An Unexpected High School Festival

They’re going to pay for this, I swear! I can’t believe how I didn’t see it coming. “We’re preparing an unexpected high school festival,” they said. “It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before,” they said. And they were right! But not in the way that I expected. Not in the way it is supposed to be at Dhammapada High School.

Each year, we showcase the talents of our students in a festival in which the whole high school participates. There are plays, music concerts, poetry gatherings—anything you can imagine! And if I say that our students display great levels of skill, I’m not exaggerating. Also, each year, we invite a performer from a different culture. We’ve had Mexican mariachis, Japanese Noh theater, and so on. 

For this year, my students asked me if they could bring an exhibition of a venerable Japanese tradition. They didn’t want to tell me what it was, but they said that it had begun as a military technique, and later evolved into an art. It sounded amazing to me, so I gave them my permission without hesitation.

I must admit, they really did a good job hiding the truth from me. They didn’t allow them to greet the performers before the exhibition. And nobody really knew what was going to happen until the curtain opened.

And then it happened. A man tied a scantily dressed woman while he was explaining to the audience the history and purpose of Shibari. I must admit, it was quite a lesson. But I still felt uncomfortable that a bondage scene was part of our school festival.

I tried to protest, but they told me it would be an inexcusable act of racism, not to mention that it betrayed disgusting colonialism.

When the scene was over, there were a lot of questions on how to do a scene. I’m sure some of our students, even some of the best, are developing a taste for Shibari. And it’s all beacuse of our unexpected high school festival.