it's pretty amazing that ALL of the band members could play the instruments they did for their performance, given their varying degrees of physical (and mental) handicaps. Many of them were assisted by teachers, and they have practiced every day for the past six weeks, but the fact is that they did it! The festival itself is kind of a personal challenge for all of these students. The same is true for the different performances that came after the band. There were a couple of short skits and other shows that really made the sutdents challenge themselves as well as kind of "showcase" their talents.

At the end, all of the high school teachers and students of this school came out on stage and sang a song together. Very touching... It's a bit staged but the sentiment was entirely geniuine.





After lunch, students opened "shops" and sold calendars, postcards, wood-carvings, ceramics, and woven items- all things they had made themselves. It's really fun because the stuents act like it's a real market and are always shouting things like "Welcome! Get your calendars here!" in Japanese. They also get a chance to practice making change in the sales transaction. I always buy too much there every year but I know they are things I will want to keep to remind me of this special school and students.

Unlike the School Festival at my main school, Seiseiko, (where the students and Student Council do most of the work organizing it) the TEACHERS at this school are in charge of planning all parts of the festival and performances. It's all worth it, of course, because the students love it and it is definitely one of their most memorable times from high school.

Every year after the festival is over on Saturday, the teachers have a drinking party and dinner to kind of celebrate after the big day and all their hard work. They've invited me every year for that as well, so it's nice to feel a part of their school. Unfortunately, the parties always seem to go like most Japanese parties, which means too many speeches and too little drinking! Well, that's at the "first" party, anyway. The second party is usually karaoke. Which means more drinking and you got it... The Carpenters. Ah well, they're much more tolerable after a few drinks in my system!