Life at a Japanese school AMA

[AliceShiki]

Are school clubs a big thing out there? (I don't mean the sports clubs, as they exist in one form or another everywhere).

For the record, clubs aren't a thing at all where I live. Like... No clubs at all. Zero.

 

[Ai-chan]

Immortal sama! Another question, please!
Are school clubs a big thing out there? (I don't mean the sports clubs, as they exist in one form or another everywhere).
There is plenty of "clubs" depicted in anime and manga, but are they actually common? Are there designated club rooms? Club activities?
Or is everything like that restricted to personal time and space away from school?
As it happens normally: you and your friends get together at someone's house and do your things away from prying eyes.

This lowly one is grateful for your time.

Yes, it's a very big thing. In middle school, you MUST join a club, no exception. In high school, it's optional, but it's compulsory in middle school. Unlike in anime, clubs are considered extra-curricular activities and will never have priority over official school activities, unless there is a tournament. In that case, attending the tournament is considered an official school affair, which means you can skip class. In middle school, you have to join a club, but you don't have to attend its activities, except for the once-in-a-semester mandated meetings.

Yes, there are designated club rooms, but this differs from school to school. In some schools, your have a small clubroom for each club. In some others, you share a classroom (not a dedicated clubroom) with other clubs. In some poorer schools, you don't have a clubroom. You just have a storage closet, which you just happen to share with other clubs. So in the poorer schools, your club activities would be performed in public such as a classroom, the fields or the benches, instead of a closed room.

School clubs are under the jurisdiction of the student council, but the student council has no power to reject or approve its formation. What student council can do, is reject the application form, if it fails the criteria of forming a club. Approval or rejection of the clubs themselves are up to the teachers, usually either the head teacher or the teacher specifically assigned to manage such duties. The clubs will also need to secure an advisor. Depending on the school, the advisor can include the non-teaching staff, but in Ai-chan's old school, only teaching staff could be club advisors. That's why, sometimes a club application is rejected because no teacher volunteer to be the advisor.

Back in school, Ai-chan joined the archery club. We had practice every weekend, though we did meet and sometimes did shooting practice voluntarily after school is over. In Japanese schools, you absolute have to do activities at least once a week. For movie club, you have to watch a movie together at school once a week, for example.

Doing club activities at a person's home is not considered 'club activity' for official purposes. You have to do it at school for it to count. However, you can perform club activities outside if you properly make a report about it. In Ai-chan's day, the photography club regularly had their club activities outside such as at the beach, the mountains or the city, but they went as a club and the club advisor had to approve of such activities and be present when it's performed.

If you have any further questions, just ask.

 

[Florestes]

In some cases, it depends on how hot you are. In most cases, you're treated like a curiosity. It's not too exaggerating to say that you'd be treated like a zoo animal. People will want to look at you, talk to you, and stalk you, but most students would just keep a distance from you. The most likely person who would be your first friend would be the class representative or assistant. The homeroom teacher will always be there to help you if you need it, and the teacher will always ask if you're having problem understanding Japanese or if you're being harassed by other students. Other than that though, life goes on.

White foreign exchange students are usually handled like a porcelain doll. If you do something wrong, you'd be mostly forgiven as you're just a foreigner and it's assumed that you do not know the local culture. However, due to this wariness, it'll also be hard for you to initiate communication with others outside your own class, especially if your Japanese sucks. In this case, you can find additional friends through clubs and circles.

The students under foreign exchange do stay with host families, but that's as far as Ai-chan can tell you. Ai-chan doesn't know the details as we never got foreign exchange students in Ai-chan's class. There was one guy from Germany in one of the upper classes back when Ai-chan studied there, but we stayed away from him. Not because we were afraid of him, but because he was not only an upperclassmen, he was also in another class.

Going out of our way to communicate with him would be considered a nuisance. That's why there's the colliding at the corner trope. If you collide at the corner, you can use that as a point of contact. You can either initiate communication right away or come back later to apologize or make amends.

This one shall remember your benevolence, your Highness!

You have mentioned - points of contact between students in different classes.
Do joint classes happen in Japanese Schools? (Different year students attending the same lesson at once).
From personal exp. in school: we've had gym class and music lessons, sometimes with another class (both same year or above/ bellow). Maybe literature too? Eh, don't remember.
I'm pretty sure that I've made a few friends outside my class that way. So it wasn't completely uncommon to have a person not from our class mingling among us during recess.

