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Sports day

Three Mondays ago, Nanao had their annual sports day.[^1] The sports day reminded me of the years of Japanese school sports days I used to go to, complete with the representative student’s pledge of sportsmanship, a three legged race, and concluding relay, though it was only half a day.[^2] It also was billed as the Nan’ao town and school joint sports day (村校聯合運動大會) and indeed many parents, families, and other miscellaneous townspeople were there to join in the festivities.

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Possibly one of the positive results of ridiculous college entrance exams and a culture of cram schools: here’s a series of Tokyo Gas commercials. Various historical characters jump out of his armoire (the other end of a time portal) and learn about natural gas products, including John Ambrose Fleming (ad #4)! I swear, though, in the US, you couldn’t run an ad that makes fun of Fleming’s Left Hand Rule. You just couldn’t.

Bailey just pointed me to a hilarious series of videos apparently introducing Japanese culture to foreigners, produced by the Japanese comedians Rahmens. Rahmens are incidentally the ones who play Mac and PC in the Japanese versions of the Apple ads.

Here’s one to get you started: