Two weekends ago, NUPT had their field day. This is something that happens all over China, in every school and university throughout the country. How I understand it is students from each class are chosen by their classmates to participate in certain events. For example, freshman Class 10 could choose Jane Doe (or in China, Wang Li) to compete in shotput and John Doe/ Wang Bu to run the 200 meters. I don’t think the students that are chosen have much choice in the matter, I think they are just voted to compete in that certain event and the other classmates will come to cheer them on and take pictures.
Walking into field day was like walking back in time for me. I felt like I was back in my Nike Air Maxs and swishy tracksuit, walking up to a middle school track meet. It was the same as I remember it, CHAOS! There were swarms of kids running every which way, students yelling and cheering loudly and a few parents looking on – with 1950’s style marching band music playing in the background.
I think the biggest difference between an American track meet and Chinese Field Day is organization. Basically, there were few rules. For example, when runners were crossing the finish line, their classmates were running up to them on the track to congratulate them. This resulted in a few collisions with the runners and lead to masses of students congregating at the finish line, making it impossible to see the winner. There were banners, flags, even cheerleaders and a big drum that students banged on to excite the runners!
I really felt for some of the students who were chosen to run the 5,000 meters (that’s 3.1 miles) !!! Most of the students competing in these events looked like they came straight from the classroom and were headed to the mall. They were dressed in an assortment of clothes from jeans and sweaters to work out pants and t-shirts. Some had running spikes but most had just sneakers or regular dress shoes. The cutest thing was that the friends or boyfriend of the student competing would run alongside them and cheer them on! The part that amazed me is that most of these students, especially the girls, have probably never worked out before and here they are running 3.1 miles in jeans and a sweater! This would never fly at an American university, especially with girls!
I was asked by a student reporter for the NUPT newspaper what I thought of the event. I told him that I thought the most impressive aspect of Chinese field day is that in America, a university could never get the entire student body to participate in a track meet. I told him that I thought it was amazing that this could happen here. College students wouldn’t participate because of a lot of reasons but mainly because of laziness, being embarrassed or not feeling athletic enough to compete. But wow is it different in China! All of the students came out to participate in this field day. They weren’t the best athletes, I don’t think any of them had trained a day in their life for these events, but they came out and tried. All of their classmates were there cheering for them, even if they were in last place. It was a really fun event to be able to see and I got to cheer from some of my students.
I captured some video of the event and I don’t think I can accurately explain in words what it was like to be there, so take a look for yourself and tell me what you think!
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