Field Day Awesomeness

So I have had a few ideas for blogs on the back burner but this one is still fresh in my mind so I'm going to go with it. This has been an awesome week so far. I have had to do practically nil in the way of work I am paid to do. Why? Because this week at both my schools (and I'm sure most Korean elementary schools) was FIELD DAY!

So the first difference I noticed between Field Day in Korea and Field Day in the USA is that in Korea it is much bigger. In America, as I recall, it was set up in such a way as kids in different grades would go to different competitions, do the competition and then they would move on. There was much more setup involved in Korean field day-- chairs, flags, tents, a stage, podium, a food tent for all the parents who went... My first school had a balloon gateway for God's sake!

...and someone thought it would be a great idea

to give some of the kids vuvuzelas...

There is so much more ceremony to the whole thing as well. Before Field Day even began the students lined up by grade and team (so two lines for each grade) and there were speeches by principals, warm-up songs, stuff like that; at my first school they even had an entrance for students of each grade like the Olympics.

...and a drum show at the other!

The whole dynamic is different too. Here there is White Team (baek team) and Blue Team (cheong team) which consist of students from every grade. I don't know how they split up the teams but the school managed to make the games incredibly evenly matched. The games themselves were mostly hilarious and there were even a few I remember from when I was a kid (that are no longer played in the States).

Some reminded me of Mario Party...

Some, well they would just make more

sense if you saw them being played...

There were simple races that just included

a few extra challenges...

Some were just absolute mayhem...

...and there were even some that did not even involve

the kids... like the game I've dubbed Ahjjuma Battle

I even got to take part in a few games today. One was a 100m dash where the students had to take a card which said "Find someone who..." and then go find someone who fit the description and run the race with them. I ran three of the races because I was "A man" "A male teacher" and "A man wearing a hat." I also took part in a tug-of war. We won the first round but then when they noticed this 미국인 was a lot stronger than he looked, two guys joined the other team and needless to say we lost.

What I liked the most about field day though was that there were real competitions. Students were shouting "baek/cheong team eegona(sp?)!" and the grades were all working, cheering, playing together. The games were competitive, particularly dodgeball and tug-of-war.

Nobody cried from losing at dodgeball...

...and the tug-of-wars were school-wide.

(tugs-of-war? wars-of-the-tugging-nature?)

Finally, there was a clear winning

team and a clear losing team.

...but all the students walked away with prizes

for the various individual events they won.

After Field Day at my first school we went out bowling, got dinner, and went to karaoke again. Dinner implied what it usually implies. For at my other school we went to a restaurant for lunch and dinner. Beer, soju, and soju-bombs were involved. And that's just lunch. Dinner we skipped the games and went straight to the soju bombs.

After dinner a few people decided they wanted to climb the mountain again; because after drinking at dinner I love climbing the mountain. It was nice to see the others having a little trouble keeping up with me. Means my efforts have been paying off. Speaking of efforts I'm probably going to bite the bullet and join a gym on Monday. Hopefully I'll have another good post up soon. Like tomorrow or Friday soon.

Cheers, my freaky darlings!