The Amazing Race BEIDA

So, we just finished the scavenger hunt and we came in first place! Even though we had to wake up early this morning, it was totally worth it because all of the activities were a lot of fun.

My team consisted of me, Molly, Jay, Jon, Jenn, Gillian, Damien, my language partner, Olivia, Jenn’s language partener, Xiao Yao, Jay’s language partner, Jesse, and Damien’s language partner. I was the captain for my team. Our team came to be when our friend Peggy, who can be a little competitive at times, decided to compose what she thought would be the dream team. Since we were not selected for this team, we decided to call ourselves Team Leftovers.

Last night we went to Wu Mei and all bought matching pink PKU t-shirts to wear for the event today. When we got back to Shaoyuan last night, we took sharpies and numbered our shirts using Chinese characters and wrote our Chinese names on the back of our shirts in characters as well.

This morning it was really nice to see that everyone was really into the competition. We were pretty intimidating in our matching shirts. Peggy’s team, the Wu Tang Clan, all had “wu” written on their faces, and other teams had on shoelace headbands and war paint. There were six teams all together.

Once we were handed our maps, flags, and packets of clues, our team took off running. The first activity we did was called “Don’t Drop the Stick,” where we had to pass tubes to each other without using our hands to catch them or dropping them. We got eight passes in a row, which earned us a perfect score for this challenge.

Our next activity took a lot of physical strength. We have a rock climbing wall on our campus, so Jay and Damien volunteered to climb to the top, while the rest of the team managed to pull off a 15 second group push up without our feet touching the ground, which also earned us the full amount of points for this challenge.

Next, we ran to the stone boat, where we had to play Chinese hacky sack. According the range of points each team scored in, points were awarded for the activity. This activity didn’t go too well for us at first. However, in the last minute of our time at this challenge, we were able to surpass the maximum range of passes, again achieving a perfect score.

Our fourth challenge took us to the library, where we were required to take a group photo, get it on to the BEIDA web site, make a copy for each team member, and collect signatures and email addresses of BEIDA students. Our language partners were very helpful with this event. In no time, we were done, had earned the maximum number of points for the challenge, and were on our way to the next event.

The next team challenge was called “How Spicy Is It?” which as you can probably guess, had us eating spicy food. I don’t really like spicy food, but I couldn’t let my team down. We each had to eat a spicy chicken skewer and then repeat a tongue twister. The Chinese students had to repeat “unique New York” ten times, while the American students had to read a Chinese tongue twister in pinyin. Again, a perfect score!

For our final challenge, we had to complete three separate activities. For the first one, we had to get eight of our team members to be standing on a brick. It’s a good thing we are all good friends because it was definitely a tight fit! Next, we had to do a moving group lap sit. Lastly, we had to play a clapping rhythm game. When we were done, we had earned the maximum number of points for the whole scavenger hunt and took off running for the history department.

When we got to the history department, we saw Peggy’s team running with their yellow flag from another direction. At the same time, everyone yelled, “RUN” and we bolted for the door. Joyce Li was so excited to see us! We were the second team back and were declared the winners once our perfect score was added up. As a prize, each member of our team got a really fancy BEIDA bookmark.

After the challenge, our entire team, including our language partners, and our friends from the Wu Tang Clan went out for lunch. We looked so silly all around campus in our matching pink shirts. I’m very tired now so I’m going to take easy on my feet and my back for the rest of the afternoon. Tonight we are going out to dinner and celebrating our victory some more!