The International Blog

Rio writing for the group which did presentations to the Chinese students.

We went to school again today. First of all we went to our partner’s lessons from Saturday. My lesson, Emily’s, Evie’s, and Sam’s was a Chinese lesson. It was really fun.

Next we went to the bridge class. Me and Emily beat the Chinese boys on our first and second go ever! We all enjoyed ourselves. After lunch Sam , Sarah , Courtenay, Sian and Evie went off to do the box project for the BBC.

Myself, Toby, Emily, jade and Olivia stayed to do a presentation to a few classes. We split into two groups. We showed the students some of the PowerPoint’s students had made in Mr Quantrill’s classes mixed in with some other slides. After this we asked if they wanted to ask questions which they did.

Then it was time for PE lessons and I can now hula hoop with two hoops. Emily and Miss. Johns did a Tae Quan Do thing. It was a great day.

Sarah writing for the group which did the box project with the BBC

The journey to the docks took us about forty five minutes. Seven students went to do the interviews and five were from Neatherd and two from our partner school Nang Yan. They gave us bright orange hats for our safety and we stood waiting for the lift at the container area. The lift brought down the forty foot BBC box, which was painted white and red. We all had a list of questions to ask Scott Xu and we were all impressed with our two Chinese students who asked their questions in English! We found out that immigrants can no longer hide in boxes as they x-ray the boxes. This means they can discover if there is any life in a box in five minutes. After discussing this in front of the box we moved up to the conference room where we sat in comfy chairs and asked the remainder of our questions. After saying our Goodbyes we travelled an hours journey back to the hotel

Today we went to Long Hua Temple, where the Monks walked around the temple in yellow and brown. They were singing in the temple and bowing down to the golden Buddha’s. Some of them were banging the drums and hitting bells, they sang their prayers. The public were joining in. After absorbing the heady atmosphere we sat to make a quick painting of the buildings and greenery. Sarah and I painted roof tiles each, to be put onto the new building in the temple. We wrote peace on earth. Maybe one day someone will see the thought we wrote on the tiles and wonder who did this.

Following this we worked hard recording our ideas and following the guidance given we made at least three drawings and paintings each.

There wasn’t a Sunday dinner for us, but we had MacDonald’s as a treat and took a quick look around the supermarket before going back to the hotel for some well deserved rest.

By Courtenay

Descriptions and Thoughts.

The atmosphere in the temple made you feel dreamy, but aware of your surroundings. The smells and smoke gave it a heavenly feel. The soft quiet music gives a peaceful effect. People are kneeling and praying, they light incense and bow to the Buddha’s and they throw money gently into a large pot. It gives the temple a chink chink sound.

By Emily

A late morning, which is so nice on a Sunday. We went to a Buddhist  temple today. As you walk into the temple through massive old gates the first thing that hits you is the smell of incense. Monks are walking all around and people are praying to all the golden statues.

By Toby

We walked through the gates and the smell of incenses was wafting though the trees. Inside the temples were golden Buddha’s, they were tall and colourful. It was interesting to see their religion compared to ours.

By Jade

Ten words to describe the Buddhist temple, tranquil, peaceful, subtle, Smokey, purposeful, golden, calm, thoughtful, earthy, oriental, and ceremonial.

Miss Johns

Ten words to describe the Buddhist temples atmosphere: calm, peaceful, tranquil, Smokey, friendly, relaxing, quiet, detailed, prayer and individual.

I have chosen the word quiet because everyone around is concentrating on praying, thinking and not talking.  I’ve also picked ‘detailed’ in a good way, because I thought the temple and there was so much to look at and so much work had gone into the making of the statues and buildings, it had great detail.

By Olivia

We woke up to rain on Saturday morning, but we were both excited knowing we were going to make some new Chinese friends, we met Blanche, Sanfy and Vivienne.

Blanche showed us around her modern flat and we then got a taxi to the Long Hua Temple to take photographs and went to lunch in a Chinese restaurant, where, coincidentally, another Neatherd/Nanyang group were eating. Following this, we went to the amusement park at which we spent a fun-packed three hours on all the rides. The ghost train was terrifying and we nearly pooped ourselves. Mr Quantrill, it was his birthday, was on his own behind us and his face was a picture. We were a little concerned we might glimpse another sight of his breakfast birthday cake! Another classic ride we went on was the carousel, a little more sedate. We took a trip to Vivienne’s apartment; it had a Japanese feel to it. We met her big dog, Toki. We enjoyed teaching each other how to play cards. Finally we arrived at Vivienne’s mother’s Japanese restaurant, where we tasted new types of Japanese food, such as sushi. We both tried eel and shark’s fin, which was crunchy and fishy. Today was pretty crazy. We had such a good time being with three girls whose language is so different from ours, but their English is excellent.

Sarah and Courtenay

Poem about Saturday with Our Partner Families

We went to Tinas’ house first,

We had some Tea to quench our thirst,

She showed us round her high rise flat,

They took us to a park that,

Had see –saws, swings and a jungle gym.

Then we went to a market place,

It was so high it felt like space,

We brought t-shirts, chopsticks hoodies and

A Pashmina scarf it was so grand.

