I think I now have some sort of inkling of what a rock star feels like. Our destination for today was Hibi Elementary, an 80 year old school located in Tamano City and they absolutely loved us there. The kids at this school spent weeks preparing for our visit. We were warmly welcomed by the faculty with a special speech of greeting from the principal. Dr. Stapp reciprocated by with his own welcoming speech and by presenting an American flag that had flown over the US Capital.

Then the entire school assembled to greet us in the gym. We individually introduced ourselves and a couple of the Hibi students, in a carefully practiced and choreographed manner, gave us a speech of welcome and friendship in both Japanese and English. They then sang the School Song and we responded with the U of A fight song (which only two of us knew all the words to).

Next, the the JSAP group was divided up among the first three grades. Our group was taken in hand and led to our first stop, the 3rd grade. We joined in with the activities of the day. The first was card slapping game where one student calls out the English word and you have to slap the matching card lain out among the rest of the players. I had a hard time with this game because of the previously mentioned finely honed twitch muscles but also because I had to translate from the Japanese pronunciation to English pronunciation. I didn’t do so well. The only card I took as a prize was “Poo Poo.” Parse that as you will.

The second activity was a tiddlywinks type game that the students had made out of cardboard, discarded milk containers and other common items. The board was divided into out of bound pits, ramps, re-shoot areas, and, at the end, a goal area. Beginner’s luck served me well on my first shot and I got a goal right off. I won a little Shrinky Dink dragon. My follow-up shots were not nearly as good though, I got one in an pit and one was just short of the goal.

Next came a yarn wrapping lesson. Several students used my hands as the basis for a variety of cat’s cradle type yarn wraps. Since my hands were relatively big and I kept moving my hands, I always wound up spoiling the shape so the kids had to show me on their hands. The favorite shape to make was a broom which really works since one kid looked a lot like Harry Potter to me.

The final thing we did with the 3rd graders was a calligraphy lesson. We were given brushes of various sizes and instructed on how to write several things in katakana and kanji. That was nice since I need all the help I can get with my Japanese characters.

Lunch was up next and it sure didn’t look like anything I had ever eaten in a cafeteria in America. The students had prepared lunch, as they do every day, and for being school food, it was not bad and all. Afterward, I whipped out my notes from Japanese class. They were very surprised that I understood any Japanese and they were very helpful when I told them I didn’t know much kanji. So they taught me the kanji for man, otoko男, and woman, onna女. Everyone wanted to help me and they offered me great advice on how to draw them.

For lunch recess we played a huge game of dodge ball. There were approximately 47,542 kids on both sides and an even number of JSAP people were on each side. I got a few shots with my camera right in the middle of the action. We didn’t get close to finishing the game but we did have a lot of fun.

Afterward, it seemed like every kid wanted to shake our hand or high five us or be picked up or have their picture taken with us. At one time I was carrying 3 kids, one in each arm and one on my back and still more wanted to be picked up and carried. Most of them had made homemade name cards which we traded for our business cards. They were incredible friendly and incredibly cute.

We were again split up among the 4th through 6th grade classes. The afternoon class we visited was the 6th grade. They all lined up in rows and introduced themselves to us, shook our hands, told us what they liked to do or eat and sometimes what they wanted to be. One girl told me she wanted to be a trimmer. It was very cute because I think she meant she wanted to be a hair stylist. After introductions, they split us again, Kelli and Sergio in one group and me by myself, for two different activities.

In the first group, I was given a Japanese lesson with a few valuable phrases such as “good morning”, “good evening”, “thank you”, and the like. Then to reinforce the lesson we played the fly swatter game. On the chalk board, a card with the Japanese word and a little drawing of the activity behind the phrase was attached to the board. When the teacher called out the phrase, you were supposed to hit the matching card with the flyswatter. I played against a series of students and, since I don’t speak Japanese very well, was given a handicap. The student I was playing against had to stand a few feet away from the board. Again, I think I did OK but those kids are smart and fast.

