Tsukuba Monogatari: Sixth post
I came up with the idea of hosting a picnic/barbecue for alumni of our U.S. training and future trainees who had been nominated by their managers. I nemawashied the barbecue idea and got a positive response. Then I asked a few of the alumni to recommend a suitable date for the event. Three of them agreed that Tuesday, October 10 was a good day (it’s a national holiday). So out went the memos; and when the regrets started pouring in, I found out that Oct. 10 is Sports Day, and lots of schools have undokais (Sports Day events) that the daddies have to attend. I wondered why my cultural informants had failed me. Well, Kondo-san is single, so I excused him; but the other two!
(It turned out that only some schools had undokais, so we had a good turnout.)
I must apologize to my cultural informants for doubting whether they were really Japanese when they recommended Sports Day for the barbecue. After torrential rains on Saturday and Sunday which caused Tsukuba’s only annual event (a huge fireworks display) to be canceled, Tuesday dawned glorious and clear. A real futon-hanging day. A dozen past and future trainees, four wives, six children, one mother, one expat, two trainers, and four dogs converged on Yukari no Mori for a potluck teppan feast. Incredible luck, weatherwise, I thought.
Well, luck is not needed in Japan as it turns out. I was informed that October 10 was chosen as Sports Day because it was the opening day of the Tokyo Olympics, and it was chosen as the Olympics Opening Day because research of historical weather records indicated that there was a high probability of fine weather on that day. And I actually doubted those guys…
“Sun in the trees“: Courtesy of Stanley Zimny. Licensed under cc by NC 2.0
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