???

 

[Ai-chan]

This one shall remember your benevolence, your Highness!

You have mentioned - points of contact between students in different classes.
Do joint classes happen in Japanese Schools? (Different year students attending the same lesson at once).
From personal exp. in school: we've had gym class and music lessons, sometimes with another class (both same year or above/ bellow). Maybe literature too? Eh, don't remember.
I'm pretty sure that I've made a few friends outside my class that way. So it wasn't completely uncommon to have a person not from our class mingling among us during recess.

???

Joint classes do happen, particularly at overcrowded school or poorer schools. However, from what Ai-chan heard, in some places only physical education classes have student from different years being in the same class, particularly when they have the same physical education classes at the same time. Apart from that, it doesn't really happen. It's because students from different years study very different things. The things to learn for a 1st year and 2nd year are very different.

Unlike western schools, you can't mix and match the classes you want. If you have to repeat your second year, you have to repeat the whole second year. You can't repeat second year but go to third year classes.

Ai-chan can't say about music class. Ai-chan has never shared a music class with any other class, whether the same or different year. It probably happen in other schools, but Ai-chan can't say for sure.

To mingle with people outside our own class, the point of contact are usually from two things: extra-curricular activities (such as school clubs) or as you move up the year. In Japan, your class and position is not fixed year to year. It could you that you were in 1-1 (1st Year Class 1) in year one, but transferred to 2-3 in year 2. Your friends would be in the same situation. Some of your 1-1 friends could go to 2-3 as well, but other friends would probably be in 2-1 or 2-2.

As you move to new class, you make friends with your new classmates. But you don't stop being friends with those you know in the previous year. So these old friends would introduce their new friends to you and sometimes you go to each other's class to hang out. So it's more fluid that way. You're not stuck with the same annoying faces year after year, unless you're incredibly unlucky.

 

[AliceShiki]

Unlike western schools, you can't mix and match the classes you want. If you have to repeat your second year, you have to repeat the whole second year. You can't repeat second year but go to third year classes.

We couldn't mix and match over here either~

It could you that you were in 1-1 (1st Year Class 1) in year one, but transferred to 2-3 in year 2. Your friends would be in the same situation. Some of your 1-1 friends could go to 2-3 as well, but other friends would probably be in 2-1 or 2-2.

Ah, this happened here too, but we could request to be put on the same classes as up to 3 friends of ours.

So, we could stay in the same class as our friends without necessarily staying in the same class as some nuisances~

... Though the best students each year were all put on the same class, so sometimes we couldn't really choose due to our grades... But that was just for the top 40ish students. The rest were paired together randomly and/or by request.

 

[Florestes]

We couldn't mix and match over here either~

Ah, this happened here too, but we could request to be put on the same classes as up to 3 friends of ours.

So, we could stay in the same class as our friends without necessarily staying in the same class as some nuisances~

... Though the best students each year were all put on the same class, so sometimes we couldn't really choose due to our grades... But that was just for the top 40ish students. The rest were paired together randomly and/or by request.

No mix and match here either.
Sometimes there would be "special" one off lessons that would have several different classes joined (History/literature lesson: watching some documentary/classic and writing up some test/impression about it. Something along those lines.)

And as a rule we stayed in the same class all throughout the school life. The people swapping classes were the exception to the rule (maybe one class has too many students or the student has asked to be moved to another class herself/himself)




This unworthy one begs Her Majesty to listen to one final question.

A little bit off topic... .
What's life for the students after school hours? Are there any popular trends? True stereotypes? Juicy insider info?

Or is everyone too tired from extracurricular activities and needs to do homework, so there is no time or energy for anything else but going to sleep?

There is homework? Right? I think that only Finland up here is basically homework free.

Greatly appreciated.

 

[AliceShiki]

There is homework? Right? I think that only Finland up here is basically homework free.

Over here it varies from school to school, but in my High School, homework was completely optional... Like, we did receive homework regularly, but it had 0 effect on our grades. The only thing that affected our grades were our tests.

