3 years done, 3 to go

Today was also the half point in Cian’s secondary school education. And this being Japan, yes, of course, the event was marked with an official ceremony to which the parents were invited (expected) to attend.
So we went.
In Japan, second-level schooling follows the American system in that it is split up into junior high school and high school with three years in each (for, maths fans, a total of 6 years). At the end of junior high school there is an emotionally intense, tear-laden graduation ceremony, and then the same again three years later at the end of high school (but with everything dialled way up to 11).
However, Cian’s school is unusual (by Japanese standards) in that it is a single secondary school where students go for six years. With the result that there is no graduation ceremony at the end of year 3.
But no ceremony at all would go against the very fundamentals of Japanese society, rend open the portals of rice-eating reason, and unleash unimaginable chaos on an unsuspecting world.
So, instead they have the 前期課程修了式 which Google translate renders as
“Closing ceremony for the first semester”,
where ‘semester’ in this instance is three years long.
And, so we went.
To the school gym where all the students were presented with a very officious looking certificate, the school principal made a speech (and closed it out with a cúpla focal as béarla), and all the while the god-awful school anthem played on repeat in the background.
As a cultural aside: pretty much every school in Japan has its own school song. Invariably these sound the same (think Enya with more piano), with the same anodyne aspirational lyrics that invariably reference ‘the future’, ‘sky’, ‘wings’ and ‘dreams’. Inexplicably there is never any reference to more adolescent concerns like ‘contraception’ or ‘the shocking price of provisional license car insurance’.
The ceremony also marked the end of compulsory schooling in Japan (at 15 years of age), so from next month we have to start paying school fees. And you can imagine how much I am looking forward to that.