Day 1: I think that today was quite tiring. Early in the morning,we took the high speed rail which lasted for around 2 and a half hours. After that,we had lunch and went to 三河古镇. Walking around the 三河古镇 to visit historical sites and learning about the historical figures was tiring as there were quite a few sites for us to visit and the weather was very hot. However, it was still quite meaningful as we learnt a lot about these historical figures and the cultures of 三河. For example, there was the first Chinese who won the Nobel prize and sun Li ren was a member of kmt, who contributed greatly to the country. It was indeed a wonderful experience. Today's experience helped us to learn more about the culture, historical facts and historical figures of 三河. These facts would benefit us a lot as it could help us in comparing Singapore with china. My group's topic is about keeping our friends close. The facts that we have learnt today will help us greatly with this topic as we would be able to figure out in what areas china is doing better than Singapore and how Singapore can learn from china.
Day 2: today, we visited 合肥45中，and I met my buddy for the first time, and got to know more about her. The school had a different education system from us. Each period lasted for only 40 minutes, and they had a ten minute break in between lessons. I feel that this is quite beneficial to students. I wish that we can have this in our school too. But the toilets in the school compound made me appreciate the toilet cleaners in Singapore. The toilets there were smelly and the cubicles did not have a door, only a wall that was around shoulder height separated each cubicle. It was a horrifying experience. The entrance to the toilet didn't have a door either. I am now so grateful for the much nicer toilets we have in Singapore. On the way to her house, I saw many different things. China's culture and way of life is very different from what it's like in Singapore. My buddy's house is on the sixth floor. While climbing the staircase, I noticed that the steps were full of litter. In comparison to Singapore, the staircases in china were much dirtier. I feel that we should not litter as these litter are unsightly and causes passerby or even ourselves, to feel uncomfortable. Also, I notices that there was a man on the road holding onto a leash on one hand--a monkey, a bowl on the other. The bowl contained some dollar bills. Upon seeing this, I asked by buddy about it. She told me that many people in china catch wild animals and train them to perform in front of crowds to earn money. Such acts are definitely not allowed in Singapore, and I am thankful for it. I feel bad for these animals for they belong to the wilderness and not here within humans reach.
Day 3: Today, we visited the anhui museum in the morning. In the anhui museum, we saw many objects that were used in the past. One of the objects that piqued my interest was the large "tank" used to store water in the house. I wonder how the people of the past ever managed to transport such fragile and heavy objects to and fro. The miniature models of the palaces in old china fascinated me. It was sculpted so intricately that you could see even the tiniest detail was payed much attention by the sculptors. After lunch, we watched an animal show. To be honest, I was quite interested to watch the chickens perform at first. However, what happened made me lose my interest in the show altogether was a fierce chicken fight. During the fight, the chicken fought each other, causing their feathers to drop, exposing their bare and red skin. I felt that it was too violent. After that we also watched a circus show. The first part of the circus show was having the tigers perform. But what shocked me was how the staff treated the tigers. They threatened and hit the tigers with a metal rod when the tigers misbehaved or refuse to perform. I felt very upset after that, it was animal abuse after all. I feel that we should do something about this, maybe make the china public more aware of animal abuse and discourage people from watching such performances.
Day 4: Today, we took a four and a half hour bus ride to the famous Huang Shan. The whole bus ride was quite bumpy and it caused discomfort to me. I ended up having motion sickness and felt sick while taking the cable car afterwards. However, the view from the cable car was simply fabulous. At first, I felt very against the idea of having to climb a mountain. However, afterwards, I thought the climb was worth it. After reaching our hotel on huangshan, we started a two hour plus climb. Although I felt like giving up on the climb many times, I was motivated to continue to climb by my friends. Indeed, I would not have succeeded in climbing so far without my friends, and I am grateful to them. The climb also taught me to persevere, and that without giving, there will be no receiving. In other words, by continuing to climb, without giving in to my tired legs, I received a "gift" and that was to see the beautiful scenery that could only be viewed from the top of the mountain. It was very tiring, but fun at the same time as I saw many beautiful scenes and took many photos. The weather was also quite nice, making the climb a more enjoyable one.