The next thing we did was probably the coolest thing we did all day, the kids showed me how to write my name in kanji. Since there are several different kanji that have the same sounds, my name could be spelled in multiple different ways. The 6th graders spent a month looking at the various kanji to find a set of kanji that makes sense when the symbols put together. The kanji for Collin Condray is 虎林 根努伶. Collin means “powerful forest” and Condray means “very hard, wise, smart root” which is pretty cool. Since most Japanese names have a specific meaning, they were very surprised to find out I knew what my name meant. We did have a bit of trouble translating “the young fox” into Japanese though.

The next activity the 6th grade had for us was a pop quiz. They asked us several questions about Japan and Hibi Elementary such as “Does Hibi have a pool?” “What is the nearest country to Japan?” “How many prefectures are in Japan?” etc. Some I knew and some I didn’t and some weren’t really fair such as the “Does Hibi have a pool?” question since we were never given a tour of the school. So after the end when we had some spare time I turned the tables on them and started asking them questions about Arkansas. Some of the questions I asked were “Where is Fayetteville?” “What is the state that is closest to Fayetteville?” “What is the capital of Arkansas?”

The final event with the 6th grade was a fan that we made ourselves with personal kanji and our names in kanji on it. I chose the kanji for sword, 剣. It was a very great gift.

One of the last things we did at Hibi was planting an apple tree, the tree of the state of Arkansas. We planted two trees and hopefully it will be there for the JSAP group of 2005.

We got a mammoth send off from the kids at school. As we carted our gear from the school, the kids had lined up along the path from the front door of the school to our bus. We shook hands, high fived, traded business cards, hugged kids we go to know well, and even signed a few autographs. I was suddenly reminded of the video for the song “Dead or Alive” by Bon Jovi, especially the scene where they’re all exhausted on the bus. I think some of the other people in my group had the same idea since we broke into a few bars of the song.

For a moment, we confused them as we called the Hogs. But around the 3rd time we called them, they joined it. As we drove away from the school in the bus, we leaned out windows waving goodbye all the way down the driveway of the school until we couldn’t see the kids anymore.

We returned to check into our hotel which was right on the beach of the Seto Inland Sea. The place was very luxurious and I had a fabulous view from our room. There were balconies that ran along the entirety of the hotel where you could pull up a chair and just stare into the ocean.

We didn’t have much time to enjoy our room at this time. We had to meet the challenge laid down by last year’s JSAP group, namely jumping into the Seto Inland Sea which almost everyone took up. The water was cold at the beginning but after you were in for a little while you got used to it and it wasn’t that bad. The water was very salty and had a very awful taste but it was quite buoyant and I was able to float in it. Several of the locals walked by with amused expressions on their faces. They thought we were crazy since it was another 6 or so weeks until swimming season. In a down note, Shannon got stung on her face in a few places by a jellyfish.

Our final event of the day was the Mitsui Engineering and Shipbuilding’s (MES) Kendo Club. Just about everyone who was there worked for MES and was very high ranked 4th dan or higher. Our host, Kajihara-san was 6th dan and had been practicing kendo for 35 years and has a great kiai (kendo yell). When we arrived at the dojo the members were already practicing so we saw amazing spectacle of kendo prowess. After their warm-up, we got to see two formal bouts, including one with Kajihara-san, and also, the first set of kata done expertly by a couple of instructors. I got most of it on video so I could watch it later.

Our group also got a introduction to kendo from another of the instructors and manager of one of the constructions facilities at MES, Soba-san. He gave us a brief rundown of kendo, the history, the gear, the targets, etc. Then he showed us his katana with an edge AND LET US HOLD IT AND TOUCH OUR HAND TO THE EDGE. If my iaido instructors ever saw this I think they would have a fit. Since the katana is a slicing weapon and not a cutting weapon, we weren’t hurt by merely placing our hand on the edge. The katana has to have a sawing type action to, similar to the act of cutting bread, before it begins to cut. I like my classmates very much, but I had a very queasy feeling when a few of them held the live sword. No offense guys.

Later we were allowed to do a bit of hitting. Alisa, Nhan, and I had had a little kendo before coming over here and I think we surprised the club with our kiai’s and hitting (puny as they were compared to the rest of the club). Our group’s kendo expert is Alisa and I think she got her share of kudos.We got to hit various targets: men (head), kote (wrist), and do (belly). My do strike is not the best and I gratefully received some instruction from one of the instructors on how to make a better do strike.

Tomorrow, MES.