It's like, how much more formal could this be?

And the answer is none. None more formal.

When I first got here, I was told that after a few days I would have to attend a formal employment ceremony. At some point later, I was told it would take about an hour, and there would be some paperwork involved. But unfortunately that's all I was told. For some reason, what I pictured was sitting at a desk with someone, filling out tax forms and information forms and so forth, either in English or with a translator helping me, and maybe something like someone saying some official welcome, blah blah blah.

I was kind of wrong, though. I think I just didn't grasp the notion of Japan and ceremonies before I came here. There were no ceremonies in Korea for me to attend. Anyway, that morning I was like, well, I'll wear my black suit just in case, and if I'm overdressed, I can just take the jacket off. Ha. I think it's possible to never be overdressed over here, especially if you're foreign. I was not only one of only two people not wearing only black, white, and grey suits/shirts (I felt a certain kinship with the Japanese woman wearing a bright red blazer), but I was also the only person not wearing black leather shoes. My shoes were green tweed. Jeez.

Anyway, I was escorted to the conference room by one of our English secretaries, and there were like thirty Japanese people in there, some sitting around a big conference U-desk setup, and others just in a row of chairs at the back. There was a podium and a few chairs set off to each side at the front. I then realized it was a formal ceremony for the whole damn school, all new employees, and then I got very scared.

At first I didn't know if we could sit anywhere, or at a designated spot, so I picked a chair and used nonverbal communication to ask if we could sit where we wanted, and the emcee went over to check the name on the giant envelope full of papers. By chance, I'd chosen the one with my name on it. Then once all the people and officials got there, we started a few minutes ahead of schedule (though, actually, I was told that that's a rare occurrence. Even if everyone is present ten minutes prior to start time, they tend to wait until precisely the scheduled time to start).

First, some high-level nun gave a bit of a speech, with lots of bowing back and forth between herself and us, the audience (we stayed seated while bowing). Then she called each of us up to the front in turn, where she presented an official certificate of employment. I was fifth, and I'm not sure if that was a strategic decision or not, but it did allow me to see what the hell to do, but not have to wait so long to go that I freaked out. So the procedure was this: the nun calls your name, you stand up gracefully (most people said "hai" as they got up, but I forgot), walk to the front and off to the side a little, bow somewhat deeply to the college officials off to the other side, walk to the front of the podium, bow to the high-level nun, and step forward. She says whatever is written on the document, then hands it to you. You take it, first with your right hand, then left, step back, bow again, and then turn to bow a final time to the officials. Jezum. Then  you return to your seat. Some people snuck in an extra bow, and others chose to do one fewer, but I managed to get the average number of bows in.
After that, there were some very long speeches that of course I didn't understand at all, done by the college president, another nun, the emcee dude (whose position I don't know), again with the other high-level nun, and maybe the vice-president of the school. I blocked a lot of it out. After all those speeches, replete with bows naturally, the people in the back row got to leave. And I was like double ewe tea eff. Why do I have to stay?

Anyway, until then I had managed to not get really, really scared, because we were mostly just listening. I was the only person fidgeting a lot and not sitting with my feet together and pointing directly in front of me, though. This thing was so damn boring. But once those ten or so people, including my kindred spirit daring to wear A color, left the room, I felt like it was about to get seriously frustrating. And it did. Some other dude got up to the podium and started referring to all the documents. At first I was trying to look at the page he was referring to, just to be polite, and was helped by my Japanese neighbors, but after a while it seemed like a total waste of time. So I just sat there, hoping really hard that we weren't expected to sit there and fill out those forms right away. What made the whole situation worse was that I was told that it would last an hour or maybe less, so I was looking at the clock going, okay, just 15-20 more minutes, blah blah blah, but then we didn't get out of there until about an hour and 15 minutes.

Luckily, we were all sent to do the forms on our own time (with some deadline unknown to me), but it seems to me like a special concession could have been made, like tell Pugh sensei that she can go with the first group of deserters so she doesn't have to waste tons of time getting explained shit in a foreign language. But they seem to be sticklers here. Maybe they were expecting me to be like, hey, can I go? But of course that level of formality can be quite scary to people who are casual 24/7, and I didn't want to do something like violate the Prime Directive. Create an international incident.
This was the worst of the formal ceremonies I had to endure during my orientation here, but it wasn't the only one. There was also the faculty meeting, where the new teachers were introduced and had to make a small speech, a welcome ceremony for the new students where we had to sing a HYMN in Latin, a faculty welcome lunch where again the new teachers were introduced and had to make a speech, and an awards ceremony for the second year students (though this last one was decidedly less formal). In coming months we'll have formal ceremonies like the Procession of Our Lady (this one sounds like the biggest drag ever), parents' orientation day, probably some others, and then what I imagine is the longest and most formal, graduation ceremony. Joy.