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Answerman - Do Japanese Students Really Go On Huge School Trips?


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Goku x 1 million



Joined: 06 Nov 2014
Posts: 7
PostPosted: Wed Dec 30, 2015 2:25 pm Reply with quote
I don't know how it works in Japan but we had these big exotic trips at my school in Scotland. There would often be trips down to Spain, France Italy and Austria among others. All funded by the families.
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 08 Dec 2003
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Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC
PostPosted: Wed Dec 30, 2015 2:37 pm Reply with quote
Answerman wrote:
In recent years, some schools have been planning trips beyond Japan's borders, usually to other major cities in Asia, like Taipei or Seoul.

Ditto. I bump into large groups of Japanese high schoolers in uniform at tourist attractions every once in a while.

I remember that back in the heydays of Japanese bubble economy, prestigious schools with most students from wealthy families could afford trips to Hawaii or comparable places with living expenses equal or more expensive than Japan.
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EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
Posts: 4016
PostPosted: Wed Dec 30, 2015 2:38 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
It's nowhere near as glamorous as anime would have you believe. I found a few blogs from exchange students who were quite underwhelmed by the experience.


Aww, then they don't go to a big hot-springs resort, like in Persona 3?

I remember discussing this on another anime board with a JP poster who didn't seem to be aware of any other country's high-school-senior rituals.
He asked where American kids went on their school trips, and was told that not only the Senior Prom was the Western equivalent of the big senior trip (and the Cultural Festival bonfire, where you sought your "destined" senior-year date), but that even if you're on the band or cheerleading teams, you wash cars or sell chocolates to pay for your away-team trip.

Even then school trips are meant to be "cultural", so I remember a field trip to the historical DC sites in junior high, but that was the class above me, and doesn't seem to be as common in this century. Sad
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wastrel





PostPosted: Wed Dec 30, 2015 2:40 pm Reply with quote
School trip episodes also give the animators a break from the same school/home/town environments that they use for all the rest of the episodes. I've often wondered how many long school hallways a background animator can draw before he goes completely insane. (Maybe they've automated that by now.)
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Agent355



Joined: 12 Dec 2008
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Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready...
PostPosted: Wed Dec 30, 2015 2:47 pm Reply with quote
One good thing about going to a small, all girls parochial high school was that they gave us a *lot* of leeway to plan our graduation trip. We ended up going to Orlando, Florida for 3 days (at Universal--they didn't let us go to Disney for some reason--and SeaWorld and some random tourist trap park & arcade) and 2 nights (in a cheap motel). It was definitely the most memorable part of my senior year, if not my whole time in high school.

We did some serious fund raising for it, implementing a raffle and spending all our free time selling tickets everywhere. It wasn't a cheap trip and we wanted everyone to come (a couple of girls opted out anyway, probably more for social reasons than financial ones).

I guess that I have another thing in common with Japanese high school students besides uniforms and the single gender setting (more common in Japan than America).
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Tenchi



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
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Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer.
PostPosted: Wed Dec 30, 2015 2:49 pm Reply with quote
Japan having a national high speed rail network does kinda facilitate inter-city school trips.

When I went to high school in suburban Montreal, the farthest field trips I ever went on were to Quebec City and Ottawa (both ~2 hour trips by school bus, maybe a little more for Quebec City since my high school was on the extreme west end of Montreal Island), and those were only day trips.
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Gasero



Joined: 24 Jul 2009
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Location: USA
PostPosted: Wed Dec 30, 2015 3:02 pm Reply with quote
My middle school had a graduation trip to an amusement park. Extravagant trips may be more common in Japan, but I've definitely met several people in the USA who had similar class trips.
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Hoppy800



Joined: 09 Aug 2013
Posts: 3331
PostPosted: Wed Dec 30, 2015 3:21 pm Reply with quote
I've been on 5 school trips with one being a camping trip (I seen some strange wildlife on that trip including an animal that to this day I can never identify even Google has no answer).
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WingKing



Joined: 27 Apr 2015
Posts: 617
PostPosted: Wed Dec 30, 2015 3:26 pm Reply with quote
Gasero wrote:
My middle school had a graduation trip to an amusement park. Extravagant trips may be more common in Japan, but I've definitely met several people in the USA who had similar class trips.


