You can hear the voice of light from high up in the sky

Welcome to music festival season here in Japan. Well, the end of music festival season, in any case. Ever wonder why Japanese people are so great at karaoke? Well, wonder no more. Every child in Japan from elementary school on is drilled relentlessly in singing. Complicated singing. "Breaking things up into parts" singing. "Sounding like perfect little choir angels without a ringer in the bunch" singing. It's a little intimidating.

Last year the music festival was cancelled thanks to swine flu rampaging throughout the island. There was some talk of stopping the ferries and quarantining the island. Parents and teachers were afraid that getting all the kids together into one place to sing would cause every kid on the entire island to catch the flu instantaneously, so no festival for us. Of course, every kid caught the flu at least twice anyway, but not for lack of trying. Anyway, all this is leading up to how much everyone, ALTs included, was looking forward to the music festival.

The elementary school concert was in the morning, and the junior high school concert was in the afternoon. Settling in to listen to the little kids I prepared myself for the kind of singing we had in elementary school back in the US. More enthusiastic than on key. Simple songs where we all sang the melody without breaking into soprano, alto, tenor, and bass sections. Boy was I in for a surprise.

Maybe it was due to the festival being cancelled last year which led teachers to really go all out. Maybe it was just luck to have good singers. Maybe the song choices were better. In any case, they sounded amazing. Highlights of the elementary school sets:

• One school singing a song all in English with perfectly executed sign language during the chorus
  
• Kids swaying so enthusiastically (and out of synch with each other) to the music that they practically knocked each other off the risers
  
• COSMOS, the song in the title. Try listening to that without getting it stuck in your head forever and liking it
  
• One school doing an amazing all-instrumental jazz set
  

It was mind-blowing. And then the junior high schools! I still can't believe how good these kids sound. Highlights:

• Amazing soprano solo from the campiest boy at the Concrete Jungle
  
• The stage almost collapsing when Westside's 188 students all tramped up there to sing.
  
• COSMOS again!
  
• The stage creaking even more alarmingly when Southside's 100+ students immediately clambered on after Westside. I think everyone in the audience was holding their breath.
  
• Getting harassed by the twelve- and thirteen-year-old Westside girls to take pictures of the boys they have crushes on.
  

But the biggest highlight for me was getting a smile from the painfully shy, often bullied girl at Southside when she got on stage with her school. It only lasted a second before she went back to looking like she was going to cry, but it's better than nothing.

The ALTs were almost unable to go to the music festival, actually. We had been scheduled with JHS classes during the elementary school concert and elementary classes during the JHS section. Every other teacher on the island was going to this event, but we were going to miss the whole thing. If I was a first-year ALT that's what would have happened. It's very difficult to challenge your own schedule. ALTs have shorter working hours than Japanese teachers, so we are usually very reluctant to make waves. But, being a third-year who speaks Japanese gave me a bit of an edge. I called around to different schools and rearranged things so that my fellow ALT and I could go to the event.

At the event I made the usual comments about how certain schools did much better this year than two years ago at the last festival. I was mobbed by students who were happy to see me and asked me how they sang. And I heard the usual surprised comments that I mentioned in the "Everybody's gonna love today" entry. Surprise that I remembered how a school did two years ago. Surprise that I knew the name of the soprano soloist boy from the Concrete Jungle. Surprise that the kids were actually happy to see me. Surprise that I would be interested in hearing the kids sing since it's not directly related to English.

I'm starting to wonder if there's some previous ALT in the deep dark past of this island who was really off-putting or something. There's got to be a reason for this level of surprise, right? Because enjoying listening to the kids you teach every week make beautiful music should not be that shocking.