Young-il Sports Day

Today was, as the title of this post suggests, Sports Day at Young-il High School. It was also Teacher's Day, so we began with a ceremony recognizing teachers who hit 10-, 20-, and 30-year milestones, including the warm, gentle, and intellectual Mr Lee, who had been at the school for 30 years. At the end of the ceremony, all the teachers were given a massive boutonniere--I got two, which means I'm double loved!


The first and second graders have been playing intramural soccer games for several weeks (I have mentioned class being cancelled on that account), which culminated in the class championships today.




Meanwhile, the third-graders--that's seniors to you and I--were playing basketball championships in the corner of the school playground, on a court the size of the one on Gilligan's Island that time the Harlem Globetrotters were there:



The morning events culminated in a faculty-student soccer match, which ended with a 3 - 3 tie. Below is a shot of Mr Hwang helping out on defense--he drew first blood on a header about ten minutes in.


The faculty went ahead by 3 - 1 before the students came back to tie it up as time expired!


After lunch, it was time for the relay races. Each class put forward 4 runners, for a total of 41 teams across all three grades. In the final heat, a fifth leg was added, run by the homeroom teachers of the classes that made it through.




Left, students watching from the windows of the "new" building; right, the campus was decorated with flag streamers called mangukgee 만국기, literally "ten thousand national flags". Mr Lee told me this form of decoration became common in Korea in his elementary school days to recognise the sixteen nations that fought with the South during the Korean War.


Points were accumulated by each class, and the top three teams were recognised by the principal in a brief ceremony. The envelopes contain money to be shared by the participants!