Tuesday- A Visit to a Cochlear School and SYA

Today we visited one of the campuses of the Cochlear Implant chool. Upon arriving on campus around 9:30 in the morning, we were treated to delicious snacks ranging from crispy peanut butter wafers to twisty crackers and round coconut flavored balls. We then met around a dozen children, who both had and didn't have the cochlear device. The children recited Chinese poems that they had prepared for us in their singsong voices, and in turn we sang songs like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and The Itsy Bitsy Spider. The children had mixed reactions such as staring at us with mesmerized eyes, doing their own things with disinterested faces, and mimicking our hand gestures. Afterwards, we were divided into four groups and finger-painted flowers and fruits on different tree stencils and built different structures out of hexagonal shapes with the kids. It was really interesting seeing the children's creativity and their strong opinions during the activities. After saying goodbye to the children, we ate delicious lunch at a small restaurant at which we had the chance to eat lamb, chicken, and noodles with the choice of salty pork sauce, tomato mushroom sauce, and eggplant sauce. We all ate fully to our heart's desire and embarked on to our next location.   (Annette)

After lunch we went to a SYA school. As soon as the bus arrived we were ushered upstairs and were presented more snacks! There were these amazing toffee textured candies that tasted of mangos and were wrapped in rice paper. After we had eaten lirerally all of the candies, we went to Chinese history. They were talking about Chinese revolutionaries, reactionaries and reformers. Then we moved into the topic of Mao and I found it really interesting to read some of Mao's speeches with the backround of recently reading The Communist Manifesto. After that class, we rejoined the rest of our group and went to a caligraphy class. The teacher was amazing! She copied an image in about five seconds and we were all given ink and an image. It is ridiculously hard! I had too much ink or too much water on my brush at all times. After we had managed to spill most of the ink on our hands we were allowed some free time around the campus. Some people played basketball and I went with a group to look for the badminton court. We walked in a circle and made it back in time to see our Poly team win. Next, we were split up into groups of three and sent home with a SYA student to eat dinner. I went with Annette and Jack to Lina's host family's apartment. We were showered with food. There was pork skin jelly side dishes, and fruit that blew my mind and thousands upon thousands of dumplings. After eating way more than I thought physically possible, we finally noticed the time. We were fifteen minutes late! The host father insisted on taking us in his new car and we bolted for the bus. It was a great day. (Aisling)

Caitlin's Answers

On Tuesday night, we were paired with School Wear Abroad (SYA) students. After being paired with Archer, a junior at SYA, I realized that he might be able to answer Ms. Shang's classes' questions better than I did, because he's lived in China for around eight months. So I asked him: "How often do you wear a mask?" Archer said that he had an app that measured the air quality in China that would determine whether or not he should wear a mask that day. He also said that sometimes, the air quality was so bad that schools would close, which usually happened around winter time because that was when pollution was at its worst. But generally, Archer said that he wore a mask every three weeks. Since he speaks Chinese very well, I didn't ask Archer about language barriers because it was obvious that he didn't face that problem. Instead, I asked him, "How is the LGBTQ+ community treated in China?" He said that since there is such a lack of education on that topic, people in China don't acknowledge that community. There are terms for gay people that translate to "same-sex love," but the terms can also be used to talk to friends (ex: she's my friend, I love her.) Archer also added that most people in that community are typically disowned by their families since the ideal family in China is solely comprised of a mom, dad, and a son. I hope you found this information helpful!