I attended California public schools, and we had graduation trips. For elementary school and junior high we took day trips to the local amusement park, and for high school we took a day trip to a water park. Nothing too exotic, and nothing that had us gone for very long.

Now I also got to go on another trip to New Orleans for 3 or 4 days my senior year of high school, but that was officially for a competition as part of a school club I belonged to, even if we really spent 90% of our time there vacationing rather than competing.

As far as the costs go, my parents definitely paid for the New Orleans trip, but I don't remember if they had to pay for the other outings too or if the school covered those.
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12skippy21



Joined: 25 Nov 2008
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Location: York, England
PostPosted: Wed Dec 30, 2015 3:32 pm Reply with quote
Cannot speak about other countries but, in England, there was also the option to go to exotic places through school but it was self or family funded and I never went.

There were trips included within a course though, in AS level (second year of high school) I was down Dorset (South coast of England) for a week as part of a case study to use for an exam in Geography. Students in History got to go to Paris.

The one thing I do not understand with these trips is that I spent most of that time pissed, as were the teachers, so no-one really kept watch over us, we were 16 and we got others to buy booze for us or we brought it down in our luggage. Some students had sex in their rooms. I never see this in anime, are Japanese students really that well behaved?
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leongsh



Joined: 30 Sep 2006
Posts: 181
PostPosted: Wed Dec 30, 2015 3:34 pm Reply with quote
I get around a bit within Southeast Asia and Hong Kong for work purposes and often see groups of Japanese schoolkids dressed in their summer school uniform and the gakuran in the airports arriving for class trips. These groups are not large enough to be school trips but the numbers are closer to that of class-size, 30-odd of them. With sufficient planning and funds collection, it's easier to get a class-size group to go on for these trips.
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Rederoin



Joined: 29 May 2013
Posts: 1427
Location: Europa
PostPosted: Wed Dec 30, 2015 3:37 pm Reply with quote
Here, the 3rd year high schoolers go to London/Madrid/Greece/Rome(various per school/student choice), so its not like this is just a Japan thing, or even surprising.
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yurihellsing





PostPosted: Wed Dec 30, 2015 3:41 pm Reply with quote
Just wondering but wasn't the trip in K-on! paid for out of their own pockets rather than something part funded by the school?


Cause when I saw it in Glasgow the question was asked in the Q&A how common such trips were and as it turned out they are quite common.
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RestLessone



Joined: 02 Aug 2009
Posts: 1426
Location: New York
PostPosted: Wed Dec 30, 2015 3:44 pm Reply with quote
For the end of middle school, we had a 3 day trip to visit parts of Pennsylvania and Washington DC. High school had a senior trip that varied depending on the year. Our year went on a 3 day trip to a lakeside camp. In both cases, we had to pay, but it wasn't very much. Plus there were fundraising opportunities and I think a possible waiver depending on financial situation.

Language classes sometimes organize trips abroad (ie, German class going to Germany for a week) but I don't think my school ever did it. I've heard of classes going to places like San Francisco or Orlando. I think most American senior trips stay confined to the US/Canada. It's easier to organize and we aren't situated near tons of countries you can easily travel to. To be honest, the flight length and jet lag probably wouldn't be worth it for a 3 day school trip. Depending on the location, you could be spending a day of it in air.


Last edited by RestLessone on Wed Dec 30, 2015 3:54 pm; edited 1 time in total
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ZeArNkN



Joined: 27 Dec 2010
Posts: 95
PostPosted: Wed Dec 30, 2015 3:52 pm Reply with quote
I believe the seniors in my high school went on a trip to Disney World for a few days toward the end of the year. I would've liked to go, but it was expensive (about $500 per person) and I would've missed a week's worth of school work. Other than that, trips to amusement parks and museums were fairly common in the schools I went to.
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