Emergency!!!

Friday we had an earthquake emergency drill. For the most part it was a typical emergency drill - teachers lined up inside and outside of the building, ushering students onto the field and organizing them according to classes, timing the progress. To sustain the image of emergency the students even exited wearing their inside shoes! Many speeches followed, in typical Japanese fashion, from the principal, vice-principal and men from the fire department who had come to over see the drill.

Then the best part came. Students from each class were nominated to test out the new escape chute, to be utilized from the third floor in the event of all sets of stairs crumbling. The chute was really just a long canvass tube without structure or supports, with no rope or ladder inside, and with a small flap at the bottom to catch the escapees, held by one teacher. Each student jumped down the chute, emerging (carrying their shoes, later to be washed before re-entering the school in stocking feet) to the cheers of their classmates. Finally the teacher overseeing the whole operation (the social studies teacher who sits across from me in the office) decided to follow suit, tumbling out at the bottom and laying splayed on the ground shaking with laughter and listening to the cheers and laughter of the whole school. He came over to me, blushing and proudly displying his rug-burned elbows, probably happy to prove to me that i'm not the only one who can make an ass of myself in front of the school. What a good man.