You got yr. cherry blossom bomb....

School has been like Fort Knox during the last week. And I mean that.

Let me go over a few of the exam procedures undertaken by Japanese high schools. First off, during the days in which students are taking their future determining tests, teachers, receptionist and caretakers and not allowed to leave the school grounds. Two intimidating teachers are stationed at the front entrance to keep an eye of the rest of us; heaven forbid we should sneak off to the supermarket across the road to plant answers in the sushi trays.

Needless to say, the rest of the school is also out of bounds. Teachers have to eat their (pre-packaged) lunch at their desks as the lunchroom is somehow off limits. The true level of bizarreness became clear when I was told that for the five days of exams, No one was allowed to use their cell phones or the internet. Exams apparently call for complete and utter isolation from the outside world, even to those people who have no idea what the exams consist of and cannot speak the language.

For the five days I speak of, I sat at my desk from 8am to 5pm, occasionally dipping into my T.C. Boyle book and listening to lots of Grateful Dead. I watched Even Dwarves started small on my lunch breaks which is a highly offensive film about a bunch of German midgets who take over a mental institution. My favourite scene involved two of the midgets getting locked in a bedroom and ordered to copulate. However, they cannot go through with it because the key German midget is too short to get up on the bed. Many of the teachers gave me stricken looks as they walked past, but I remained indifferent and chuckled quietly into my udon noodles.

However, the highlight of the exam period was the bomb scare. A few days before the dreaded lock in commenced, I was joyfully tinkling away at one of the school’s grand pianos in the music room (there are actually TWO grand pianos side by side in the music room, another phenomenon I have not been able to figure out; do they expect two people to practise different pieces at the same time? Anyone who has ever played ANY musical instrument knows that this is completely impossible) when the door flew open and a gaggle of anxious teachers practically dragged me into the corridor.

It turns out that once, a good decade ago, a couple of cheeky high school kids rang their Hokkaido high school (not this one) and in an inane attempt to get out exams, said that they had planted a bomb in one of the classrooms. Obviously the plan worked like a dream. The bomb squad was called to check not only the school that got pranked but in fact EVERY high school in Hokkaido (there are about 250). The boys eventually confessed (and probably got life sentences or deported) but even so, every year during exam period, each Hokkaido school has a series of bomb drills. This involves checking every classroom and evacuating the whole school. Then the police arrive and check every classroom again. This happens for three days in a row.

I wondered quietly as I stood freezing on the tennis court how many years this futile exercise would continue. Surely after a decade of checking for evidence of a glorified practical joke, common sense would kick in. The police would hang up their helmets and students would be given one less thing to worry about during the most stressful part of the year. Things would go back to whatever kind of normal things were beforehand.

And then, I saw the police talking into their intercoms in Die Hard mode and I and I suddenly knew that this charade would never end. This is Japan and common sense comes several notches behind tradition on the cultural hierarchy.

The teacher who sits opposite me wears the same Christmas tie every day. It has reindeer and snow covered Christmas trees on it. Sometimes it makes me laugh. Most days, it makes it makes me want to cry.