I finally got the longer headpost to my cycle from a cycling shop in Obihiro last weekend so I installed it and since the weather was great on Wednesday, I went cycling for the first time in almost a month. That it, the first long distance trip. I went to Chimikeppu-ko, a lake in the middle of a forest, in a national preservation area. The place looked just like Finland and its lakes.
The most important event of the week was something I had not paid a lot of attention to - a visit to Hokko junior high school in a suburb of Kitami. That is to say, I had not prepared for it at all so I only did it on Wednesday evening. Had I started before, I might've had an interesting series of photos with me but I really didn't think about that stuff too much, I just wanted to get the visit over with.
In contrast, when we arrived to the junior high, we were received with the warmest welcome we've ever had by complete strangers. The children were totally unlike their junior high counterparts in Finland - they were friendly, funny, cheerful and really excited about people around them. (Finnish high school kids, especially boys, have a completely different attitude - they try to act impossibly tough; failing that, they are too shy to speak about other subjects than computer games or something equally nerdy).
We had a dance, gifts, songs, calligraphy, games and all around a lof of fun. I guess the children don't have such an opportunity to meet foreigners every day, so they really wanted to take out most of it. What the girls wanted to do was to touch Mika's hair all the time - his curly, soft hair was something really strange and beautiful for the girls so they just ran after Mika, touching his head all the time. At some point, they turned attention to my hair too and poked around Matias' head as well.
I really wanted to go to Obihiro by cycle this time, but what do you know - rain once again on the weekend. For a month, it has rained every Friday in Kitami. So, I decided not to even wait for Friday and hopped on the last bus of Thursday instead.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
"Finnish high school kids, especially boys, have a completely different attitude - they try to act impossibly tough; failing that, they are too shy to speak about other subjects than computer games or something equally nerdy."
I would like to correct you that Finnish comprehensive school children might act that way in closed group like in a class. By putting them in the same kind of situation like you were I could imagine the curiosity to new things to be found in them too.
Upper secondary school children are more mature and children who did not want to be study for the matricular examination are in the other schools so the bad apples are gone and more intellectual are left. So your description about acting more ‘cool’ and ‘tough’ might be wrong.
Well, in my junior high, there were definitely some people visiting the school every now and then. Granted, there were no exchange students, but I just don't remember any kind of enthusiasm which would even distantly compare with the one we received by the Japanese students.
It's true though that the senior high school kids are more mature in Finland too, but I didn't generalize that far - just considering the junior high school kids.
Oh, you had visitors when you where in comprehensive school. In my school there were non I remember. But things happen and people are different.
No problem ;).
I hope you enjoyed this visit more than the time before.
Post a Comment