Only about 20 years ago, school in Japan used to run on Saturdays as a regular schedule.
The 2-day weekend concept came in, but the psychology remained - weekends are not strictly school-free time.
Saturday and Sunday school activities are the norm. Teachers will come to help out or help prepare lessons, work with colleagues or just simply go to school to help out as part of the running of it. Most teachers start work at 6 or 7am and finish on average at about 8pm, work on Saturday and maybe do a club activity sports tournament game on Sunday. School holidays are short, and club activities usually continue or require 'supervising' teachers to stay at school and manage students that come in for various reasons like homework marking or studying. Taking a holiday for the entire period really inconveniences your colleagues - or really makes a pile of marking to do when you get back.
It's probably one of the hardest things for me to comprehend, understand let alone adopt with respect to the Japanese culture.
Anyways, on topic - This last Saturday we had an 'Arts, Crafts, and Recreation Activities day'.
The students got to pick out of about 35 different activities to do for the day.
From playing a round of golf, to making bonsai trees - there was a lot of traditional Japanese crafts to do and was really interesting seeing all the students doing them.
There was also a couple of performances at the end of the day by an Opera singer and a Taiko drumming group. Fantastic entertainment.
Instead of a huge number of pics - I made a video slideshow instead - should be easier - it's only about 2 minutes. Opera and Taiko included. Enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfQaPuEJY1k
