Explore everyday life in Japan
If you come to Japan, a scene that you will see almost daily is young elementary school students walking to and from school in loosely formed groups through all kinds of weather, their boxy, leather land-o-sel backpacks protruding stiffly from their backs, and the bright yellow hats of first-graders calling attention to your eyes. You will probably also see volunteer crossing guards waiting at the corners of intersections in the mornings and evenings, and you may even come across yellow satchels attached to crosswalk poles, filled with yellow flags. Students are encouraged to carry these flags high above their heads as they cross the street.
If you think that walking to school is a big responsibility for students entering elementary school at the ages of six and seven, you’re right. It is. Students are often expected to walk down narrow and sometimes busy streets in high heat, heavy rain, high winds, and snow. In many areas, students must walk down roads that don’t have proper sidewalks and, often, the distance they must walk is over a kilometer.
To help ensure students’ safety, schools ask students living close to each other to meet at determined locations and commute together. Older students, those who are in the fifth and sixth grades, are expected to oversee the behavior and safety of younger students, especially first-graders. Likewise, younger students are expected to listen to the directions and suggestions of their upperclassman.
While it is the parents’ responsibility to make sure that their children get to school safely in the morning and without causing trouble, in Japan, it is considered the schools’ responsibility to make sure that students get home harm-free and without getting into trouble along the way. This means that schools in Japan, and teachers especially, are very involved in teaching students about traffic safety, walking etiquette, proper and improper umbrella use, and the other various dangers that students may face along the way.
One acronym that is commonly used around Japan to remind students how to behave during an abduction situation is IKA-NO-SUSHI. Ika is the Japanese word for squid. No is a possessive particle, and Sushi, of course, is sushi. So this acronym literally means squid sushi, but as an acronym it stands for ikanai, which means don’t go, noranai, which means don’t ride with, ooki-na-koe-de-sakebu, which means scream loudly, sugu-nigeru, which means run away immediately, and shiraseru, which means to tell somebody as soon as possible.
This is an ongoing series that will explore various aspects of daily life in Japan. My hope is that this series will not only reveal to its followers, image by image, what Japan looks like, but that it will also inform its followers about unique Japanese items and various cultural and societal practices. If you are interested in getting regular updates about life in Japan, please consider following me at @boxcarblue. If you have any questions about life in Japan, please don’t hesitate to ask. I will do my best to answer all of your questions.