Today is an early morning for me. There haven’t been too many days I’ve left the house before Judy, but today is one of them. It’s the first day of school for all the Chinese schools. Beijing #4 is having opening ceremonies at the main campus. They’ve asked us to arrive at 7:30, so I leave the apartment at 6:45. I get a taxi and off we go. The traffic is really bad. Later in the day, on the CCTV news, there is lots of discussion about how bad the traffic is around China on the first day of school. I would believe it. We were in the middle of lots of “stop and go” traffic, mostly “stop.”

I finally arrive at the main campus around 7:45. The rehearsal for the student groups is still going on. The ceremony begins on time at 8:00. It begins with a performance by the incoming male students. They’ve been doing military training for the last two weeks, and they demonstrate some of their martial arts training and marching skills. It’s followed by a flag presentation and flag-raising by student groups and singing the Chinese National Anthem and the Beijing #4 School Song. Next are a series of speakers, including a student, former faculty, current faculty, and the principal. The ceremony finishes around 9:00 am.

Pictures from the opening ceremonies. The faculty was seated nearest the camera. The students fill up the rest of the field. Parents are at the very back.

Students demonstrating martial arts training

Classes at my campus start after lunch. I don’t have a class until Thursday,, so I’m homeward bound. It takes a while to find a taxi, and I finally get home around 10:00 am. I spend the rest of the day working on plans for my classes. I’ve got a lot of material from last year, and I saved everything, but I need to formulate a better plan to present it. We’ll see how it goes.