Cross-Curricular Learning, Anyone?

This is an international school post as opposed to a Sudan post...

I had fun at lunch today. I always play badminton with about half a million other kids, 8th grade through seniors. We form random two-person teams, then cycle through, with winners staying on the court (there's only one, and it's actually just an empty spot of sand with a net in it), and new opponents walking on to challenge them. Everybody else watches, waits for their turn, and heckles the people playing.

What's cool is that there are maybe 3 or 4 regular players that speak Chinese, 2 that speak Korean, and 5 or 6 that speak Urdu. Sometimes hecklers who want to needle somebody in particular yell at them in one of those languages. Or else opponents will insult each other in their own private tongues, and the privileged sideline few who understand just bust out laughing. Then we have to ask for translations: "Oh, she just said, 'Who taught you how to serve?'"