Immersion!

(I wanted to post this on Friday but din't finish writing it...)

The one-week immersion classes ended today! It means we're another step closer to returning to Singapore, yet many of us hoped that the immersion period was longer. We only had 4 days, and only 4 periods + lunch each day to interact with our host buddies and class, which isn't really much time. The experience was memorable nonetheless and it has exposed us to a very different kind of education and perhaps changed our perspectives towards the "cheena muggers".

I was attached to 初二第十一班 (equivalent to Sec 2), so I could understand most of their lessons. It's on another campus nearby our school that we are usually in, cos it's the lower secondary section (they split into 3 years 初中 and 3 years 高中, quite similar to our sec sch and JC). It's quite sad that I didn't get to sit in their Chinese lessons though.

Like our timetable in the satellite campus, they actually have a 10-minute break between each lesson, which makes lessons less tiring as there's at least some time to stretch, walk around and take a break. This also gives time to walk to another venue if necessary, as compared to us being 15 minutes late for any lesson not in our home room back in Singapore.

Maths
They were learning quadratic equations and they actually went through solving through completing the square, factorising and using the equation within 3 or 4 periods. The way they study is really quite 猛 (for the lack of a better word) - they do the practice questions and the teacher veryvery briefly goes through it in class, and gives them a few more questions to do. They really do have to keep practicing the methods repeatedly, and there's alot of self-derivation and self-exploration for the equations (the teacher goes through the steps afterwards, obviously). Their presentation method is also quite strict and sometimes it can get quite redundant as well.


English
There was a Caucasian teacher that comes in for one English period every week (the others are taught by a local teacher). Today's English lesson was taught by that teacher and it was simply hilarious. No I'm not laughing at their English standards, hilarious means that the whole class was constantly bursting into laughter. The teacher asked us to each say one word to form a sentence, and we ended up with things like "Today is Friday when it rained." There was another sentence where the teacher commented "This doesn't make sense but the English is perfect!"


Physics
They were learning buoyancy during Physics… I think we haven't learnt that chapter before. The way they do Physics is quite similar to ours though - they see what is known, choose the formula to use and pluck in the values. Anyway since it was a new topic I did learn some things, like F_浮=ρ_液 g V_物

Geography
The geog lessons here are totally different - they actually study the (world) geography. The teacher was talking about Japan during the class I attended, and they talked about the basic facts of Japan as well as the main tourist attractions and (vegetation) patterns across the whole of Japan.

Biology
We learnt about immune system (which I couldn't understand at all even though we learnt it already) and also over-the-counter medicine, which is medicine that you can buy without consulting a doctor. The funniest part was when the teacher talked about why all children have to take regular vaccinations and she said "政府爱你, 家长爱你; 你周围都是爱."

Music
It's been like…about 1.5 years since we last had a music lesson in school! I'm proud to say that I learnt how to play TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR on a guitar using two strings ALL BY MYSELF (means nobody taught me)! ((: YAY now I'm even more interested in learning guitar le.

Lunch
There is no canteen in the school we were attached to, so everyone had packed lunches in their classrooms everyday. Personally I think it's generally quite nice, except we were all given flimsy little chopsticks and there were sometimes lots of sauce (and tofu) that we couldn't eat. (The students there bring their own spoon.)



Making our way towards our attached school


The 三帆中学 school gate


Their classroom (looks about as NEAT as ours back in Singapore…and they fool around alot during break times too)


Most of the class + us!


The 3 of us attached to the class + our buddies (in a mini-garden in the school)...


--

Currently the official earthquake death toll has risen to nearly 32 500, but the final number is expected to go over 50 000. There are 3 days of national mourning starting today, and there will be a 3-minute silence observed at 2.28pm nationwide.

Day 18: Outing Day (again)

Marco Polo Bridge

This was the place where the Marco Polo Bridge incident occurred (quite obvious right) and marked the start of the second Sino-Japanese war whereby the Japanese invaded China during WWII. It's just this bridge over a river that's dried up and full of grass now, and both sides of the bridge are lined with stone carvings of lions. Actually right...other than that there's nothing much that's interesting le.