After that we went to Esther’s,

Just before Marks and Spencer’s

We went to a restaurant with escalators

And had some nice fried “potatas”.

By Emily and Evie.

Another day out

We met Gao, David and Fu. We spent the day with these people getting an insight into their daily lives. We went to Fu’s apartment, which was really nice, although quite small. We were given a bizarre little toy, with feathers and a weight. After trying to work out what to do with it and being laughed at for some time, we realised that it is a keepy-uppy toy and managed to have a go ourselves

Their hospitality, however, was unbelievable. Every single need (food, presents, everything) was catered for by Fu‘s family, who had never even met us before.

The Science Museum and Art exhibition were stunning, and unlike anything we’d seen before in Shanghai or England.

We were treated to two meals during the day. Fu’s mother, a primary school English teacher, refused to let us pay a Yuan towards either. Saying that we were treated like royalty would be an understatement.

By Sam, Rio and Toby

Today we went to the Oriental Pearl Tower.

We waited for taxi’s downstairs after working on our visual diaries in the morning. We took the taxi’s to Pu Dong, the down town modern area of Shanghai. First of all we made pencil drawings of the tower and added pink areas in colour. My drawing was colourful and showed good use of tone, I got most of it on the page it was a bit of a challenge.

Following this we got into the entrance of the Oriental pearl tower and we had to have a group photo. Miss. Johns was trying to get us all in as well as the tower and it just wasn’t happening! We were on the top of the steps and Miss Johns was lying in the middle of them trying to get us all in. After all that we were lining up ready for the best experience ever!

When we got onto the first floor I thought it was extremely high. The picture I made were of shanghai city day and night time, plus other cool buildings next to it, like the tallest building in the world.

Then we went up to have supper and it was very posh, it was a buffet, there were lots of types of food. When I went to get my meal I got loads of stuff like rice, chicken, kebab sticks, prawn crackers and loads more. Very tasty! While we were eating our meal we rotated around and got to see all of Shanghai. Shanghai was lit up like a Christmas tree. It was spectacular!

After all that we went around a museum about what shanghai use to be like.

Then we all went for ice cream.

By Oliva

Just in case you are missing us.

Hello everyone,

We have been reading your blog with interest and are glad that you are having a wonderful time!

Well done for trying a fish eye Sam. We are really proud of you! We hope that you have all been trying all of the wonderful food and making lots of new friends at the school in order for us to further build upon the links we already have with Nan Yang.

Parents, staff and pupils here at Neatherd can’t wait for you to tell us about all of your adventures in more detail when you get back home.  We are sure that Mrs Johns is getting you to prepare some amazing artwork and that your photography skills are improving
We hope that Mr Quantril and Mr Gardner are collecting lots of resources to use with our pupils back home and that Miss Carey is now fluent in Chinese.

We have just employed a Chinese teacher who will be giving lessons to pupils and adults on Thursday after school and you are welcome to join this class if you wish. She is really nice.

Have a good flight home, take care and don’t forget to bring us some Chinese chocolate to try! (Not the meat sweets from the last trip!).   Miss French et al xxxxxx

The Urban Planning Offices: Every part of Shanghai has been drawn out, planned and designed years in advance – nothing is left to chance. At the door we were greeted by yet another huge plastic “Blue Sponge Bob” (as we have affectionately come to call the Expo 2010 mascot). The tickets for this visit double up as postcards, for which Miss Carey obviously has some task in mind, as we have been asked to keep hold of them. Inside the building on the first floor we found models of the high-rise building of Pudong, which were fairly impressive, but nothing to write home about. On this level Miss Johns gave us a task – to make pencil drawings of the model buildings while focusing on perspective and shading. We rose to the challenge, especially as time later in the shopping mall depended on effort in the art sessions. Even some of the teachers had a go at this. They all seem to have some previous experience of art from varying backgrounds. The second floor was home to a larger model of the inner city. Mr Gardner spent some time considering how to pack it up and fit it into his suitcase! This was impressive, but paled in comparison to the vast model of a huge part of Shanghai on the top floor. Following the walkway we were able to experience a birds-eye view of the whole metropolis. Here we concentrated on photographing from unusual angles. As usual Miss Johns had us sitting on the floor, then seeking out higher places to position our cameras. We’re getting used to the stares!

From a geographer’s point of view, the circular surround screen virtual tour of a vision of Shanghai was mesmerising. I hope that the video clips we made will go some way to enabling others at Neatherd to share our wonder at a people so determined to progress into the future with a utopian vision of a functionality.

The shopping mall, however, was like a portal back to England – familiar food outlets, shops and brands come rushing back. The product of Globalisation, and perhaps a sad one. Although we may feel just a little more comfortable in a Starbucks, and yes, I bought a Frappacino, it almost destroys local culture – there was very little in the building to suggest that I was in one of China’s economic powerhouses. Even our lunch was Japanese.

Following Mr Quantrill down Nanjing Lu, blinded by the cornucopia of neon lights we wondered what kind of electricity bill the city runs up each year; leading us on to what Carbon Footprint the fourteen of us would leave in China: at a guess, quite a muddy one.

