{"id":200,"date":"2014-04-22T23:10:41","date_gmt":"2014-04-23T03:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.newtonchineseschool.org\/supportchinaeducation\/?p=200"},"modified":"2014-04-23T22:35:22","modified_gmt":"2014-04-24T02:35:22","slug":"day-2-report-from-2014-trip-team-leader-jackie-and-peter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.newtonchineseschool.org\/supporteducation\/2014\/04\/22\/day-2-report-from-2014-trip-team-leader-jackie-and-peter\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 2 – Report from 2014 Trip Team Leaders Jackie and Peter"},"content":{"rendered":"
Hi all,<\/div>\n
Here are updates from\u00a0yesterday.\u00a0 Thanks to everyone for your encouraging works.\u00a0 Peter and I feel fortunate to spend this week with your children who are all responsible and mature.\u00a0 Thank you!<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
We will send\/upload some pictures when we have time.\u00a0 The agenda is jam packed so we haven’t had a chance.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Jackie & Peter<\/div>\n
——————————————–<\/div>\n
Day 2 – 4\/22<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
“Amazing” was the word used by the girls to describe how good it felt to be able to take a shower, finally.\u00a0 The school installed 2 small\u00a0hot water heater\u00a0and shower heads last night in 2 of the dorm bathrooms downstairs\u00a0just for us so that we\u00a0can conveniently\u00a0take private\u00a0showers.\u00a0\u00a0 Anticipating the showers, the kids beat the roosters today and got up as early as before\u00a05:00am.\u00a0 Some went for a run at the Athletic field first\u00a0and some rushed to line up for the showers.\u00a0 It was a nice day today with mild temperature and a cool breeze.\u00a0 So we were all refreshed\u00a0and\u00a0looked forward to the day ahead.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
After a\u00a0rice noodle breakfast, all arrived at the classroom building and started a long morning of 4 classes.\u00a0 With\u00a0yesterday’s\u00a0experience under their belt, each group did a fantastic job in giving their presentations and conducting Q&As at their classes.\u00a0 You can hear loud cheering from various classrooms which makes those classrooms that have not gotten their turn very envious.\u00a0 The teachers got asked by a lot of their students when the “foreign kids” (wai guo hai zi) are coming to their classroom to teach.\u00a0 Fans are accumulating speedily and nick names related to “super”\u00a0started\u00a0surfacing.\u00a0 I won’t go into detail but will let the kids tell the stories when they are back home.\u00a0 All are innocent and cute.<\/p>\n
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Our kids got a taste of what hard work is.\u00a0 Four hours of teaching with only short breaks in between is a normal schedule for teachers here.\u00a0 We learned to appreciate\u00a0our teachers (at least in China).\u00a0 After the morning classes, we had a tasty lunch to recharge. Most kids don’t know how to handle the small\u00a0whole fish with lots of bones\u00a0so Peter and I were the lucky ones to devour most of it.\u00a0 The kids made friends with their neighboring dorm room kids and\u00a0other students eating at the dining hall.\u00a0\u00a0They\u00a0had a nice conversation with them learning about each other after lunch.\u00a0 It was followed up with a badminton play off.\u00a0 Everyone gave it a try and Brian made us proud with his fast smashes and overhead!<\/div>\n
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In the afternoon, we went on a sightseeing trip to a local\u00a0temple in the mountains.\u00a0 The school contact Liu Shu Ji, a security guard, and 2 other teachers accompanied us.\u00a0 We got on a small bus which took us up the mountain on a\u00a0winding village road.\u00a0 The road was very narrow but our driver was an experienced one so it wasn’t an issue.\u00a0\u00a0 The kids were snapping pictures of the beautiful southern China countryside scenes with green\u00a0rice patties, blue mountains and rythemic springs flowing down from the mountains.\u00a0 We were only 3 kilometers from the temple but got stuck behind a disabled truck full of bamboos.\u00a0 Instead of waiting for the truck to get going, the group decided to walk on foot.\u00a0 It was the best decision ever as we were able to get up and close with the bamboos, chickens with baby chicks at the village, and insects with rainbow color backs\u00a0that looked “foreign”.\u00a0 When we came upon some farm dogs, we gave the kids a stern warning that everyone was to be quiet, slow and non-agitating unless they want to get rabbies.\u00a0 And that did it.\u00a0 We swiftly walked past the dogs and soon reached the temple at the mountain top. The temple is called Dragon Charity temple “long ji si” which was built more than a thousand years ago in 904 by buddiest monks.\u00a0 Given its age, it is understandable that it went through many wars and natural disasters so the original buildings were damaged throughout the centuries.\u00a0 There were some re-builds and repairs but overall it looked fairly orginally.\u00a0 Lots of buddas and buddiest gods in the temple.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Some of us asked for our fortunes “qiu qian”.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n
We walked down the mountain on another side and met up with the bus at the foot of the mountain near a village.\u00a0 It was tiring but the serene scenary along the way made it all worth it.\u00a0 One of the teachers found a huge fresh bamboo shoot tall as a person and carried it down the mountain for us to bring to the dining hall chefs to cook for us at dinner.\u00a0\u00a0 We were not disapppointed, the bamboo\u00a0dish served at dinner\u00a0was organically\u00a0delicious!\u00a0 We have the before and after picture of the bamboo shoot that we will share when we have a chance to upload them.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Tonight’s activity was to perform with the YiZhong students.\u00a0 It was more of a fun party than just performance.\u00a0 All kids sang, danced, had fun games and took pictures to keep and cherish.\u00a0\u00a0One of the Yizhong kids performed “Hu Lu Si”, a\u00a0traditional\u00a0Chinese musical instructment that looks like a squash “Hu Lu”.\u00a0 It was really impressive.\u00a0 In addition to all the group performance that our kids had prepared,\u00a0 Michael performed an improvised break dance which drew cheers from the entire audience.\u00a0 Emily, Sophia and Savanah performed the theme song of the Titanic.\u00a0 All did a beautiful job.\u00a0 Isabella won one of the White Raddish Squat “bai luo bo dun” game\u00a0beating out the YiZhong students.\u00a0 The party was ended with more\u00a0hugs and pictures.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
We walked back to the dorm still singing…<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Jackie & Peter<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi all, Here are updates from\u00a0yesterday.\u00a0 Thanks to everyone for your encouraging works.\u00a0 Peter and I feel fortunate to spend this week with your children who are all responsible and mature.\u00a0 Thank you! We will send\/upload some pictures when we … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.newtonchineseschool.org\/supporteducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.newtonchineseschool.org\/supporteducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.newtonchineseschool.org\/supporteducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.newtonchineseschool.org\/supporteducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.newtonchineseschool.org\/supporteducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.newtonchineseschool.org\/supporteducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":210,"href":"http:\/\/blog.newtonchineseschool.org\/supporteducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions\/210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.newtonchineseschool.org\/supporteducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.newtonchineseschool.org\/supporteducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.newtonchineseschool.org\/supporteducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}