Writing POC 101

Japanese Characters - @minxrals

I'm hopefully gonna give you a bit of info to school life in Japan from what I've experienced!

First of all I need to tell you some things. I was born and raised in New Zealand speaking English and Japanese, but I do frequently visit family in Japan and go to school for a few weeks every few years. In year 7 (year 6 in Japan, grade 6 (I think)) I went to Japan for six months and went to school the whole time. I also went to junior high for a few days last year so hopefully with that knowledge plus some info from my mum I can tell you what it's like!

I'll start with the basics. At elementary school (or at least mine) students walk to school. In my school we had neighbourhood groups that started with one student and they went around to each meeting point until everyone is together and we all went to school. This was my school but other schools would be different, for example in bigger cities (I lived in more of the countryside) kids might ride buses or trains.

Some schools would have mufti but if you are doing PE (sports) that day we would wear the uniform which is like a tracksuit type thing

There are three types of alphabets in Japan which I'm guessing most of you are aware of. They are hiragana, katakana, and kanji. In kindergarten you learn hiragana and katakana and you begin to learn kanji in year 1 of elementary school. The kanji usually get gradually either harder or more difficult words/meanings (ex: year one you learn things like tree, water etc.) anyway I could go on for ages about kanji but I'll leave it at this.

Schools in Japan serve food so you do not bring lunches unless you are going on field trips, where mothers or grandmothers 'n' stuff usually make intricately shaped rice balls or super decorative packed lunches (obento) since you only get packed lunches a few times. You've probably seen them around the Internet, they're really cool. School lunches are brought into the classrooms and students take turns each week serving the food. Usually they come with a milk carton (apart from the occasional drinking yogurt or yakult) in my school if there was left over milk or fish or something (when students were sick and there were a few things leftover) we did rock paper scissors to see who could get seconds.

I don't think any of you would even think of having to clean the school toilets. However, at school in Japan, every day usually in the afternoon (1 pm) we would clean the school. There's a chart in the classroom and we are each assigned different things each week. Cleaning classroom floors, mopping hallways, wiping windows, and, yes, cleaning school toilets, are just a few of the jobs to do. If you've seen sailor moon you've probably seen them cleaning the classrooms.

Okay, junior high school. Firstly, no, they do NOT wear skirts so short they show your ass. That's just the anime manga shit. (Do you really think every school girl in Japan had boobs that big?) When I went it was winter season so their uniform was like a white shirt with the navy lines on the collars and the hems of the sleeves and long skirts with white socks 'n' stuff.

At this age people either walk to school alone/with friends (as in not neighbourhood groups anymore) but most students ride their bicycle to school.

At most schools in Japan they're quite strict about things like body modifications and stuff like that. Most places you aren't allowed hair dye, piercings or anything. So no you won't see ten girls with neon coloured hair and 29733883 hair clips at school.

Although extra-curricular activities are not compulsory, you kind of get looked down on if you do not participate in any. Most girls do basketball or volleyball, it's kind of the main one but there are a range of other things like art, food tech etc. Most boys do either baseball or soccer and same as before.

Also! People say senpai. Senpai sort of means someone who is older or higher level than you, in sports, clubs etc.

Ex. student one: ohayougozaimasu yuka-senpai! (good morning (formal) yuka-senpai))

Student two: ohayou ichika-chan! (good morning (informal) ichika))

Please don't use anything along the lines of 'notice me senpai' unless you know what you're doing. Cause like, it is not like that.

I'm sorry that was long, whoops. I hope I was able to shed some light on school in Japan and once again I don't exactly currently live on Japan so I may have some facts wrong so please tell if I have. Thanks and happy writing!!

One more thing!!! School isn't super strict, we don't constantly have our heads down in silence and not all students are a+++ (my mum told me she learnt how to sleep with her eyes open lmao) teachers do crack jokes and we do have fun. I guess most students just understand when it's acceptable to do so and when it's time to focus and study. Thanks.