Forum - View topicAnswerman - Do Japanese Students Really Go On Huge School Trips?
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Randamo
 Posts: 23 Location: Central Coast, Australia |
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I remember there were a few trips in Australia.
In 4th grade of Primary we did a 3 day trip to Bathurst. Then in 5th grade was a 5 day camp. Unfortunately I was in a room with a girl friend and 2 of her friends I didn't know and they had late night arguments EVERY NIGHT; I couldn't believe it. So I hated it and never went on another. But 6th grade had a Canberra trip. Then in high school, if you did Japanese or French or PE as an elective, you got to go to Japan, New Caledonia or the snow. And in 10th grade they went to Queensland to do theme parks like Wet'nWild, Movie world, Dreamworld. But I finished school in the 10th grade, so I wouldn't know anything past that. Your parents had to pay for your trips, and they could do so in installments. There were also a fair amount of one day trips I went on. This is a bit off topic, but I hate Japanese school groups - when I was in Japan. They seemed to view me as a target for annoying. Especially the middle school groups - they had an obsession with saying English words at me, one time while I was in the Hiroshima Peace Park Museum - it was rather inappropriate actually. And the Primary school kids. They encircle me. The first time was in the Edo Museum in Tokyo where one said something I knew the words, but I could process the translation and I just said ' I don't know' and they started laughing and I ran off. Then In a castle I was watching a video with headsets it and a whole group stopped and stared at me, being very loud. I put on an icy poker face and stared straight ahead until they left. |
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jojothepunisher
 Posts: 799 |
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Last year in May I saw some Japanese students in Banff (British Columbia, Canada), not sure whether they were middle school or elementary school kids. My first thought was they must have been kids from rich schools, but after reading this article, I think it was also possible that the school arranged budgets to allow them to travel to a place some 12 kilometres away from their home country. That must be some dedication for bonding.
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FilthyCasual
Posts: 2223 |
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Some Japanese schools have sister schools in other countries, so a major trip would be students volunteering for homestays over the course of a couple of weeks, and then the foreign students doing so as well during the summer.
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jenny10-11
Posts: 98 Location: Australia |
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In my Primary School in Australia, the "big kids" (years 5-7) were able to go on a large school trip every 2 years. From the South-West of WA, Albany and Rottnest were the big destinations. However, my school was very small (the "big kids" shared one classrom and there were 5 other kids in my year group), so I don't know if this is common to all Australian schools.
I don't remember going on any school trips during High School, except once to a school-friendly camping site. |
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nobahn
 Subscriber Posts: 5120 |
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Randamo--
Ah, yes; the gaijin effect -- wherein Japanese children will act out their parents's bigotry. Gotta love it!  
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DOMEENAYTION
Posts: 12 |
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I remember at my highschool, the big senior "rituals" were (of course) junior/senior prom and a trip at some kind of amusement park that would be sometimes over night or closed just for us. But you could only go to the amusement park if you paid however much it cost to get in. And then you also had to pay for tickets to the prom. BUT we ALSO had to fundraise for the prom venue money. But we did that by working together with a local business of some kind (my year was a nearby mcds) and a percentage of the money they got for a single day went towards our prom. Which the school encouraged US to spend more money by buying something there for that day. On the last day of school, us seniors were given a pool party within our school's pool. The only thing we didn't have to pay for.
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Emerje
 Posts: 7358 Location: Maine |
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For me my best school trip was the sixth grade trip (back when elementary was K-6). That was the big Boston day trip to the Museum of Science and Quincy Market. The eighth grade trip was to a local fitness center for a few hours which was only entertaining because it was the night of OJ Simpson's white Bronco chase. The Senior trip was worst, we all wanted to go to Six Flags New England overnight or on a short cruise and had raised more than enough money to do so, but our advisors refused saying we had to save money for our future reunions and could only use a very small amount of it, basically forcing us into going to Sugarloaf (about an hour away) for an evening right after graduation. Yeah, a ski resort in the summer, that's a great idea. The only thing available to us was the fitness center so it was basically a repeat of the eighth grade trip, but even more boring and the only food was just sandwiches that were soggy from being wrapped in wax paper and submerged in ice water (former ice that had been sitting all day in a cooler). Good job!
