It's only been two days into school at Jing-Shan and I already love it there. My favorite class so far is English, firstly, because it's the only class I fully understand and secondly, because the teacher is so nice and friendly. The teachers first name is Shirley but I think we call her Li Lao Shi. She is the nicest teacher I've met so far at school.
Today, Ms. Jang (the head of the exchange program in China) and Ms. Wong (an English teacher at Jing-Shan who went to America last September) gave the American kids a tour around the school. They showed us the language lab. It has many computers lined up along the walls and a circular conferance table in the middle. Wha'ts amazing about Jing-Shan's language lab is that the students there don't use it just to do listening activities or partner speaking, they also do a lot of international communications stuff with other students living in different countries like France. For example, if the Jing-Shan students had to do a project with students from France, the Jing-Shan students and the French students would go to their own language lab at their own school and then chat with each other via webcam or something. It's kind of like skype. It's really cool. Also, The Jing-Shan school does a lot to help other schools around China with fewer resources. If a school in Sichuan doesn't have a textbook but a teacher from Jing-Shan knows the material well, the Sichuan students would go to their language lab in their Sichuan high school and the Jing-Shan teacher would go to the Jing-Shan language lab and then he//she would teach the Sichuan students through the computer. It's really fascinating how advanced our technology is now compared to 50 years ago.
Afterwards, we went to Jing-Shan's trophy // memorabilia room. They have many framed pieces of paper with Chinese calligraphy written on it. They're written by important people and hung all around the room. Jang Lao Shi then showed us this one picture of a little girl talking to an American astronaut and the principal of Jing-Shan. It turned out that that litle girl was a genius and came up with an invention that would help spin silk from silk worms in space. This happened many years ago, so I'm guessing by now, she might be in her 20's. There are pictures of her early childhood hung all around Jing-Shan.
Later, we went to see the gym and the swimming pool. To get there we had to go through this corridor filled with plants and fish for biology classes. On one side of the corridor, you can look into the science laboratory and see the 30 microscopes lined up on top of the tables.
We walked through this hallway that looked like it could belong in a science museum. The walls were all painted nicely and there were leaves and gourds hanging from the ceiling. There were dinosaur foot prints and different types of rock displayed in a glass case. It felt as if we got transported to the children's museum in Boston.
The pool in Jing-Shan is huge. It's 50 meters long. There's a shallow end and a deep end. In order to swim in the deep end, you have to pass a test, which is to swimm 100 meters. You basically swim to one end of the pol and swim back. You can use any swimming stroke you want, including the doggy paddle. Haha.
Another cool thing about Jing-Shan is that it's got the coolest rock climbing wall. You can't use it unless you're with an instructor but it's still pretty awesome. The furthur left you go on the wall, the harder it is to climb up it.
Tomorrow's Wednesday, so my classes are as follows: first period= chemistry, second period= chemistry, third period= physics, fourth period= English, fifth period= English, 1 hour and 20 minutes of lunch and recess, 6th period= Chinese, and finally 7th period= Chinese. I'm so excited for school tomorrow because we will be starting morning excersices! The Jing-Shan school is definitely the school to be at in Beijing.
(I really wanted to post pictures but couldn't because my internets kinda bad. It keeps failing to upload the pictures for some reason.)
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
景山学校
Yesterday, Friday, was sort of the first day of school for hte American exchange students but it wasn't the official first day. It was kind of like a half day but only school lasted for 2 hours. Yesterdays classes began around 8:00 or 8:30 depending on which class you were in. My class started around 8:00 and ended roughly around 9:30ish. Yesterday, the exchange group got 7 new textbooks (only 1 of which is in English... and i bet you could probably guess which one that is). Yesterday wasn't an official day of school for the Jing-Shan students either. They just went to school to pass in their homework, pay their lunch money for the new semester, and get their new class schedules. Monday is the official first day of school.
I got up that morning around 6:30ish and was out the door by 7:00. It took us roughly 50 minutes to get to Jing-Shan by subway. We arrived just in time for class. Since school officially starts at 7:20, next week I will have to wake up even earlier at maybe 5:30ish and leave the apartment by 6:00ish. Although waking up early is kinda hard to do, I think it's definitely worth it. Going to school at Jing-Shan is more awesome compared to going to school in America.
