NSLI-Y China Students Explore Zhuhai
After the first three weeks on program, NSLI-Y students in Zhuhai, China have hit the ground running in their language learning and cultural immersion experience. In addition to language classes, cultural classes, and host family life, the students have gone on several excursion to explore local history and culture.
On Saturday, June 29, NSLI-Y went to the Sun Yet-sen museum in the nearby city of Zhongshan to learn a little about Chinese history. It was interesting to see the influence Sun Yet-sen’s time in the United States had on his revolutionary work. Students also got to think about the differences between Chinese and US-American museums. One student noted that the emphasis in the Chinese museum was on the happy unification of China. However, in the USA there would also be a large portion of the museum dedicated to the battles. This was not the case in the Chinese museum.
Afterwards, iEARN-China took everyone to celebrate the five birthdays that would occur throughout the summer back in Zhuhai, Xiangzhou district. Most, if not all, of the students had never eaten hot pot before, but when Resident Director described how you could choose your “soup” flavor to boil different vegetables and meats in the vote swung from the spicy food Sichuan province is known for to hot pot. The students wanted to be able to chose their own flavors; a tomato soup like flavor, the clear and simple flavor, or a literally mouth-numbing spicy flavor. The restaurant we ate at was a self-serve all you can eat hot-pot place and it did not disappoint. Students ate until full, 吃饱了 chībǎole as their host families also always insist, and we ventured to the nearby Karaoke club.
Everyone had been looking forward to trying Karaoke (KTV), with good reason. Karaoke in China has a different feeling as the pressure is off. Students switched back and forth from English and Chinese songs practicing the songs learned in the previous weeks cultural lesson, learning new Chinese songs the iEARN-China staff selected, and singing all the old and new popular English songs. Everyone had a really great time. Recognizing the influence the KTV had the group’s bonds, some students want to share the KTV experience with the language partners and plan to go with them soon.
NSLI-Y Students Experience Rural China
On Saturday, July 06, 2013 NSLI-Y China students took a trip to the nearby rice city of Lianjiang, Lotus River, for a community service activity.
The group partnered with a local school to share in the experience of translating Chinese signs into English at a local resort/ hotel, 十里连江. Students explored the atmosphere, and nearby village grounds, finding signs to translate, rice harvesting tools, and freshly sorted rice drying in courtyards, on the basketball courts, and on people’s driveways. After this, the group took time to share their impressions and figure out the difficulties in translating. Differences between each Chinese character’s meaning and what the message was trying to portray were sometimes a stretch.
After lunch, the students headed to a local retirement home to chat, sing songs, give gifts, and give some folks a change in their daily routine. NSLI-Y students communicated with the elderly residents, performed songs they had learned, and some gave the Chinese knots they made in previous cultural lessons after school.
Finally, after the retirement home, students were given the opportunity to briefly experience harvesting rice, a job seldom performed by hand any longer. Instead, there are large harvesting machines that make it easy work. Exhausted and excited the group left Lianjiang to reflect on their community service experience and trip to a more rural part of China.