Every Monday evening, right before we start our club activities (but after the compulsory gathering), we undertake something known as 「ラジオ体操」or, in English, Radio Gymnastics.

This tradition, which I have no idea when it originated but strongly suspect it was sometime in the post-war 50s, begins with removing the tiny, battery-powered mono cassette (!) player from the storage room. This task is, of course, relegated to a first year student. After the device has been removed and placed in a suitable position, we spread out in a large circe in the garage or, if as in the above photo we are outside, in rows according to year-level. The play button is pushed, and the gymnastics begin.

What follows is something that conjures up in my mind a mix of Play School, 1984 and 50s socialism (which, believe you me, Japan was). The piano starts playing and a man with a kind and all-too-happy voice begins counting sets of eight while briefly explaining the exercises. Of course, right away I am reminded of the piano man in Play School, who I remember being excited at seeing whenever they rarely showed him ("So that's where the music came from!"). This Play School connection is futher enhanced by the fact that some of the things we do strongly resemble a piano-accompanied activity that I often partook in whilst watching the show - 'Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes', anyone?

Needless to say, I was struggling to contain a grin the first time I partook in this activity. The Korean student to my right, however, was not so successful, and burst out with laughter. None of this fazed the Japanese students though. They have apparently been doing this exact same exercise since they were little children in primary school and as such all knew the moves by heart. Not one of them batted an eyelid when they found out that we had to continue those same activities as university students!

The longer I stay in Japan, the more I realise just how fundamentally different our cultures are. It goes all the way down to our ways of thinking - distilled down to a very basic level, it's individualism vs. what's best for the group. But I won't go into such a discussion in this post, as it only has one photo, and I'll probably kill people with boredom.

(PS: The above photo was taken at the recent trip out to the University's practice grounds in Niigata Prefecture. I snuck in this photo while no-one was looking - it turned out pretty well, I think!)



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