Emergency Meeting
Yesterday, there was an announcement made over the public address system at school that an emergency staff meeting would be held at 12:50, before the afternoon classes were scheduled to begin. That left all the teachers wondering, what could this possibly be all about? No one seemed to have any ideas.
So, we all waited until about 12:50 when it began. We were all handed a small notice on a sheet of paper with the details of the meeting. At about 7:45am yesterday morning, a truck driver was stabbed to death in his car, not too far from my school, and the murderer was on the loose!
The principal and vice-principals wanted to discuss, with the staff, how the students should be notified and how to keep everyone safe. The shock among the staff and administrators was obvious, and their concern for staff and students quite real.
Eventually, it was decided that the students would be notified during long homeroom and that the school would be closed before dark, to allow staff and students to travel home during daylight hours.
I was amazed at the response. And, now, I kind of wonder why I found their response quite so amazing. Have I really become one of those hardened Americans that doesn’t think that there is anything particularly strange about a murder? But I am glad that they still take it all so seriously, I am glad that kids here get to grow up and not hear about a murder, or other violent event, happening in their town each night on the news. It is, I don’t know, refreshing.
After the meeting, the staff room was buzzing with teachers talking about what had happened. One teacher, If-you-are-attacked-sensei, leaned over and said, “You are from Chicago, have you ever seen a murder?”
“No, no I haven’t.”
Thankfully, just one day later, the murderer has been caught. We can all breathe a collective sigh of a relief, and the teachers and students can stay at school until past dark this evening. I wonder, if in some small way, they were all excited to get to go home early yesterday…
Wow! There’s a story! Isn’t Japan pretty low on the scale when it comes to lots of violent crime? It’s so interesting to see that difference between our two countries in terms of violence (though big cities see far more than some areas of the US) and then to also think of even more violent places than the US and marvel at how there’s still a country (and maybe countries) where one murder is a huge cause for alarm.
I checked out the link to the news story and then read some of the other ones. Looks like Gifu has a Christmas Tree powered by an electric eel.
Yup. Gotta love Japan. The electric eel christmas tree is about 30 minutes east of us on the train. I think we might need to make a wee little pilgrimage.
And, yes, Japan is pretty low on the scale for violent crime. It is pretty remarkable how low it is actually. I, in some way, think it can be attributed to the general Japanese demeanor. They do, typically, tend to be a bit more meek and even-tempered than Americans. They also tend to be a lot more concerned with being polite, and violent crime is definitely not polite!