Emerje |
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Greed1914
 Posts: 4461 |
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The trips that my school did were only for people in particular activities, namely choir, band, and competitive speech. Even though I was in all three, I only went on the band trip because we were expected to buy into whatever was already arranged. There was no organized fundraising of any kind, and I didn't want to spend several hundred dollars on each trip. Plus, the speech trip was only for seniors, and I was the only senior boy and our coaches were women, so I would have ended up paying more than anyone because the school wouldn't allow co-ed room sharing.
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Raneth
Posts: 271 |
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We had multi-day, traditional trips in my public elementary school in CA. We had the third-grade camping trip, which was one night camping out as a class (our year got rained out, however) and the fourth-grade gold country trip, which was a multi-day trip, maybe 2-3 nights away. I don't have super clear memories of where exactly we stayed, but it involved everyone in sleeping bags on the floor of a large building. It was a really fun trip, minus the stomach bug that went around. I do remember during the bus ride back, our bus stopped at a fish farm.
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A Mystery
 Posts: 1887 Location: Netherlands |
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In the Netherlands many high school kids participate in an exchange program, resulting in a visit to another country where you'd stay with a foreign high schooler from that country and vice versa (you had to take a guest in).
I went for a +/- 8-9 days trip to Romania. That was easily one of the most awesome experiences ever. Funds come partly from the parents. |
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Just-another-face
Posts: 324 |
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Man, you must have a bottomless well of patience. I'd have probably slugged the little brats if it had been me. There is no way I could have remained pokerfaced with so many obnoxious children annoying me like that.
Wait, that's actually a thing with them? Guess the parents probably hate their children learning English too then. |
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papa-san
Posts: 3 |
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I live in Canada and have been home staying high school students and their teachers for 11 years. The program I'm involved with is has classes going abroad for English immersion during the summer or winter break. So this is a 1 to 3 week stay. The kids I’ve had were from places like Kyoto, Tokyo, Toyota and Yokohama.
It can be trying and sometimes difficult with the language barrier but it is immensely rewarding and sometimes you change a young person's life in a very real and positive way. I have gone to Japan and visited guests a few years later. It has been one of the best things I have ever done. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18230 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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My (Midwestern U.S.) school was pretty much the same as Greed1914's when it came to school trips: there were no grade-wide trips that were even overnight (much less multiday), but performing arts classes (especially marching band) and occasionally sports teams and foreign language groups would do them. Almost without exception they involved extra cost for the families.
One thing that we did do throughout all grades that I have rarely seen depicted in anime, though, is same-day field trips. |
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mierin
Posts: 270 |
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A Japanese school once organized a trip to my school. The students were from the same grade as me. They stayed at a hotel and we bring them to places of interest in the capital city. I think it was something one of my teachers helped to organize with the teachers from that school.
It was like a school trip abroad, but with an affiliated school involved. We had groups assigned to groups from their school, so we could try talking to them and it was fun. Can no longer remember the school name, but I know they are from Chiba, and most likely a private school. I almost went on an exchange trip to Japan myself. Somewhere in Kyushu, I think. But the program ended up getting canceled for some reason. I was so heartbroken 
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samuelp
Industry Insider
Posts: 2235 Location: San Antonio, USA |
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To answer the question of whether the school pays for these trips, to my knowledge it depends very much on the school: for super expensive private academies it might be included in the tuition but public schools it's only slightly subsidized.
But like most school things (backpacks, lunches) if your parents don't pay for it you'll be ostracized and bullied and left out so all but the absolute poorest families will pay (and the truly poor ones might get help from the PTA or other school organization to pay for it). Even public school in Japan is pretty expensive for the parents: they have to pay for a lot of things: uniforms, backpacks (randoseru in elementary), pta dues, etc... |
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