The Japanese Torture Chamber - School

Hello G'Day welcome to yet another blog about Japanese culture!

My name is JohnnyBloggyBoy and today we will discuss the nightmare of each and every child, no matter of their nationality... I am not talking about dentists, but that was a good guess, you are right THE SCHOOL. [insert some dramatic sounds here, could be organs going da da daaaam]

As you may imagine the school system is a bit different in Japan, than this one in Europe, or Eastern Europe to be more specific. I don't feel like writing Iliad or Odyssey here, so allow me to divide this topic into 2 main points of interest: school culture and extracurricular activities.

Okay school culture, otherwise known as military prequel and unpaid child labor. 
Ha! got ya, now after this hook you will read the whole paragraph with interest devouring you from the inside. Let's begin.
Japanese kids actually do not spend so much time in the classrooms, as we could see on the graph presented during our last lesson, but it is not about the quantity, but quality. At least that's what they say. The time pupils spend there is well, army-like. There are very strict rules concerning appearance, there is no grade repetition and you essentially lose yourself as you are taught to work in groups. Pretty different to what we are used to eh? 
But this is not all. Imagine during your lunch break being responsible for cleaning the corridors, and you are happy to do so. Then the next day you clean the stairs. And the next day you serve other students in cafeteria. Honestly, the guy who invented this stuff must be either an immoral tyrant or a genius, maybe both at the same time. Imagine how much money can any institution save if they used children as their janitors. Major Bag Alert!!! 


But the school doesn't end when you exit the building, oh no, it only just begins. Here most of children attend either the cram schools, which are basically additional private school help, or you are a part of a school club, which is a life-sentence - a tattoo in comparison appears to be temporary and a not binding decision. 

I guess what I am trying to convey is that Japanese do things 100%, if they are students, they will do everything to be the best one; if they're baseball players, they will die trying to become the best ones.

One part of me admire such an attitude and the other tells me it's too mach man.

Cheers, see you in the next one!