Badminton, Jump Roping and Other Extreme Sports

China loves their exercise. Or at least they love making their students exercise. Every morning around 9, all of the students gather in the courtyard for their daily exercises (it's called their "happy break"). They have a set of synchronized stretches that they do and then they break into groups and do exercises like jump rope, potato sack races and rolling tires. (They also have a mid-day stretching routine that they do and a ten minute break for stretching their eyes and their necks) And, now that the weather is starting to get colder, the school has shifted the students' schedules so that instead of nap time after lunch they now have "playground activity". (China believes that napping in the cold will make the kids more likely to get sick...I personally prefer nap time...) This past week, has been sports week. An entire week dedicated to sports. This means that in addition to their happy break, playground activity and gym class they also had sports competitions. Monday through Thursday were just little competitions that they had during the school day, Friday and Saturday were the real competitions.

Two full days of sports.

These competitions were like every field day I had ever experienced at school in America but a thousand times more intense. Everyone's parents came to watch (some even participated. You haven't seen a relay race until you have seen a relay race where all of the contestants mothers are running alongside their child to cheer them on), there were certificates and cash prizes, the competition was real. There were relay races, the 50 meter dash, shot put, basketball drills and bowling! There was even an opening and a closing ceremony! During the opening ceremony, they had a marching competition. It was cool to see my students, who usually have almost zero self-control, marching and shouting the schools fight song in unison. During the times when my students were waiting for their events, we got to hang out. They taught me handclaps (which are very similar to the ones that kids play in America), how to play Chinese rock, paper, scissors but their favorite game was trying to get me to speak in Chinese (they die with laughter every time I use Chinese but their favorite thing is when I repeat the words that they are saying) I'm not big on sports, but it was fun. It was nice meeting some of their parents (though most of them didn't speak English (which actually was a blessing for a few choice students whose parents would have gotten an earful)) and spending time with the kids outside of the regular school day. So, all in all, I would say that sports week was a success!