In Shanghai every available space is enhanced by a tree, so by taking a leaf out of their book, we would like to counter our footprint by planting trees back at home. The brilliant Mr Gardner pointed out that saplings would cost a considerable sum, but what’s stopping us from collecting up acorns, chestnuts and sycamore seeds and planting them ourselves? A project we should talk about when we get home (Biology teachers!) and for everyone at Neatherd to get involved in.

I’m sure the usual updates on what I ate and what time I got up will be back on the blog tomorrow. But no more fish eyes, I promise!

By Sam (although Miss Carey heavily embellished the first 2 paragraphs)

This will be posted soon. Here are some pictures of the day for now …

Today was our first day that we got to wake up late. Well… 8am, but to us that’s late! We went to a really nice French Café for breakfast, our first non-Chinese food. I had a Danish pastry and a latte. I got sugar everywhere and then spilt coffee all over my good shoes. Emily got it all down her trousers, making chopsticks seem easy! We tried to catch a taxi but none of them would let us in so we ordered some from the hotel. On the way, we were all fascinated by the crazy driving and lanes and lanes of traffic. Bicycles, mopeds, trucks, Volkswagen Santana taxis, buses and cars all competing for space and speed. It was funny though because they are all really good at missing each other.

When we arrived at Yuyuan Gardens, we spilt up into groups and painted, learnt about using lines differently or took photographs focusing on using reflections and light & shade. Everyone loved Yuyuan Gardens so much because it’s so pretty, Mrs Johns especially, that it was back by popular demand! There are loads of old style buildings with curved roves that flick up in the corner, and dragons all along the top of the walls. Most of the buildings are above water with hundreds of huge, scary fish which I didn’t like, but I have to admit it was really fascinating to watch hordes of them swim towards us for food. The paths that go across the water all have beautiful trees and plants at the end, with rocks (maybe limestone) that have been eroded to make really interesting shaped holes in them. There are lots of funny shaped archways which separate the gardens into different sections to make it even more interesting. Everything about Yuyuan is just generally breath taking, if I’m honest!

After two hours of drawing and painting, we went to Pizza Hut, which we were all so happy about, even though we were so full we couldn’t eat another bite. Apart from Toby who just had to have an ice cream. Sam managed to finish his pizza and ate the last bit of Mr Gardner’s, Sian’s and Emily’s pizzas too. After lunch, we went shopping in the bazaar so that everyone could get presents for family and friends (excited yet, people at home?). There was so much interesting stuff like Chinese style dresses, hundreds of types of teas, colourful decorations and intricate paper-cuttings for us to look at, but most of us decided to buy chopsticks as, for some reason we like them a lot!

In the taxi, on the way back, Rio was making lots of witty comments and Sam said “You’re on fire” which Toby, Emily and Rio found hilarious. When we were ready for dinner, we all decided we were still full from lunch, but everyone ate some vegetables as Mr Wong had so kindly arranged the meal for us and was giving up some of his free time to make sure every thing was OK. He even made some other diners show Miss Carey their dumplings to ask if that’s what we’d like tomorrow. He doesn’t speak any English and she speaks as much Chinese, but they seem to have long conversations anyway. In the middle of our meal, we saw Mr Wong drive off on his moped which we all found really cool! After dinner, we discussed what we were going to do for the rest of our time here. I can’t believe how little time there is left already and am really looking forward to all the outings (except if we have to go on a boat or near any scary goldfish) then all came back to do our visual diaries.

By Evie

Photos to follow soon …

Yesterday we went for our first visit to Nang Yang middle school! When we arrived we were welcomed by a big electronic sign that said “Welcome to our friends from Neatherd High School.” At about 8 the school bell went off… it was jingle bells (how cool is that?) and music started to play through the big speakers and in lines the pupils started jogging onto the play ground, which doubles as a running track. Then a couple of people made a speech, Sam was one of them! Then their national flag was put up and everyone sang the Anthem!

Being in the school felt like we were famous! Everyone saluted/looked/took pictures/wanted to talk to us/wanted our email addresses and some people even asked us for our autographs.

During the morning, Sam and Toby played basketball with the boys in P.E. To warm up they were made to put loads of hula hoops on. Sam managed quite a few. While they were doing this all the girls went to the gym and watched some of the Chinese girls doing dance. Courtney and Sarah joined in.

We went into a couple of lessons. Most of us went to an English lesson and where amazed at how well they all were at speaking our language.

Later on we spilt into 5s and went into a lesson and talked to some of the pupils and they asked us questions about ourselves such as about our school, and what films and music we liked. Also they enquired about England, basketball and famous film stars. It was really nice being in the school because everyone was so friendly and all wanted to help us.

At about 12 we left the school we went back to our hotel and got all our suitcases and moved to our new hotel. I have noted some differences between the schools:

They do eye exercises

They stay in one room all day and the teachers change.

They don’t have interactive whiteboards.

The lessons only last 40 minutes.

Their school day is from 7.30 until 5.

They eat their lunch in their classrooms

Each grade (year group) is on a different floor.

They do P.E. in their school uniforms.

They don’t have art lessons, in the same way as we do.

By Emily