a little coffee

The past two days have been Sports Day at Anyang Teacher’s College.  Students from many of the classes participated in a variety of track and field events from the 5,000 meters to the javelin. To my knowledge, there’s no regular sports teams so Sports Day is as close as they get. 

Many of the students were pretty damn quick and talented at their sport. Others, I suspect, participated under coercion from their class. One of my students, an enthusiastic well-spoken sophomore named Lily, quite happily told me that she ran the 400-meters yesterday and came in last. But what impressed me most was the enthusiasm the students had for their classmates. Before Chris and I got to the track, we heard cymbals crashing, cheering and chanting. The patch of dusty dirt used for a field was crowded for the events. We arrived about mid-way through the first men’s 5,000-meter heat. 16 laps around a 300-meter track. (Yikes!) Whenever on of their classmates made another lap, they would yell and chant something like zhi you! zhi you! which I assumed meant “let’s go, let’s go!” Some would even run or jog next to their classmates for a stretch and it didn’t matter at all that many of them had been lapped one or twice.  One guy, in tight short short running shorts, who had begun the race at the head of the back, got lapped three times, and on his final lap, two of his friends jogged with him on the track until he crossed the finish. I would have thrown in the towel after two.

zhi yo! zhi you!