Thursday

Thursday morning I woke up at about 7 o'clock, grudgingly and repeatedly hitting the snooze until about 7:30.  When I was finally able to extricate myself from the warm cocoon of sheets, I dug around for my solid red t-shirt, made a quick decision overriding the choice of mildly-inappropriate-for-the-day's-tasks-but-oh-so-comfortable black yoga pants with the much-more-suitable black trousers, and shuffled out the door.

I made it to the designated meeting spot almost exactly on time and marveled at the ingenuity of the boys - they had all opted to wear a long-sleeved tee under their mandatory red t-shirts due to the chilly, November morning.  Not willing to simply resign myself to the cold, I decided to run back to my apartment and do the same.  I was then only 5 minutes late - so, still early by some cultural standards.

We formed up into the (almost) lines we were told, attempted to match our steps left-right-left! to the shouts of yi-er-yi! and practiced shouting something in Chinese, relatively unknown and untranslated.  (Little did I know how much later in life my marching band skills would come in handy.)  One of the newest foreign teachers nervously joked about hoping no pictures made it online due to fears of the US revoking his passport.  I'm pretty sure that fear slightly worsened when the only little blonde-haired, blue-eyed, two year old beauty in town started waving China's flag from atop her daddy's shoulders, much to the joy and admiration of the crowds, natch.

The weather was surprisingly clear for CQ.

As we marched onto the track surrounding the field, we were greeted with shouts, cheers, and excited waves from the overflowing stands.  When passing by the stage holding all the high officials and university leaders, we were instructed to turn our heads to the right, in their direction, as a means of salute greeting while continuing to march walk forward.  From there, we circled around to join all the other departments on the field and listened as the highest officials began the ceremonial events for which they (blissfully!) cancelled two days of class - a school-wide sports meet.

Stage hosting officials, surrounded by red lanterns/banners.

As the field was cleared, it was soon filled with hundreds performing traditional tai chi exercises to usher in the spirit of the events.  Almost all the other foreign teachers were then (for the first time) told they'd be participating in the basketball shooting competition starting...in five minutes.  I guess they'd already determined my level of sportiness from the games of ultimate frisbee in which I usually secure my team's loss.

Tai chi performers.

After the morning events, it was off to lunch, followed by a quick nap before Chinese class.  The evening was filled with the usual 2 hours of English Corner and a student followed us home to regale us with stories about her life growing up in the countryside.  All in all, a pretty typical day.