Journal: Carnival of Sports

Today was the first day of the college's annual sports carnival. It lasts two days, and all classes are cancelled. When I arrived at the school this morning, I saw students all rushing about in tracksuits of different colours and designs. Each department had its own style, I soon realised, and all of the students were wearing them even if they weren't in an event (except for fourth year students, who are always the exception to the rule). I was privately amused to see a student go past carrying a lajixiang (rubbish bin) made from cardboard which was labelled half in chinese and half in english: "laji box".

I had breakfast at the dining hall with a friend: I ate a kind of savoury custard and something that turned out, to my surprise, to be a jam doughnut. The friend ate a battered eggplant slice and a kind of rice porrige which was coloured purple. There's no difference between lunch and dinner foods in China, but breakfast is like a completely new cuisine.

Next I went to the sports ground on the east side of the campus, which somebody mentioned was no less than the best one in all of Northeast China because the surface of the track and field are made from some kind of space-age plastic. I could find the students of the foreign languages department, sitting up on the stands with a very large helium balloon floating above them ("The foreign languages department wishes all competitors success", read the chinese characters on the flag beneath it), but I couldn't see any of the teachers.

The carnival began, just as the Olympics will in 5 years time, with a parade: a phalanx of proudly marching students to represent each department. Their outfits were different once again from the departmental tracksuits: one group was dressed in army uniforms, another was dressed in tall hats and knee-length pants, and another department had their musically able students marching in striking red and gold uniforms with trumpets and drums. It's all about spirit one person informed one. It's all about appearances, said another. The foreign languages department were led by several girls in white dresses and tinsel tiaras: "angels with wands" was the best explanation that we could come up with. Behind each group marched the teachers from the department—so that's where my colleagues had got to.

Once the groups had circled the ground and assembled in the middle of the field, the chinese flag was raised as the national anthem played. Then one by one the departments each performed a dance. These ranged from a traditional fan dance, to an "umbrella dance" of dubious authenticity, to the ever-popular "synchronised arm flapping accompanied by a pop song" dance. Finally I understood why I've seen groups of students dancing on the volleyballs courts at night during the last couple of weeks! The standout was a performance inspired by kungfu: at the head of the group, a petite girl dressed in red showed off some awesome moves.

While this was going on, the running events got underway, accompanied by rapid drumming during each race. I shouted a few words of encouragement, but to tell the truth I wasn't very interested. I hated sports carnivals when I was at school, and so I just felt sorry for these students and teachers who were forced to attend. In Australia, we only had athletics competitions in primary school and high school, not university. As well as lacking an elaborate opening ceremony, our sports carnivals differed in another way which in hindsight seems like fairness taken to extremes: when we first enrolled at the school, all students were arbitrarily assigned to one of four "factions", and on sports day we separated from our classmates and competed for these teams. In chinese primary schools and high schools, students compete for their own class. In college, they compete for their department, which explains why the teachers from the foreign languages department won first place last year: our department has by far the most teachers! That's because all students in the college take english classes. On the other hand, since our department has few male students we don't win many of the men's events in the main competition. Last year we came in at number eight overall. Check this page again tomorrow to find out this year's result!

As you can guess, I didn't try out for any of the events, not even the fun ones like the hoop race or the three-legged race. Nobody here has heard of an egg and spoon race, by the way. "This is a developing country," joked Wang Xin, "We can't afford to break any eggs!" I stayed with the teachers for lunch, since it was a free feed at a local jiaozi restaurant, and after that I snuck away.

25 October

I spoke to a teacher from the foreign languages department who was proud because they (the teachers) had come first again. She wasn't certain, but she thinks that the students came ninth.