Jiamusi 2010 Olympic Games?

Last Wednesday, Jiamusi Number One High School held its annual “sports meeting”.  When I first attended the High School, I had assumed that very few extraordinary athletes existed in Jiamusi.  Although some of my classmates were somewhat fast or strong, in the US they wouldn’t have been considered athletes whatsoever.  I was positive I was among the fastest and strongest in my class of sixty six students. 

I soon learned that my high school’s basketball team had been ranked first in China for about eight of the past ten years, and I began to see people running around the track at incredible speeds.  I was shocked.  I began to wonder if all of my classmates were this way, despite their lack of time to work out (due to their tremendous academic schedule).  To my great relief, I discovered that both the athletes on the basketball team and those running around the track were “sports students”.  In other words, they are often exempt from academic class to improve their athletic prowess. 

On Tuesday, the day before the meet, I was told to arrive at school at 5 am.  I did not know what to expect, although I assumed that it would include some track and field games.  I pictured some people watching casually on the side of the track as the athletes carelessly went about their preordained events.  Reluctantly, I arrived right on time in the uniform I was asked to wear (which simply consisted of a pink long sleeve T-shirt and a pair of black sweatpants).  I was, along with about ten other students in my class, sent over to the basketball courts.  I was amazed by the activity of the event.  All six thousand students of Jiamusi Number One High School were in attendance, and tents and had been set up in a horseshoe shape around the track.  I was among the first of the 6000 to march, but among the last to leave.  I stood in the hot sun for two hours, at attention, watching class after class march by and listening to speaker after speaker spit out what to me were inaudible phrases with slight hints of familiar words. 

Finally, it was time to relax.  I met up with the other exchange students, and we spent hours taking ridiculous pictures, messing around (which led to the breaking of both of my shoelaces) and eating enormous amounts of food.  Towards the end of the day, the teachers were given a chance to race.  I was amazed by some of their speed!  Teachers in China tend to be younger than their American counterparts, but I was still shocked by their athleticism.

The exchange students decided that we would like to have our own race.  To my surprise, the faculty allowed for the event to take place.  We had secretly decided in advance to play a bit of a joke on our audience.  As the gun went off, we would spin around and run as quickly as we possibly could backwards, in an effort to convince our Chinese classmates that that is how races are run in the west!

The pressure was on as I was representing both the United States of America and Salisbury School! 

I am proud to report that I took home the gold!  I cannot help but feel this is a prelude for Salisbury athletics in the coming year.  The victory does not bode well for the rivals of Salisbury School, particularly a certain panda that will attempt to surmount the hilltop next week (panda, in Chinese, is xiong mao -  xiong means bear and mao means cat).

 After having upwards of six thousand people witness the unbridled glory of the United States of America, I ate some more bread and headed home.