What every first grader is practising in a Japanese school. Every year and more than once in Japanese schools the emergency drills are designed to teach students what to do in the event of an earthquake, a fire, a typhoon. In order for students to better remember the essential principles, OHaShiMo’s code of conduct is sometimes hammered into their heads. O is osanai – don’t push. Ha – hashiranai – don’t run. Shi – shiaberan, don’t talk. Mo – Modoranai – don’t go back. Some schools also add Te – teigakunen yusen, priority for the yonger. It is enough to look at how the children’s evacuation drills look like and finally decide more or less whether the school is a loose ball or not. Teachers pays special attention to speaking children. If you talk then the class teacher turns his head, sticks out his tongue and counts down the half-hour retreat. Joking.
And a few more words about the first grader’s equipment. A modest cap is designed to protect the head. If head is hurt everything else becomes irrelevant. Also all first-graders wear such brightly colored caps. In this way all strangers can distinguish and immediately assess whether the child is not lost or does not need help. Attached to the rucksack is an emergency call (a yellow piece of crap with two buttons). It is enough for a child to click and some 100 db starts howling.
A few words about the backpack. All elementary school backpacks are standard in shape. There are also flag bearers at school crossings or traffic lights, i.e. pensioners whose job it is to raise a flag when they see a car and stop it from passing the children. This rucksack, called randoseru, has a very old history, which will be told in another post. Just a few touches – the backpack is immortal, designed for all six years at school. A backpack must be bought by a grandmother as a gift for her grandson. The price of the backpack is about 300-500 EUR. Therefore, the annual market of backpacks reaches about 300-500 million EUR.