Each grade in the middle school is divided into 5 classes and each grade in the high school is divided into 4 classes. I got assigned to the 9th grade and I'm in the 5th class. The 9th grade in China is considered part of the middle school, but hte class I'm in is comprised of the smartest kids in that grade. So the kids in the 5th class are actually taking high school courses right now. They are taking the courses a semester earlier than the other 9th graders.
What surprised me the most was how the students all pitched in to help better their class rooms. During the beginning of class, some of the students had specific chores they each had to do. Victor (a Jing-Shan student going on the exchange to America in September) was cleaning hte black board while another student was mopping up the floors. Other students were dusting around the class and rearranging items on the teachers desk. It's surprising how the kids all came together to pitch in to better their class.
Next week, I'll follow the same schedule as the other Jing-Shan students and take all the classes they are taking. But by the second week of school, we (the Americans) will get our own schedules with our own specialized courses like martial arts. One bad thing about school is that the hours are long. The school hours are from 7:20 to 4:00.... doesn't that sound wonderful?? haha. Even though the long hours sound kind of bad, I'm still pumped for school and can't wait for it to begin.
I got up that morning around 6:30ish and was out the door by 7:00. It took us roughly 50 minutes to get to Jing-Shan by subway. We arrived just in time for class. Since school officially starts at 7:20, next week I will have to wake up even earlier at maybe 5:30ish and leave the apartment by 6:00ish. Although waking up early is kinda hard to do, I think it's definitely worth it. Going to school at Jing-Shan is more awesome compared to going to school in America.
Each grade in the middle school is divided into 5 classes and each grade in the high school is divided into 4 classes. I got assigned to the 9th grade and I'm in the 5th class. The 9th grade in China is considered part of the middle school, but hte class I'm in is comprised of the smartest kids in that grade. So the kids in the 5th class are actually taking high school courses right now. They are taking the courses a semester earlier than the other 9th graders.
What surprised me the most was how the students all pitched in to help better their class rooms. During the beginning of class, some of the students had specific chores they each had to do. Victor (a Jing-Shan student going on the exchange to America in September) was cleaning hte black board while another student was mopping up the floors. Other students were dusting around the class and rearranging items on the teachers desk. It's surprising how the kids all came together to pitch in to better their class.
Next week, I'll follow the same schedule as the other Jing-Shan students and take all the classes they are taking. But by the second week of school, we (the Americans) will get our own schedules with our own specialized courses like martial arts. One bad thing about school is that the hours are long. The school hours are from 7:20 to 4:00.... doesn't that sound wonderful?? haha. Even though the long hours sound kind of bad, I'm still pumped for school and can't wait for it to begin.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
February Trip
The February trip from Beijing to around China was pretty amazing. The trip began on February 1st and lasted until February 10th. During that ten day period, I went to Huangshan, Hanzhou, and Shanghai. Our group couldn’t have picked better areas to visit because those areas provided us knowledge of the more rural areas of China like Huangshan and of the wealthier and prosperous cities like Shanghai.
Huangshan
Carolyn and I decided to split off from the group so while the group went to do their own thing, we decided to go to Huangshan together first. Originally, we were suppose to stay in Huangshan until the 3rd but because we wanted to stay a little longer, we met up with the group on the morning of the 5th.
On the first day in Huanghsan, we learned very quickly not to flush toilet paper into the toilets since they have poor drainage there. Mr. He told us early on not to flush toilet paper, but we forgot and a few hours later, Carolyn and I accidently flushed it down a few times. That was when our toilet clogging problems began.
In Huangshan, the houses are much colder than outside. At first I thought it was very weird because I’m more accustomed to thinking that it should be warmer inside a house than outside it. However, in Huangshan it’s the complete opposite. It’s freezing in the house and warmer outside. On one day, the weather outside was relatively warm but once we got into Mr. He’s house, we had to bundle up and wear our jackets and gloves while we sat in the living room and watched tv.
