sport_meet

LET THE GAMES BEGIN

By Larry Jer

"Mr. Larry, tomorrow you run the 1,500 meters," I was told, "because you eat meat."

I was not long into my tenure teaching English in China when the annual Sport Rally was announced. Typically, I was the last to find out, though I was registered as an honored competitor -- a Foreign Teacher.

The entire college population would participate over the two-day gala. Twelve hundred coeds, plus faculty and support workers.

A group of students, the best of the lot, English-wise, volunteered to tell me my specialty, regardless of my opinion. It was decided I would be a long distance runner, they explained, from my perceived Canadian diet. Wrong on so many levels.

I mulled over the prospect of running four laps around the track for about, oh, a nanosecond. My long distance runs were behind me, I declared, especially with less than a day's notice. Hmm, maybe if I lied about my age.

"What’s the next age group’s events?" I ventured.

"The 100 meter obstacle race for the old teachers," laughing behind a hand, sharing knowing glances. "Run twenty-five meters to the first station balancing an egg in a spoon. Another twenty-five to extinguish a small fire. Then solve a mathematical problem using an abacus. And finally blabbityblabbityblah."

(Internal voice.) They had me until the abacus leg. What Canadian can use an abacus? I need a calculator! Or at least another angle.

"I don’t eat that much meat. How about I do something with a little less running?"

"The jump-tall is open, Mr. Larry," one shy student offered, in quaint, fractured English.
Yes! Coasting through a little high jumping seemed something I could do without risking much personal injury. Show up, a few casual attempts, save face. Simplicity itself. I, of course, couldn't have been more wrong.

Early morning. Through the discord of benches being moved out of classrooms to form bleachers, I heard my students hailing me from the flowerbed below my flat, ensuring I would not miss any of the proceedings. Doorman Liu, who gives the impression that he does not own nor ever will own a pair of pants, raced out of the guesthouse in his longjohns chasing the students away.

We (the fraternity of dorm mates and me) started with a breakfast meeting, washing down some salted duck eggs with a few liters of beer. So began my dubious climb back into the sports arena.

My benign rivals, milling about the high jump zone, were bemused at my warm-up efforts, clucking sympathetically when they heard my knees and joints complaining. I soaked up the moment grinning exactly like a man who just had beer for breakfast.

Now, the high jump landing pits were not the cushy cubes resembling giant tofu that you see in gymnasiums throughout industrialized nations; instead they were chunks of recycled sponge bits loosely held together with mesh. Getting over the bar is one thing but landing on a lump of foam that actually cushions your fall is a true victory.

I was beaten finally (and I wouldn’t have it any other way) by a scientist working in the pharmacy factory -- all the more impressive as he won wearing martial arts slippers, a dress shirt and creased trousers.

Prizes included cash and goods that truly reflected such modest accomplishments: twenty-five Yuan (a solid $4 CDN!); a stale piece of cake that surely had a bite taken out of it; and a tin of meat product that had a picture of a pig-cow hybrid on the label. If you’re wondering, and I know you are, I did try frying a slab of the stuff. The slice morphed from solid, to pebbly, then became a pool of oil. I couldn't have asked for more.

The next day my body griped, having been drained, it seemed, of any cooperation between muscles and bones. But as I lay immobile on my bed beckoning the Gods of Common Sense to smite me, a knock roused me from my reverie.

"Your students left something for you," Doorman Liu said, in a rare good mood, before retreating downstairs, his sandals clip-clopping a steady beat against the tile.

In a small, shallow box there lay, complete with instructions, a shiny new abacus.

Appeared Sept. '05 at jouneybeyondtravel.com