Soju is to adults as Sports Day is to Korean Middle School Students

It’s mid-afternoon, a piercing breeze whips through the air as the gym teacher stands narrow in his fleece puffing hastily on his tobacco stick while 14 year-old sticks in uniforms scurry around him with wispy wooden browns and flying pink plastic bags.  It’s after school cleaning “period.”  The time when students replace their Hello Kitty pencil cases and frayed English books for decaying mops and outer space vacuums.

Most Korea schools do not have janitors; instead they’ve got a swarm of hungry middle-schoolers who sloop water on the floor and trudge a hairy mop in one squeaky line across the hallway.  I always cringe when I enter the bathroom knowing its only form of disinfection was completed by the same sloppy students who traipse their curious fingers all over each other (having no sense of “homophobia” quite the way Americans do, students of the same sex are often caught holding hands, walking arm in arm, petting each other’s hair…you get the idea).  It’s both puzzling and mesmerizing.  I am sure tradition bears significance, but children performing dually as students and maids is both genius and absurd.  

Cleaning and cramming is the Korean student’s way.   Is that all, though?  Where are the sports?  Are there clubs?  Do students ever break a sweat?  Well, I was told about the tradition of Sports Day.  One day.  One day wherein students embrace raw competiveness.  A day when champions are born.  Even the mirror-loving, giggly girls trot to the beat of Sports day as it sure breaks the monotony of the rote-learnin, gender segregated, whip-crackin’ day-to-day.

Each class competes against one another in events leading up to the final day of competition, known as “Sports Day.”  School is cancelled on this day and students trade their school uniforms for their uniquely designed sport “uniforms” (some were more like costumes, my favorite being the Playboy Bunnies).  Comparatively, there is no event quite like this in America.   One soccer field overflowing with over 1,500 rambunctious ear-busting students clad in catchy costumes was electric and magnificent.  The photos speak for themselves.