One thing that surprised me when I first came to this country is how almost ALL of the students stay a couple hours after school everyday. In essence, the morning and early afternoon is for class, and the late afternoon and evening is for clubs. Even though I’ve never stayed that late, I’ve been told by teachers that students and teachers often stay as late as 9 pm. Screw that, I always leave at 4 pm.

But that’s just background info.

I like to watch a TV show called ナニコレ珍百景 (”What’s this? A Hundred Rare Sights.”) that features funky/odd/weird/cool things from around the country.

On today’s show one of the featured stories was about a middle school in Yamagata that for the past twenty years, at a certain time everyday, has done a countdown over the PA to make the kids get the hell out of school to pretty much give the adults some time without the damn kids around.

Kids in the US are already halfway out the door by the time the last bell of the day rings, so it really shows a difference to have Japanese kids having to be forced out of school versus most American kids that just can’t wait to leave.

A preview of this particular episode featuring scenes from the show can be streamed from their site

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