Day 5: Today we woke up at 4:30am to catch the sunrise on the mountains. It was awfully cold in the morning. We had managed to catch the sunrise. It was a beautiful sight. We also climbed the mountains to visit the huangshan scenic areas. We saw many monkeys at the scenic areas. However, the monkeys were not afraid of us humans. In fact, one of them had even posed next to a woman. I thought that she was quite lucky to be able to get so close to the monkey. Perhaps it was because the monkeys were given the freedom to roam, that was why they were not afraid of us. They had known that we would not harm them, that was why they bravely roamed around us. The animals in zoos are held captive, and although they are not treated badly by us, some of them seemed to be convinced that we were not to be trusted. After that, we went to hongcun ancient village. We learnt a lot about the important historical figures of hongcun. Hongcun was established by the wang family. And in the past, all the children with the surname wang could study for free. We also visited the chengzhi hall in hongcun and saw how infrastructures were like in the past. The 马头墙 was one of the unique features of the village that I had remembered. It was fixated on the houses in the village to prevent fire from spreading, since it was easy for houses to catch fire as they were built quite near each other.
Day 6: Today, we visited xidi. To my surprise, I found out that xidi and hongcun are quite similar in terms of culture. The furnitures and it's placing were almost the same for these two villages. However, the villagers in xidi all had the same surname, 胡. But this is not their original surname. The villages had changed their surname to avoid being found. At the end of the day, we had a seminar on anhui's culture. Some of the information shared by the professor were covered by our tour guides. And surprisingly, I had remembered most of the stuff covered. This talk had further enforced my memory of the stuff we had learnt on the trip. I'm glad that we had attended the talk and grateful to the professor for sharing these information with us.
Day 7: Today, we visited the tunxi ancient street. There were many shops on the street and sold many fascinating objects. There were so many shops and we just didn't have enough time to go into many shops and buy stuff. It was like a mad rush shopping. However, I did enjoy it, and bought some food from the shops in the street to bring back home. We also went on a boat at 西湖. Although we only had a short time each to enjoy the cool breeze out on the deck, i cherished every moment of it. It gave me a relaxed feeling. Today was quite a short day, as most of the time was spent on travelling. We had our dinner at the airport, and were given a 130 RMB voucher to spend as the flight was delayed by an hour. Many of us had shared our vouchers and spent it on food. But since we had already eaten, we did not spend much. But some of our classmates thought of a great idea. They spent the remaining of our class's vouchers on meaningful purposes. They bought ice cream and gave it to the people they saw. One of the recipients of the ice cream turned out to be one of the flight attendants of our flight. She had thanked zhi Yan for giving her the ice cream and gave her a token of appreciation. This had thought me that how you treat others, is how others will treat you. It's a double edged sword. By being kind to others, you will in turn receive kindness.
Five things I love about rv and why
1) the toilets. I never thought that the day I would ever feel so grateful for the cleanliness of toilets in Singapore would come by. Having seen the toilet conditions in china, I am now much more appreciative of the toilets in RV and I'm thankful to the cleaners in RV for keeping the toilets in good conditions.
2) not a lot of classes in a day. The china students had much more classes in a day, and I felt that it was too stressful. Although they had lots of break in between, havering a shorter day with comparably less breaks seem better. With half a day left to spent on our own after school, beats having a whole day at school with more breaks.
3) class size is small. I noticed that each class consisted of 60 students on average. The classroom was not very big either. It was kind of cramped inside and having so many students in a class, the teacher pays less attention to the individuals. Some of the teachers can't remember their students's names either.
4)more advance facilities. The schools in china didn't have much facilities and they can't carry out things like sports carnival as well as we can. They did not have a field, individual courts for playing basketball, netball etc. having these facilities in RV, we enjoy pe much better.
5)shorter school hours compared to china schools. Since the students in china have a longer school hour, they don't have much time to do their homework at home, and school starts early the next day too. They also don't get to enjoy cca after school since their school ends almost the same time as our cca ends.
--By Jia Rong
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