Kendo Entrance Ceremony!

Today was a fun day. I arrived fashionably late to Kendo practice and got the chance to watch the seniors train hard. Saw some terrifying kakarikeiko going on, but everyone was in high spirits and cheered each other on non-stop. After waiting for an hour or so, it was time for the entrance ceremony. I was seated together with the other freshmen in the Yagami campus cafeteria where each table had pasta, fried rice, and karaage chicken on it. We had to do a self introduction (自己紹介) in Japanese, and despite having a template to follow and being able to read from my script, I was still extremely nervous. I finally pulled it off, in front of the entire Kendo circle seated in their respective groups.

It was fun to experience some aspects of Japanese culture, such as waiting for all your 'senpai' to pull apart their chopsticks before you do so, witnessing freshmen kanpai-ing their seniors who came from the same high school after their self-introduction, and seeing some male students wearing the typical high school black button-up uniform as their formal outfit (ikr, like wut??). During the informal induction briefing, we were also handed a piece of paper which listed out all the rules (what a kohai should do before practice, during practice, and after practice) but I couldn't make out what many of them said. Some of the rules were to ensure the windows are open, electricity switched on, water bottles filled up, first aid kit on standby, etc. That was so Japanese.

Undeniably, I enjoyed myself because I got to meet many new friends and even more chances to practice my elementary level Japanese. Here's to meaningful friendships and heaps of training ahead!