The Beijing Olympics (well, Sports Day)

A few weeks ago now, the whole school including the foreign teachers were given the whole day off from the classroom and instead whisked away to an athletics stadium for Sports Day.

The two months prior to this, I'd suspected that the Sports Day may be a big deal as preparation often took precedent over other meetings and on occasion, lessons themselves.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I climbed aboard the coach with the other foreign teachers, early that morning. When we arrived at the stadium, we were directed to the back of a stand and there we sat for a couple of hours whilst all the students at the school were organised into groups. Some had basketballs, some had unicycles, others had their Tae Kwon Do uniforms on and each group was dressed differently to the last.

For the next hour or so, we watched as the children took part in a parade, it was this very parade that they had been practicing and preparing for in the previous weeks. It was highly impressive, each group were given time to demonstrate their skills. We watched a Tae Kwon Do demonstration, saw some tricks from a group of diabloists (is that a word? Well they were diablo users), then the unicyclists and basketball players. There were also dance performances by two or three of the groups.

As the English teacher for Grade Three, I was a little disappointed to see they were the only group without outfits, instead wearing their usual school-issued yellow tracksuits. That initial disappointment was soon kicked into touch when they delivered a cool Martial Arts display (I want to say Tai Chi, but truth is I'm not sure what it was...). Take a look for yourself (apologies for the dodgy camera work)...

The undoubted highlight was the dance performed by the whole of Grade One. The girls were dressed in pink leotards and the boys all in black. They were all sporting multi-coloured wigs and black thick rim glasses (well the frames, no actual glass), they danced to Shakira's World Cup song, known affectionately by us foreigners as the Waka Waka song, but I am reliably informed that the actual name is 'This Time For Africa'. The audience loved it, but then it would be hard not to smile whilst watching 150+ 6-7 year olds dancing with silly wigs on! Sadly my camera battery died so I didn't get very much footage.

The big finish involved hundreds of balloons being released into the sky, followed a few moments later by a dozen white doves...

I was particularly impressed with how well drilled all the kids were considering they are aged between 6-12 years old, it did make me wonder how well their equivalents in England would perform in a parade like this.

All the students at the school in their regimented lines

The the kids left the field to prepare for the Sports events, around half an hour later they were back and as quickly as possible they were encouraged to run races, eight students at a time. As one race finished, the next started almost instantly. Unlike the parade earlier, the races appeared very rushed and in actual fact the 'sports' element of the day seemed as though it had gotten in the way of what should have been a lovely little 'Parade Day'.

I am not sure who won any of the races that day, but I doubt anyone really cared. A lot of effort had been put into the parade and all that hard work paid off, it was brilliant.

A weekend in Shenyang (part two)

After a nice long sleep in Charlie's spare room it was time to get up and see what Shenyang had to offer.

First things first, I had to be revealed to Trent, who was unaware of me coming to stay for the weekend though he knew the girls were visiting. Charlie had arranged for us to meet him in a canteen near their school. It was quite a cool canteen, reminded me of a food court that might be found in any shopping centre in England. However, unlike it's English counterparts, this place offered value for money. We all got a plate full of food for 8RMB each (about 80p). Before we ordered the food though, we needed to meet up with Trent.

We were on the top floor of a building and he sent a text to Charlie to say he was on the lift, we decided that I would hide around the corner and once he had said hello to the girls I would come up behind him and surprise him. As I approached, Charlie said "hey Trent, there's your mate", and as he turned round he looked genuinely shocked to see me, a quick hug and hello and we all sat down to eat. This part of the story may seem a bit odd to some at home reading this, "why make such a big deal of seeing a person I had known for just two weeks?" I hear you ask, well being in China, I have found that many westerners become really close friends very quickly with other westerners, perhaps we just want to surround ourselves with people of similar backgrounds in what is an alien country, all I know is I think of a lot of the friends I have made here as family - okay, enough of the sentimental nonsense....

After eating we left the building and spent half an hour playing 'keep ups' with a Chinese toy, its hard to explain what it is exactly as I had never seen one before coming here, its basically some feathers attached to a weight with a rubber base. Its good fun and after we'd had enough we continued to explore.

It wasn't long before we found ourselves stood next to a mechanical bull/bucking bronco on the side of the street. Trent was keen to have a go, and the owners saw a great marketing opportunity (i.e. several westerners) and offered us all a free go. Trent climbed onto the bull and soon enough we were surrounded by Chinese people desperate to catch a glimpse of the foreigners making a fool of themselves, unfortunately for them Trent rode the bull until it ran out of steam. Cat fancied her chances too, so jumped up and like Trent before her, beat the bull. We were all ready to go when a couple of the girls challenged me to ride the bull, I didn't fancy it but having seen my Australian and American friends do so well, I thought I needed to do Britain proud..... I fell off after about 30 seconds.

A little later on in the afternoon, we heard from Dee via a text message that she was on the train from Beijing to Shenyang and would be joining us for a night out. Charlie had booked us tickets for a beer bus, like many things here in China it favoured the girls, who received free cocktails throughout the tour whilst the guys were allowed one warm can of beer in each bar, fantastic. We had a good night and ended up in a really cool club, were we drank plenty of alcohol and danced the night away.

Me and Trent at the club

The next day we caught the train, and in tribute to the journey down to Shenyang, Cat and I made it by mere seconds! The journey back was quiet as we all began to recover from the previous night. We did meet a Chinese girl though, who was visiting family, she told us she had been living in Swansea for ten years but had come back for a couple of weeks. She seemed to appreciate how hard it can be for foreigners in a strange land, she said (in her Chinese/Welsh accent) "it can be quite hard settling into a new country, isn't it?"

Overall, it was a good weekend, not sure how interesting this blog will be for those that weren't there though I am sure those who were with me will enjoy it. Just thought it would nice to mark the only time I left Beijing by writing about it!

L-R: Me (with my warm beer), Charlie, Nicola, Lauren, Dee, Erica and Cat