This was because my High School was focused heavily on uni-entrance exams though, so like... The only thing that matters to get you inside uni (at least over here) are your grades at the entrance exam, so that's the only metric that the school used to evaluate you, in order to better prepare you for the uni exams and stuff.

 

[Ai-chan]

No mix and match here either.
Sometimes there would be "special" one off lessons that would have several different classes joined (History/literature lesson: watching some documentary/classic and writing up some test/impression about it. Something along those lines.)

And as a rule we stayed in the same class all throughout the school life. The people swapping classes were the exception to the rule (maybe one class has too many students or the student has asked to be moved to another class herself/himself)




This unworthy one begs Her Majesty to listen to one final question.

A little bit off topic... .
What's life for the students after school hours? Are there any popular trends? True stereotypes? Juicy insider info?

Or is everyone too tired from extracurricular activities and needs to do homework, so there is no time or energy for anything else but going to sleep?

There is homework? Right? I think that only Finland up here is basically homework free.

Greatly appreciated.

After school hours, there are several choices:
1. Go home
2. Go shopping/karaoke/eat/play football with friends
3. Go to clubs
4. Go to extra classes at the cram school

Popular trends shift monthly, depending on what the trendsetters decide, so it's hard to say. The Japanese are very sensitive to trends. What's popular in one season, can be unpopular in another. If you don't wear something that follows the trend, others would say that you're outdated. This is one of the Japanese cultures that not even the Japanese is fond of. There was this one youtuber who moved to Malaysia and she was like "Wow, I don't have to stay up to date with the trends anymore. I can go to the mall in shabby clothes and nobody cares."

Extracurricular activities commonly only run for 1 or 2 hours, and not all of that time is spent actually doing the activities. For example, in Archery Club, we only shoot for like 10 minutes, separated into 5 minutes for our turn or until our arrows, 10 of them are used up. The rest of the time was spent on discussing how or why our arrows strayed, fixing the arrows, doing arm exercises, doing paperwork or just chatting with each other. After all, there were only 4 of those targets for like 30 of us.

Yes, there are homework. But in comparison to other countries, it could be considered somewhat light, maybe? Ai-chan doesn't know, Ai-chan doesn't study in other countries. For maths, the homework is usually one page of math problems. For Japanese, a journal with 1 Japanese word per day, including its kanji, meaning and example sentences. For English, a journal of regular English word, including its meaning and grammatical components. It's because it's common for Japanese students to go to cram school after school, so giving them too much homework overburdens them.

 

[Florestes]

Just to clarify.
All of that applies to school vacation too?

P.S.

Extracurricular activities commonly only run for 1 or 2 hours, and not all of that time is spent actually doing the activities. For example, in Archery Club, we only shoot for like 10 minutes, separated into 5 minutes for our turn or until our arrows, 10 of them are used up. The rest of the time was spent on discussing how or why our arrows strayed, fixing the arrows, doing arm exercises, doing paperwork or just chatting with each other. After all, there were only 4 of those targets for like 30 of us.

AAA aaaaAA!!!! You are BREAKING them! Our rose tinted glasses! Our illusions! God is dead!

That would have been the point of me turning around and going to join the gym club.

 

[Ai-chan]

Just to clarify.
All of that applies to school vacation too?

P.S.

AAA aaaaAA!!!! You are BREAKING them! Our rose tinted glasses! Our illusions! God is dead!

That would have been the point of me turning around and going to join the gym club.

Yes, the Japanese education system pretty much believes in keeping the students productive. Since they believe that students who have too much free time on their hands will do not so nice things.

 

[LynaForge]

In middle school, you MUST join a club, no exception.

This depends on the school.

Unlike western schools, you can't mix and match the classes you want. If you have to repeat your second year, you have to repeat the whole second year. You can't repeat second year but go to third year classes.

Ai-chan can't say about music class. Ai-chan has never shared a music class with any other class, whether the same or different year. It probably happen in other schools, but Ai-chan can't say for sure.

Unless you have some sort severe illness that kept you out of school for one year, you're not repeating a year. It's compulsory so you MUST continue on to the next grade, no matter your scores. In Uni, you can repeat a year, but from first grade to the last year in high school, you move forward.

Over here it varies from school to school, but in my High School, homework was completely optional... Like, we did receive homework regularly, but it had 0 effect on our grades. The only thing that affected our grades were our tests.

