Kite Day!

Every "Spring" (it's still cold here!) the students of Yew Wah walk down Tianshan Lu in a great parade of flags and kites toward the beach. (Except for Grade 1 and 2, who get to take the bus on account of their short, little legs!) Many of the students have been working on designing and decorating their own kites in their art classes for this day. There is a competition for the (handmade) kite that flies the highest. Of course, in addition to the humble handmade kites, mothers have made sure to send their children with the biggest and best store-bought kites for this day. Many of which ended up being carried by we, the Grade 1 teachers, as some were as large or larger than the students themselves!
Rain was forecast, but when the day arrived, we were met by beautiful blue skies (not gray!) and a promising breeze. We took a short drive in our small school bus down Tianshan Lu, and tumbled out onto the large sidewalk above the beach. We walked down the stairs to the sand, traversed a small downwards slope of sand with much nervous squealing by the girls, walked through a break in the sand screen, and emerged onto the beach.
Immediately, a chorus of well-spoken "Can you help me"s from my students filled the air. (This is a question that we recently learned in English class, which my students have really found a use for lately!) Thankfully, we had a beautiful wind, and the students' kites (with their teachers' help) rose up into the air with very little effort, and no running starts. You simply had to release them, and they flew as if they were airborne fish on a line fighting to sail deeper into an ocean of sky.
It was a happy and amusing afternoon to say the least. Left to their own devices, many the first graders ran every which direction, and got tangled up in each others' kites again and again. We just laughed together every time this happened, and did our best to help each other figure out the complicated mess of kite strings. We laughed as one kite escaped and I took off down the beach to chase it down. We laughed together when my coteacher found herself trapped in a tangle of string (how that happened, not even she knew!) The teachers chuckled together when our students tired out and found employment elsewhere...working together to bury volunteers in the sand. We smiled at one group of determined students who began helping each other, working hard to get their kites back into the air. These students just laughed together when their kites chose to careen back to the ground rather than maintain their height. Everyone was happily exhausted by the end of the afternoon. We all carried back a piece of that beach day with us in our hearts--and in our shoes.