The Sports Festival
Yesterday was the sports festival for my school.
The sports festival is a day outdoors where the school is divided into four teams, which compete against one another. At my school the teams are divided by class. For example, there are four seventh grade classes, four eighth grade classes, and four ninth grade classes.
So, the first class that is in the seventh grade is called the 1-1 class. That first one stands for year one of junior high school, and the second one stands for class one.
So all the Class One classes were the red team.
All the Class Two were white.
All the Class Three were blue.
All the Class Four were yellow.
It seems to be an opportunity for the grades to all work together, but there's a strict hierarchy in place, where the ninth graders are the lords, the eighth graders the nobles, and the seventh graders the peasants.
The kingdom I was told to join was the white team. Same as last year. This irked me because my favorite color is blue, and the blue team's shade of blue is exactly my favorite shade of blue.
Anyway the teams compete through various sporting-like events. There are relays, tug-of-war, jump-rope involving the entire class, and something the ninth graders all did called mukade. This is where five people line up and strap their feet on two wooden boards that act like skis. They then all must ski as one to the other side of the soccer pitch, which is made of dirt. Whichever team goes fastest wins.
The teams also all have to do a five-minute cheer, which includes dancing, cheers and coordination. They are judged by how good this five-minute cheer is. Obviously they are junior high school kids, where cheering like this is not cool. I could see elementary school kids going nuts at this concept, but junior high school kids have to be dragged by the hair to do this. Especially the boys. I particularly enjoyed watching one ninth grade boy just stand there for the entire five minutes, glaring straight ahead at nothingness while his team jumped and danced all over the place.
The entire school must also take part in a traditional dance called souran. Why this dance exists at the sports festival is entirely beyond me. I'd asked one of the ninth grade girls and she'd just said, "No idea" after discussing it with her friends for a minute.
It seems to be a dance designed for fishermen to do since there's lots of pulling of invisible ropes and such. The kids, of course, loathe doing this. It's extremely traditional music that sounds like it was recorded in the 1970s.
The kids have practiced various parts of the sports festival all week long, outside in what has been nothing short of extremely intense heat.
Yesterday seemed to be the epitome of heat. Like standing inside of an oven. In a sauna that has a roaring fire.
The kids had to stand there and listen to important school-people give lengthy speeches. Three kids had to be taken to the nurse to be revived from the heat; one had actually collapsed on the soccer pitch while standing there.
It was not a good day for this thing. It was a day to be indoors with the AC cranked up, or to go to the beach. Not stand in endless sand and do physical activities.
I hung out with the white team while they cheered in their own little section at the back of the soccer pitch. Parents lined the soccer pitch as well, all under umbrellas they'd brought.
There were several injuries, several kids who were on the verge of passing out. But the kids still went full-tilt into the competitions. It was like they could push aside the intense, debilitating heat long enough to compete, and then collapse back at their respective cheering sections.
In the end, the white team actually won everything. So I'm proud of them for that.
But I'm dead right now. Extremely, extremely dead.
The sports festival is a day outdoors where the school is divided into four teams, which compete against one another. At my school the teams are divided by class. For example, there are four seventh grade classes, four eighth grade classes, and four ninth grade classes.
So, the first class that is in the seventh grade is called the 1-1 class. That first one stands for year one of junior high school, and the second one stands for class one.
So all the Class One classes were the red team.
All the Class Two were white.
All the Class Three were blue.
All the Class Four were yellow.
It seems to be an opportunity for the grades to all work together, but there's a strict hierarchy in place, where the ninth graders are the lords, the eighth graders the nobles, and the seventh graders the peasants.
The kingdom I was told to join was the white team. Same as last year. This irked me because my favorite color is blue, and the blue team's shade of blue is exactly my favorite shade of blue.
Anyway the teams compete through various sporting-like events. There are relays, tug-of-war, jump-rope involving the entire class, and something the ninth graders all did called mukade. This is where five people line up and strap their feet on two wooden boards that act like skis. They then all must ski as one to the other side of the soccer pitch, which is made of dirt. Whichever team goes fastest wins.
The teams also all have to do a five-minute cheer, which includes dancing, cheers and coordination. They are judged by how good this five-minute cheer is. Obviously they are junior high school kids, where cheering like this is not cool. I could see elementary school kids going nuts at this concept, but junior high school kids have to be dragged by the hair to do this. Especially the boys. I particularly enjoyed watching one ninth grade boy just stand there for the entire five minutes, glaring straight ahead at nothingness while his team jumped and danced all over the place.
The entire school must also take part in a traditional dance called souran. Why this dance exists at the sports festival is entirely beyond me. I'd asked one of the ninth grade girls and she'd just said, "No idea" after discussing it with her friends for a minute.
It seems to be a dance designed for fishermen to do since there's lots of pulling of invisible ropes and such. The kids, of course, loathe doing this. It's extremely traditional music that sounds like it was recorded in the 1970s.
The kids have practiced various parts of the sports festival all week long, outside in what has been nothing short of extremely intense heat.
Yesterday seemed to be the epitome of heat. Like standing inside of an oven. In a sauna that has a roaring fire.
The kids had to stand there and listen to important school-people give lengthy speeches. Three kids had to be taken to the nurse to be revived from the heat; one had actually collapsed on the soccer pitch while standing there.
It was not a good day for this thing. It was a day to be indoors with the AC cranked up, or to go to the beach. Not stand in endless sand and do physical activities.
I hung out with the white team while they cheered in their own little section at the back of the soccer pitch. Parents lined the soccer pitch as well, all under umbrellas they'd brought.
There were several injuries, several kids who were on the verge of passing out. But the kids still went full-tilt into the competitions. It was like they could push aside the intense, debilitating heat long enough to compete, and then collapse back at their respective cheering sections.
In the end, the white team actually won everything. So I'm proud of them for that.
But I'm dead right now. Extremely, extremely dead.