Temporary Flowers

There was a track and field sort of competition for the students and facility this weekend. Dave won the 400 and the 800 meter races, he probably could have won anything longer too since he's basically a distance runner. He said that the other people just basically sprinted out of the gates but then lost steam way before the end. The whole thing was an odd mix of formality and the usual fly by night style of China. Apparently most of the teachers who were participating had to come to the opening ceremony in suits, but the American's of course didn't have to do anything like that. Most of the events were pretty standard fare like running and high jump but there were some odd sports. First there was one mostly for fun which involved lines of twenty people each person holding the foot of one of the people behind them and then all hoping down the track. Also there was a 20x500 meter relay, that's 20 people on each relay team. I guess if you just did 2 or 4 you'd never get to all the people here. When they gave out little medals to the students they would have them stand on a small podium like thing give them flowers, take a picture, then take the flowers away to use again. All the schools competed against each other though I don't know how many of the students cared since most just treated it as a three day weekend.