アリスさん日本に住んでいますか？

 

[AliceShiki]

アリスさん日本に住んでいますか？

Nah, I'm from Brazil.

 

[Florestes]

Your Excellency! Spare these peasants a second of your time!

In Japanese Schools, do students come up with "mysteries" "supernatural phenomenon" "folktales" "stories" that are unique to their own school? (A version of the 8 wonders of the world, but more local and creepy?) Are the people there just more spiritual? A legit way to mess with transfer students? Old traditions?
Or is that a trope from anime/manga/movies that only foreigners believe in?

Share with us your profound knowledge, oh great one! (So that we can copy paste it, he~he~he.)

 

[Ai-chan]

Your Excellency! Spare these peasants a second of your time!

In Japanese Schools, do students come up with "mysteries" "supernatural phenomenon" "folktales" "stories" that are unique to their own school? (A version of the 8 wonders of the world, but more local and creepy?) Are the people there just more spiritual? A legit way to mess with transfer students? Old traditions?
Or is that a trope from anime/manga/movies that only foreigners believe in?

Share with us your profound knowledge, oh great one! (So that we can copy paste it, he~he~he.)

It's usually kind of natural progression thing. You got one guy who said he saw a ghost in the science lab. And then another guy said he saw the human anatomy model move. And then another guy said he couldn't breathe while in the science room. And boom, you got a ghost who at some point in the past suffocated to death in the science room.

In some cases, the mysteries of different schools are copypasted. All it takes is one person who make it up, a few more people to corroborate the encounter and before you know it, the whole school think it's real. Kids are just like that. Kids love mysterious stories.

Ai-chan can't remember all but back in Ai-chan's old middle school, we also had our own school mysteries.
1. The white cloth outside the 2-2 window. On some nights, if you see a white cloth outside the window, don't open the windows. Because if you do, you will be dragged outside and fall to your death. Ai-chan has never seen it, but some classmates apparently did.
2. The knocking on the night of school festival. On the night before school festival, if you heard a knock at the door, keep quiet. Don't ask who, don't open the door. If it's a person, they would open the door themselves. If they don't open the door, keep quiet and let it pass. If you open the door, whoever saw who's on the other side of the door will die in 7 days. Ai-chan actually came across this once. It was a raining day. Suddenly there was the sound of knocking at the door, one of us wanted to open but the rest pushed him down. Then the knocking just went away. But as the sound of thunder hit us, the door shook like it was about to open and we all screamed. But nothing happened.
3. The ball that bounced on its own. The story is about the ball that for some reason appeared on the ball court. Sometimes it was a football, sometimes it was the softball, and sometimes it was the volleyball. Basically on some days, you could hear a ball that bounced on its own. There is a ball there, but you don't see it bounce. It just had the sound of a bouncing ball, but it's not bouncing. Ai-chan never came across this, but supposedly a lot of people have experienced it.
4. The red water. Sometimes at night, you would open the pipes, and red water the colour of blood would come out. No, nothing would happen. It's just that if you use it to wash your face and you come back to your friends, they will think you just got murdered. Ai-chan only know this happen once, during the Kendo Club's stayover during summer break. But the story happened after Ai-chan graduated, so not really sure of what happened. Nobody died, but the victims supposedly was bedridden for several days.

Instead of more spiritual, Ai-chan thinks it's more accurate to say that the Japanese are superstitious. The whole Shinto thing is basically the belief that everything has a god and if that god wants to bless you, they can, but the opposite is true, they can curse you if they're angry. So you respect pretty much everything so that you don't get cursed. Food? Yeah, eat that fucking shit before it curses you with kidney stones.

Shinto also doesn't not really have the concept of 'afterlife'. They believe that a dead soul simply returns to nature. Basically, Shintoism is used for living people. But for dead people, you depend on Buddhism. The Japanese themselves do not think much of religion. It's not that they're atheists, it's more like "Why bother praying to a god you can't see?" Yes, the Japanese do pay homage to the kami, but it is cultural, not religious. It's kind of hard to explain, the concept of Japanese spirituality is an entire book of its own.

A legit way to mess with transfer students?

