Field Day!

David's Junior 1 Student's at Field Day

Friday, November 14, 2008 (a week before the Birthday fun of the previous entry):
Classes for the entire junior school were called off for Field Day, or as they called it, “Sports meeting” (Another 3-day weekend!). However, we opted to stick around school for this occasion instead of taking another trip. Both Tiffany and I had fond memories of our own field days from when we were in school, and we thought that this would be a great chance to see our students outside of the classroom setting.

So, outside into the cold we went (whose idea was it to push Field Day into mid-November anyway?) at 7:30 in the morning to experience Field Day, Chinese style. The day started with an “Opening Ceremony” of sorts, complete with music and speeches. While this certainly made the event seem “official,” I felt a bit bad for our shivering students, who were forced to stand at attention in the cold, damp morning watching the formalities. I got the feeling that many of them – on this “fun” day – were actually yearning to go back to the relative warmth of their classrooms!

After around an hour of ceremonies the games finally began, and the kids could move around and warm up. The serious atmosphere quickly turned to sheer excitement. Kids sprinted away from “ceremony formation” to participate in basketball shooting competitions, track & field events, contests to see who could jump rope the most times, etc. Other students cheered on their classmates, proudly waving their red and yellow class flags and chanting “Fight! Fight! Fight!” (dăjià! dăjià! dăjià!) in Chinese.

 Above: Proudly waving the Class Flag  

Above: Student's jumping rope with one of the Junior 2 English Teachers

More jumping rope!

The day was divided into two sessions; Morning and Afternoon. Of the events we watched in the morning session, the girls’ track events were by far the most entertaining. This was due to the girls’ strange technique and flair for over-dramatizing things a bit. The starting technique adopted by most of the girls was really peculiar. They’d each line up at the starting line, one foot in front of the other (about shoulder-width apart), with the lead knee bent slightly. As for the upper body, the girls held one arm out in front of their body, bent at about a 90 degree angle and their hand balled into a tight fist. I’m not sure what advantage they thought this arm positioning was giving them, but it sure looked funny. In addition to the posture, competing students could wear their own shirt. This meant that the girls were wearing their favorite top, maybe a striped wool sweater with too many bows and a size too small. Of course they still had to wear their uniform pants, so the combination was quite a sight. Once the starting gun sounded, the race began and the participants were off. Most of the girls expended all of their energy within the first 10% of the race (they were running about 400 meters). They struggled to the finish line, grimacing with each stride. At the end of the race, nearly all of the participants collapsed into the arms of their classmates, who were waiting at the finish line. The looks on their faces were ones of sheer agony. They looked pretty beat, and I felt bad for them. But at the same time, I knew they were milking the attention for all it was worth.

.

Above: The Junior 1 Girls' 400M Dash

Above: the Junior 2 Boys' 400M Dash

Above: A student officiating the race

The highlights of the afternoon session were the relay races, which pitted teams from each class against each other. There was a “water relay” where teams had about 3 minutes to run with a cup (the “baton”) to a large tub of water, fill the cup, and then run back and dump the water into their class’ bucket. The class whose bucket was the fullest at the end of the 3 minutes was the winner. There was also a more traditional relay which just had participants from the teams run the length of about 2 basketball courts, where they would pass the baton to a classmate. The team whose “final” runner crossed the finish line first was the winner. The races were exciting, if not a little scary. They held the races on the cement basketball courts, and in each race at least one kid took a hard spill to the ground (These were mainly the “faster” kids whose teams were far behind – they felt possessed to throw their bodies forward in an effort to make up ground. Unfortunately for some, momentum carried them downward instead of forward.). Luckily, most of these kids escaped with only cuts and bruises. However, one of Tiffany’s students missed a week of school due to his injury, which appeared particularly serious. Her student – a big, athletic kid – was laid-out on the cement writhing in pain for a good minute and a half before some classmates and a teacher came out to carry him to the sidelines. Then, once they got him off the relay course, he was just placed on the ground just to the side of the race course – still very much in pain. He laid there on the sidelines for nearly an hour and a half until his parents arrived and put him into a taxi which could take him to the hospital (yes, a taxi). This instance got us thinking about a couple of things: First, it seemed that it probably wasn’t the best idea to hold these races on a cement surface, especially since there was a giant, well manicured grass sports field 30 feet away. Second, the lack of care that the student received seemed a bit strange to us. I mean, the kid lives at school 6 days a week, and it seems that the school would bear some responsibility for his well-being. Yet, no one was on hand who could provide care (where was the school nurse? I know we have one!) and the only response from the teachers was to call his parents and leave him lying there until they could arrive.

Above: The Relays!

.

.Above: Students who were not participating got to write compositions about what they saw.

.This demonstrated one of the bigger differences between this Field Day and the ones we had been a part of during our school days. At our own elementary school Field Days, parents or teachers usually manned each event and were there to provide assistance or care if someone got hurt. However, on this day, parents were nowhere to be seen (this is a boarding school, after all), and it seemed that a good number of teachers were absent as well. This left an undermanned group of authority figures left to manage the 1,500 + group of middle school students attending field day. As a result, things were a bit unorganized – many students were unaware of when, where, or even whether they were supposed to participate in certain events. Some students took the opportunity to roam around campus as they pleased and buy LOADS of junk food from the school store. They really weren’t obnoxious – just kids being kids. But by our school’s fairly rigid standards things were pretty unorganized. One of Tiffany’s student’s put things best when he said “I think Field Day is like a milkshake – all mixed up. Nobody here knows where they are supposed to be.” A pretty profound statement from a 12 year old, huh? (They had just learned the word milkshake in English class that week – I’m so proud!)

. Tiffany's Students!

Despite the lack of organization, we had a blast at field day. We enjoyed watching our students have such a good time, and we got to spend some quality time with them outside of the classroom (Many of them were amazed to see us not wearing our “teacher clothes.” And we both wore sunglasses, which were so “cool!”). Also, we got to know a few students who we hadn’t known were so interested in English. We feel like Field Day marked somewhat of a turning point in our time here in that we both felt like we really connected with our students more than we ever could in a classroom setting. And, while the students were always friendly to us before, they definitely seem to feel more comfortable in approaching us outside of class now. As a result, they’ve been asking us to have lunch at the cafeteria with them and play badminton or basketball in the evenings after dinner. Our students don’t get much time outside of class, and the fact that they’d want to spend any of it with us is really neat!

 David's Junior 1 Students

Living in China poses so many challenges for us (I mean, we still can’t read or understand what virtually anyone is saying to us!), and that means that some days are pretty difficult. As a result, we’ve learned to really appreciate the good days. We both agree that the Field Day was one of the best days we’ve had in China so far, and it is one we won’t soon forget!