Sunday, August 03, 2014
Surya's China trip - Second update from his Group Leader Dr.Hemphill - July 17 - August 1, 2014
am writing to report that we safely arrived late this morning (Saturday, July 19) in Changsha, Hunan after a smooth and pleasant flight from Beijing.
It has been an eventful few days so far, and I wanted to take a moment to write and give you some flavor of the experiences your kids are having. First I want to say thank you for sharing such wonderful young people with us. We could not have asked for a better group. They are sharp, witty, responsible, patient, and anxious to take in all that China has to offer. All four of us as chaperones--Lois, Peggy, Xin, and I--are extraordinarily proud of them, and you should be as well.
We arrived the evening of Thursday July 17 in smog-shrouded Beijing. We were taken by bus after baggage claim to a quite decent medium high-end restaurant for a late dinner. There the kids all had their first chance to practice serving each other food and tea and other requisite Chinese table manners. We then went to Beijing Royal school, where all were assigned to dorm-style rooms for a brief two-night stay. The girls were fortunate to be in a building with two-persons rooms that had their own private Western-style bathrooms. The boys (plus your humble correspondent) were assigned to a dorm with a set of common facilities at the end of the hall, including a shared shower room, sink room, and toilet room (with Asian toilets on the floor in stalls, where one must squat). Rooms were clean though spartan.
The next day (Friday, July 18) many of us woke up early from jet lag. Some of found the school's track and did some running or struck up impromptu soccer games. After breakfast there was an opening ceremony for the summer camp (the first of many such opening and closing events in China, one soon learns). The kids were extremely patient and well-behaved--remarkably so, even during an interminable lecture about the development of the Chinese foreign language testing system that would have tried the patience of many of my own educational colleagues with PhDs. I was super proud of the kids. Then in the afternoon we went over to the headquarters of Hanban, the overall agency sponsor of the Summer Camp program, and the kids enjoyed experiencing a series of quite innovative hands-on museum displays of Chinese cultural and linguistic history and heritage. Following that we visited the Imperial College and the Confucius Temple, both quite lovely temple-like settings that memorialize respect for learning in ancient, imperial Chinese culture. The area is also located in a traditional "hutong" section of Beijing, so the kids got a chance to see a fast-disappearing old-Beijing life style.
Quite early this morning (Saturday, July 19) at 5:15 AM (guess who had to wake up your children at 4:30?), we boarded buses for the Beijing airport and flew down to Changsha, the capital of Hunan, our major base of operations for the next week. Our hosts here are Hunan University, and are quite well organized. The university campus is quite beautiful, parklike on a mountainside, with beautiful traditional Chinese buildings, trees, and ponds surrounding where we are staying. The weather is super humid (it is, after all south central China in July, but bearable). The food is an improvement over Beijing--buffet style in the hotel, and quite good. We had (you guessed it), another opening ceremony in the early afternoon. Two of our group, William Bogdan (representing the students) and I (representing the chaperones) were asked to give some opening remarks. We both decided to do so in Chinese, which seemed to please our hosts. We are one of three groups in Changsha--the other two groups are from San Diego and the Seattle area. This evening we walked down to the Xiang River and witnessed a spectacular fireworks display. Apparently Hunan is known throughout China as the best producer of fireworks, and that was certainly evident from what we witnessed--truly the most impressive such event that I have ever seen in my life. Many of your kids no doubt will have images to share with you.
That's it for now. Again, thanks for sharing these wonderful young people with us. They are a well-motivated, impressive, high-energy, caring, thoughtful bunch. I am very proud to be associated with each and every one of them.
