The Student Life

When I first came to uni in 1991 I arrived a fresh-faced boy from the country expecting university life to be full of interesting, well-educated people who shared my interests, with whom I could sit about drinking copious coffee and discussing the universe, amongst whom I would feel part of a community of like-minded individuals. In short, I expected an intellectual and community life within which we would be united by the common interest of intellectual endeavour and learning in all its forms. Instead I met a bunch of stuck-up private school idiots who considered it unfashionable to be intelligent, spent their lives drinking beer and trying to fuck other people`s girlfriends, and thought an intelligent discussion was a joke about how much they vomited on the weekend. It was not until third year that I met like-minded people - a bit late, since one promptly buggered off to Sydney, but better late than never, as Stalin might have said to Eisenhower.

Here in Japan, however, things seem to be a bit different. I have become steeped in a very enjoyable type of student life, which seems to revolve around common interests and university clubs, to which people are intensely committed. The anime club, for example, advertises itself with a full-size picture, drawn by the members, of the Full Metal Alchemist, which they display in the rain where it can be slowly ruined. The Christian club have an angelic bunny ascending to heaven, hand drawn, on their poster. Every day club members are out handing out fliers for their club, or giving performances. A week ago I stumbled upon the dance club, 6 men and 6 women, all dressed up in 40s style white suits and fedoras doing a michael-jackson style performance to a jazz song, for the entertainment of the students at lunch. The best part of this club life, though, is the early evenings. I walk through the university after kenpo to go to the kenpo clubroom where we gather before dinner, or to go to the gym which is behind the uni. On these walks through the campus I pass multiple groups of students, all members of some club or other, performing their club activities in the open. On one particular balmy spring evening I passed three groups of students from the music club, performing choral performances on the lawn, before entering a narrow path bordered by hedges, on one side of which the archery club were practicing in a little shooting range. These archers were resplendent in their traditional clothing of black hakama pants, white gi and special headdress, standing poised on little podiums with their bows drawn, waiting for some invisible ritual command before loosing their arrows. Once I was safely past their range I reached the clubroom, which nestles in a little clearing in the woods behind the uni. Here a group of men from another club had gathered around a bench and were cooking a little dinner of nabe, and as I approached they all clapped their hands, exclaimed "Ittedekimasu!" and commenced eating. This is the student life in Tottori!! I can`t wait for summer when the evenings will be long and still, redolent with the smells of summer and buzzing with the song of cicadas and singing insects, and all the student groups will be out of doors as much as possible; then, weary from training, cooling down in the evening and hopefully walking with Japanese Kenpo friends, I hope to find the community life which the universities of my own country could not give me.