Seferian-Botchan

This week we watched Botchan, a story about a schoolteacher who is transferred from Tokyo to a small country town.  It was very short film but still very good.  The theme of the story seemed to be centered on morality. While I watched the film, I realized how different Japanese education at the high school level was from my own experience. In the film the students challenged the teacher’s authority, an act of rebellion that wasn’t as present in my high school experience. Sure there were trouble makers and sometimes I wouldn’t respect the teacher as much as I should, but there was never a group effort between myself and my classmates like shown in Botchan. In the movie the students respect the teachers that have earned their respect, for example Porcupine. This is very different from my western education experience, where the teachers expected you to respect them despite whether they have earned it. Another difference is when students do something wrong in Bontchan, the teachers accept responsibility, while in western culture the student takes all the responsibility for his or her actions. In the first film we watched during class this week, we observed how much pressure is put on the students and how important education is to the Japanese. Both of these films gave a lot of insight into the education system in Japan.   

In the story Bontchan you learned about the politics of teaching and the control that the principal and vice principal have over the faculty. The character Redshirt represents corruption and the elitist side of Japan. Redshirt speaks of morals but is in fact immoral. He is having relations with a geisha despite the schools strict rules forbidding such an act.  He also is able to get Uranari (Green pumpkin) transferred for his own selfish reasons. Bontchan and Porcupine are able to get revenge on Redshirt and Nodaiko for what they did to Uranari. At the end of the story Bontchan  goes back to Tokyo and becomes a train conductor. He is paid little for his work, but he stuck to his morals and that’s what counts.