Dara Academy Sports Day

My last day of being an Aunuban substitute co-incided with something at Dara Academy called Sports Day. Thai youth are studious, which I find ironic because according to the Thai education system everyone passes, no matter what. No one ever fails, no one ever gets held back, yet the students have classes Monday-Friday, have other academic classes on Saturday and Sunday, and are, therefore, left little time to be kids. So, once a year Dara hosts a Sports Day. The Junior High and High school students go to the infamous 700 year stadium in the middle of Chiang Mai. The lower grades, of course, for which I was substituting, stay at Dara Academy for the day in the probably-not-even-a-70-year-old-gymnasium. The events are organized similar to the Olympics but it is more about the teams, the colors, the cheers, rather than the physical activity. Even the teachers are asked to participate in events. I had to participate in speed-walking and I won! Below you can see me with the other teachers and our medals. I was also given a carton of milk later for an additional prize.

It was a strange experience, most of the kids suffered from heat exhaustion, but everyone looked good in their colors and that is most important (I am not being sarcastic). All of the teachers had to wear pink shirts (it is the king's color--red and yellow are also never used colors because of the political unrest in Thailand two months ago between The Red Shirts and The Yellow Shirts).


All of the students and teachers were divided into four teams, each with an accompanying color of green, blue, orange and purple. Each team had cheerleaders, a band, the athletes and fans. At the end of the day the team that had won the most events won a gold medal, AND the team that supported their team, via cheering, also received a gold medal.





After, I went home and made myself a nice cup of warm milk.