I attended the entrance ceremony for Kwansei Gakuin University today. It was quite and experience.

During the entrance ceremony, which started at 9am sharp all new students were very tense. The were so tense that I guess they couldn’t breathe. It was quite a site seeing so many people dressed in black. If it wasn’t because all the boys were wearing different color ties, one could say that it was a funeral when all wear black ties, or a wedding, when all wear white ones. Most of the girls, approximately 95% were wearing black suits a well, only that instead of pants they were wearing mini-skirts. I could see only a few girls who were not wearing a black suit with mini-skirts and I guess they are the advance wave of what is to come, as Japan is changing.

The day before the ceremony I had the opportunity to visit the school for my own entrance ceremony of sorts. I noticed that although there was no classes being held, there were quite a few students. Most of these students were preparing billboards and pamphlets. They were preparing for the next day when the new students were going to be at the school. It was quite a site, because there were small student group doing all kind of things from writing the billboards and pamphlets to practicing all kind of tricks, music and dances. I even had the opportunity to see a bartender practice his pirouettes with a bottle and glass.

After the entrance ceremony, as the new entrants were leaving the ceremony hall, the whole campus was lined up on both sides of the path with current students. I guess the whole school must have been there because they were literally lining up all the paths in campus. As the new students translate from the main ceremonial hall to each of the orientation rooms, which each of their schools and departments had set up through out campus, the would have to go through the lines of students on each side of their paths. As they went through this human guard railing of “sempai”, they would be bombarded from left and right with all kinds of pamphlets and verbal invitation. So what is a sempai? You might ask. A sempai is the Japanese word with the closest translation being the superior, but not really. It means those who have gone or done something before you. It could also mean those older than you. I guess it means both in this case, because all the sempais in this case are already at the university and are welcoming the new students. But why are they doing this gesture? Well, it is simple they want them to join their clubs. All kinds of clubs indeed. All the way from badminton, to theater to fencing, American football, skiing and much much more. Quite an scene I must add because some of the clubs were dressing their parts and you could see even cheerleaders and also football players roaming the university’s paths.

In reasoning why the sempais would go through all the trouble of making such preparations to welcome the new students, I couldn’t help to wonder why I have not seen this in the US or Venezuela. The answer was simple, Japanese value their school very much and tend to be active members of their alumni association. Perhaps even more so than in the US. The reason for this is because they start early on. They like to make groups for everything and in most cases those groups last a life time. Thus welcoming the new students is a rite of sorts. It is a tradition that perhaps has been around for several generations. They must compete with other groups to get the best into their ranks. That is why their yells were not “join our club”, but mostly “Please, please, join our club”. You could tell this from the tone of the sempais voices as they would yell “Onegai-shimasu” as they distributed their pamphlets to as many newbies as possible. Later at the bus stop while waiting for the bus to take them to the station, you could see many of the newbies with a big stack of pamphlets on their hands. I guess they would have a lot to digest, read and decide over the next few weeks.