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.