Absurdity at ceremonies is no laughing matter

People who stand burn off more calories than those who remain seated. On a moving train, a standing passenger is said to use up two times more calories than a seated passenger.

When one stands at attention before a superior or an elder, perhaps one is giving the person this nonverbal message: "I'm showing you respect by assuming a posture that's more fatiguing than yours."

During this season of school graduation ceremonies followed by entrance ceremonies next month, this "posture of respect" for the nation is demonstrated at schools all over Japan. Teachers who remain seated in front of the national flag and during the singing of the "Kimigayo" national anthem are punished for burning fewer calories--that is to say, showing less respect to the country--than those who do stand.

"Utawasetai Otokotachi" (Men who want to force others to sing), a play written and directed by Ai Nagai and shown for the first time in 2005, has returned to a Tokyo theater.

The cast of characters includes a social studies teacher who remains seated every year, the principal who tries to persuade this teacher to stand, and a flustered music teacher who plays the piano accompaniment to the national anthem.

The play, featuring a farce that takes place just before the school's graduation ceremony, gives the audience a good laugh while making everyone think about "inner freedom."

The social studies teacher speaks with a broad Nagoya accent, and the principal mimics this accent when he begs him to stand up and sing the anthem. The principal is actually a good guy caught between the faculty and the local board of education. In fact, all the teachers are good, decent people who are trapped in their shared quandary, and the play's central theme is the absurdity of it all.

Nagai explained why she decided to stage her play again: "The situation hasn't become any better for schools since our first performance two and a half years ago.

"We won some stage awards, which made us happy, but then the question arose: Is it right for us to just keep resting happily on our laurels (in these circumstances)?"

According to Nagai, more teachers have since begun to stand reluctantly because they could not afford to be suspended or have their salaries cut.

Lately, about the only free hand teachers are said to be given in planning a graduation ceremony is whether to use ceremonial red-and-white drapes. With the nation's education authorities forcing the teachers to prove allegiance to the state, graduation ceremonies proceed joylessly with grim precision.

People's feelings about their country arise spontaneously, like when they are elated to hear their national anthem played during the Olympic Games, or when they feel relieved and reassured to see a Hinomaru flag fluttering at a Japanese Embassy in an unfamiliar country. These feelings are all spontaneous, not forced.

Schools are using up tremendous "calories" meddling with all sorts of people's private thoughts and ruining human relations. When a farce has turned into reality, nobody can really laugh.

--The Asahi Shimbun, March 17(IHT/Asahi: March 18,2008)