Certainly, there are 'school mysteries' that were meant to troll foreigners. But sorry, Ai-chan only recalls one. The story about the ghostly watermelon. It is said that if you come across a watermelon in the middle of the road, you must carry it to the police officer and say the words, roughly translated, "Green and white. How I miss you! Those days of summer!"

At this point, the policeman would usually tell you to stop messing around. One officer said it's blue, not green. And if he was Shinoyama-san, he would laugh, cut the watermelon and give you half. Then he'd ask you to say thanks to the friend who pranked you.

 

[Florestes]

All it takes is one person who make it up, a few more people to corroborate the encounter and before you know it, the whole school think it's real. Kids are just like that. Kids love mysterious stories.

Our schools are boring in that regard.

4. The red water.

Rusty pipes and a barely used faucet? Happens in older buildings all the time.

So you respect pretty much everything so that you don't get cursed. Food? Yeah, eat that fucking shit before it curses you with kidney stones.

DAMN, I've actually laughed a few times while re-reading this part. Thanks!
(As I read it for the fifth time, I decide to include it in my shitty story for the two people who read it, to have a laugh with me.)

Thank you for the reply Ai-chan ??.

 

[Ai-chan]

Our schools are boring in that regard.

Rusty pipes and a barely used faucet? Happens in older buildings all the time.

DAMN, I've actually laughed a few times while re-reading this part. Thanks!
(As I read it for the fifth time, I decide to include it in my shitty story for the two people who read it, to have a laugh with me.)

Thank you for the reply Ai-chan ??.

No problem. All the best and have fun with your story.

 

[Florestes]

Young Mistress! Young Mistress!
Can you shine a spotlight on the teachers? How are they like people? (Blank faced placeholders like most anime show them to be?)
Can we write about interested normal human teachers without making them supernatural beings and/or a complete piece of shit that was created for the sole purpose of being killed in chapter x?
Are there any quirky/weird/lovable/popular/buddy -buddy/old hag/that asshole types among them? Or are they more detached from the students?
? personal experience?

 

[Ai-chan]

Young Mistress! Young Mistress!
Can you shine a spotlight on the teachers? How are they like people? (Blank faced placeholders like most anime show them to be?)
Can we write about interested normal human teachers without making them supernatural beings and/or a complete piece of shit that was created for the sole purpose of being killed in chapter x?
Are there any quirky/weird/lovable/popular/buddy -buddy/old hag/that asshole types among them? Or are they more detached from the students?
? personal experience?

The teachers are like any other teachers in other countries, maybe? Some are strict, some are laid-back. Some cuss and do everything they can to avoid doing troublesome work.

While it's not the rule, all the disciplinary teacher that Ai-chan know of are men. They rarely carry those canes but they were not shy about using those canes when the situation calls for them. In Ai-chan's school, only the disciplinary teacher may cane students and it's not uncommon for them to give light taps on the thighs (covered by pants or skirts) as warning when they break school rules. Actual caning happens toobut only for severe infractions, such as being caught smoking in school, bullying and stealing.

In middle school, we have a homeroom teacher who was very childish. Her name was Masami Yukishiro. She spoke like a kid, throws tantrum when things didn't go her way and she's very calculating. We love her because she felt like one of us, whenever we do something wrong, she would give us a choice, take her punishment or take the discipline teacher's punishment. Most of us would take her punishment, because at worst, we'd just be told to clean the art classroom or help wash the dishes at the school kitchen. Other than that she also know when to be strict. Though personally, Ai-chan thinks she would struggle if we have any real delinquents in the class.

 

[Florestes]

disciplinary teacher

??? What is that? Is it tasty??? Google search... Oh...RIP. That's something parents tell their children about the old days in the Soviet Union. Now... Now you'll be reported to the police for any aggressive behaviour. (If not assaulted by the students themselves)

Childish..speaking like a kid..throwing tantrums..calculating.. !!! Komoe Tsukuyomi !!! Legal loli teacher! I've completely forgotten about that trope!

---
P.S.

Happy Women's day! All the best! All for the better!

 

[AliceShiki]

Ai chan! Ai chan! A question!

... Do people actually start dating and like... Not kiss right away?

It feels so weird for me when I see it in mangas. I just assume by default that people would kiss as soon as they start dating at the very minimum.