Doing the Green

Sukagawa prides itself on being a pretty town to look at, what with the peonies and greenery that's everywhere. I suspect it's this sense of civic pride that motivates its people to occasionally mobilize to do a clean-up of the town. The elementary school I was at at the time did just this one morning, and I was roped in to watch over the kids as they went about the neighbourhood picking up trash and stuff. I took it as an opportunity to see a typical suburb in a not so rural area of Japan.

Oh, and there won't be pics in this post because I reckon the rest of the teachers won't fancy a strange gaijin taking photographs of their kids on a school outing. Privacy laws and all that, see.

Anyway, the area around the school was quite nice to walk around in. Japanese houses tend to be quite compact and modern looking, though most will have a tatami room hidden beyond the glass and aluminium. It was from this nice quiet neighbourhood that the kids brought back an impressive bunch of swag, from ordinary items like drink cans, scrap paper and glass bottles, to the slightly less pedestrian tyres, number plates and aluminium siding. I would have liked to keep one of the number plates, since it had the name of the prefecture on it, but I suppose it would have looked very strange for a teacher to be hoarding junk.

All in all it was nice to get out for a break from class after class of screaming kids, and in a situation where I didn't have to be leading the activity. And since the kids were busy spotting even the most minute bit of trash on the street, they didn't have time to hang on to my arms and legs. That can't be all bad.