On December 14, 2014, a ‘Running Woman’ event was staged on NIT’s north athletic field. ‘Running Woman’ is based on the ‘Running Man’ television show which is very popular these days in South Korea. The difference was — yes, you guessed it — the participants were female.
‘Running Woman’ was organized by the NIT Student Union office and designed to strengthen cooperation among members of the Student Union, the Youth League, the Arts Troupe, and other student organizations. But of course, the ‘real’ plan was for everyone to get together and have a great time!
The event included two games: ‘Rainbow Run’ and ‘Envelope Race’. In the first game, three stations were set up on the campus: one near the North Commissary, one at Kezhen Auditorium, and the third at Open Field Square. Members of the red and blue teams had to run from one station to the next, each time facing some type of challenge before they were allowed to continue on to the next station. Whenever a runner passed the challenge, the attendant would award them with a small quantity of colored corn flour.
In the ‘Envelope Race’, a total of two hundred envelopes were distributed throughout the four floors of the NC building. The two teams of runners then set off to search the building as fast as possible in search of six special envelopes with messages inside. The winning team was the one whose members gathered the most special envelopes. (194 envelopes were empty and didn’t count!) Just imagine two teams of female students running up and down stairs and from room to room in the NC building in a mad search for these six envelopes. You get the picture.
One of the team members, Li Xuemei, told of her ‘Running Woman’ experience: “I had a really good time, but the two events were totally exhausting. It was like happiness and pain all rolled into one. I could see how the activities were meaningful because they required a great deal of cooperation and teamwork. I want to take part in next year’s ‘Running Woman’ event if I can! It’s a fun way to learn how to work together by playing together.”