Carolyn and I got to visited Mr. He’s (the teacher we were staying with) high school. Mr. He’s high school has a huge court yard and has trees and shrubs everywhere. It was very peaceful there. Although Mr. He’s high school is one of the best in Huangshan, it was lacking some modern facilities. The school wasn’t as technologically equipped as some other schools are. For example, in the girls dorm, which is either ten to a room or eight to a room (if you chose to pay an extra 100 yuan), only the girls who live in the eight to a room have electricity. The rest of the girls have to charge their cell phones during class in the classrooms.
After staying with Mr. He for a few days, we met up with the group early on February 5th to climb the famous Huangshan. There was a lot of fog that day, so our view of the place wasn’t that great. There were so many stairs to walk up and down that we quickly got tired. Despite that, it was definitely worth it. When we got to the top, we had a great view of the scenery all around. We could see little buildings on the ground.
Huangshan
Carolyn and I decided to split off from the group so while the group went to do their own thing, we decided to go to Huangshan together first. Originally, we were suppose to stay in Huangshan until the 3rd but because we wanted to stay a little longer, we met up with the group on the morning of the 5th.
On the first day in Huanghsan, we learned very quickly not to flush toilet paper into the toilets since they have poor drainage there. Mr. He told us early on not to flush toilet paper, but we forgot and a few hours later, Carolyn and I accidently flushed it down a few times. That was when our toilet clogging problems began.
In Huangshan, the houses are much colder than outside. At first I thought it was very weird because I’m more accustomed to thinking that it should be warmer inside a house than outside it. However, in Huangshan it’s the complete opposite. It’s freezing in the house and warmer outside. On one day, the weather outside was relatively warm but once we got into Mr. He’s house, we had to bundle up and wear our jackets and gloves while we sat in the living room and watched tv.
Carolyn and I got to visited Mr. He’s (the teacher we were staying with) high school. Mr. He’s high school has a huge court yard and has trees and shrubs everywhere. It was very peaceful there. Although Mr. He’s high school is one of the best in Huangshan, it was lacking some modern facilities. The school wasn’t as technologically equipped as some other schools are. For example, in the girls dorm, which is either ten to a room or eight to a room (if you chose to pay an extra 100 yuan), only the girls who live in the eight to a room have electricity. The rest of the girls have to charge their cell phones during class in the classrooms.
The next day, we went to a Daoist Mountain. While we were walking up and down the million narrow steps, we noticed the many villagers walking around. It turned out that there was a village on the mountain. There were people old and young living all around the mountain. Some of them raised livestock while others ran restaurants. It was like a bustling little town up there. The most fascinating part of the Daoist Mountain was the couple of temples carved into it. Within each temple, there were huge figures of Lao Zu and other important people.
After staying with Mr. He for a few days, we met up with the group early on February 5th to climb the famous Huangshan. There was a lot of fog that day, so our view of the place wasn’t that great. There were so many stairs to walk up and down that we quickly got tired. Despite that, it was definitely worth it. When we got to the top, we had a great view of the scenery all around. We could see little buildings on the ground.
Hangzhou
To get to Hangzhou from Huangshan, we had to take a four hour bus ride there. Once we got there, we did a four hour walk around West Lake. The lake was very peaceful. While we were walking around, we saw peacocks and different kinds of tree. We went to a gated area filled with peacocks and Carolyn decided to try out her peacock mating call. Then Amy saw a statue (or what she thought was a statue) a few feet away so the group decided to walk up closer to it to get a better view of the statues. However, once we got to the statues, we realized that they weren’t statues but tree stumps covered in garbage bags. That was definitely the highlight of my day.
Shanghai
Our next and final stop of the trip was Shanghai. On the first day, we visited the Pearl TV tower. We went up 90 meters first and then we kept going further up in the tower. We had an amazing view of the river and the buildings surrounding the TV tower. Carolyn and I wanted to mail postcards to people from the tower but they ran out of postcards.
We went to many places in Shanghai. We went to a silk factory, a tea shop, and a store that specialized in pearls. In total, I think we spent more money in Shanghai than in the other previous cities but it was well worth it.
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