Sports Day

This past Friday my school had Sports Day, which is probably the most highly anticipated day of the entire school year for Korean students. All Korean schools, elementary through high school, celebrate Sports Day one day a year. On Sports Day the students are all placed on one of two teams and they compete in various races and games to win points for their teams. The events sometimes are about actual athletic skill but other times are wacky races to allow even the most uncoordinated students to have their moment in the sun. Many of the students' parents also come to Sports Day and they are even parent specific events where the parents can win points for their child's team.

My students had been prepping for Sports Day intensely for the past two weeks. I actually had a large number of classes cancelled because of preparation for Sports Day. Every morning the students would practice running and they would practice for the opening and closing ceremony. Then during the day the individual grades would practice their dances because each grade performed a dance in between various events.

I was extremely excited for Sports Day and was heartbroken when it was raining Friday morning. About a half an hour into Sports Day we were forced to take a break because of the weather. We resumed activities about a half an hour later but then had lunch early because the weather worsened. Luckily after lunch the sun came out and the rest of the day was beautiful. I think everyone was relieved- some of the parents even broke out some beers and soju to celebrate.

Each of the teachers were assigned particular roles for Sports Day and I was fortunate enough to be in charge of stamping the hands of the third place winner of every race. The job was exactly what it sounds like- I stood near the finish line with the first and second place stampers and had to hastily grab the third place finisher and stamp their wrist with a big three. It was a pretty entertaining job simply because I don't think we'd ever do something like that in America where we give people ribbons simply for participation. Unfortunately, my job also involved a lot of tears especially from the 2nd and 3rd graders. Some students would burst into tears before they even finished the race. It was really cute and luckily, tears always warranted a stamp which immediately quelled the tears.

Since pictures can probably summarize the day better than words can here are some photos.