A groupie shot outside the memorial/museum for the Sino-Japanese war.


After that we had to cross this flimsy temporary bridge paved with wooden planks to get to some museum place, where they found fossils of "Beijing Man" or something like that. Basically it's supposedly people who evolved over manymany years in the Beijing area and I think...they look like apes XPP oops.



I think the scenery was nicer than the museum itself ><


CCA looking like a teacher...


And Bing found one huge chunk of graphite here!

Earthquake Disaster

Each day we continue to learn more about the mega earthquake that struck China on Monday, which was China's worst earthquake in 3 decades. Currently the death toll has risen close to 15 000, with nearly 26 000 people still buried and another 14 000 unaccounted for. Entire towns and remote mountainous regions have been "razed to the ground" (ST).

Today during our immersion we heard a school-wide broadcast in our classroom regarding the earthquake disaster. I think the message really reached deep down into many of us and stirred a deep sense of sympathy towards those affected by the disaster. It's not only those who have lost their lives unfortunately, but also the others who are helplessly trapped under the rubble as well as the families who have suffered such a sudden loss.

I would like to especially highlight one part of the broadcast, as well as what their Bio teacher shared during her lesson.

Firstly, the Bio teacher said that (I think this is what she said...she talked in Chinese and I was trying so hard to comprehend) a while before the earthquake struck some animals were observed to be running across the streets suddenly, in swarms. It was reported to the authorities or some upper level people but they responded that nothing was abnormal. If anybody had just checked up on that phenomenon, they would have known that an earthquake or disaster was imminent and would have evacuated, and much less people would have suffered.

Secondly, during the broadcast, they said that China's government has been very swift in their rescue and relief efforts, and has sent 20 000 soldiers and police into the disaster area, while 30 000 more are on the way. Some of these soldiers are even literally running, on foot, to the disaster-struck areas as the roads were impassable.

They also urged the students, though we are too young and cannot participate directly in these rescue efforts nor channel large amounts of resources to relief aid, we should play our part and do what we can. They asked everyone to save up their allowances for the next few days and donate however much they could - because every cent adds up - and each class will be collecting the donations tomorrow.

However, the way that some of us Singapore students responded to the disaster was really disappointing, and even lacking humanity. There were comments like "Why should we donate to help these China people when it doesn't even concern us?" I hope those were really uttered irresponsibly.

Personally I feel that besides the actual money that will go towards the relief efforts, this donation also represents the students' concern and sympathy for the others in their country who are suffering and are helpless, as well as their will and effort in helping those who have been less fortunate than they were. All of us have been really fortunate; if we were just a few hundred miles away then we could be the ones injured and trapped and waiting on the hope that aid would reach us soon, or even dead.

Anyway, I hope that we will all do what we can, and let those irresponsible comments be unwise jokes. Pray for these victims.

EXPERIENCING Beijing

Now I really think our Beijing trip is a really good experience. It's not fun or exciting or what but these are things you can't see in Singapore.

May 3: Mini-Cyclone
There were super super strong winds plus rain and we were literally almost getting blown away on that morning that we went to the zoo. There was this guy who tried to jump over a fence and ended up almost falling cos the wind blew him sideways. Only later did we learn that the winds were actually part of the edge of the Myanmar cyclone passing over us. (A cyclone is like...a typhoon/hurricane.)

May 10: Mini-Sandstorm
There was a small-scale sandstorm (or dust storm thingy) just before we all ran into the 老舍茶馆 place. Some other people who took an earlier bus also said they experienced a sandstorm when they got off the bus to city-planning place.

May 12: Mini-Earthquake
Just a few hours ago (just before 2.30pm) we were sitting in our immersion classes (below) and the lights started swaying. It's actually tremors generated by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake near Chengdu, and places as far as Hong Kong and Thailand actually felt it. The quake actually toppled two primary schools and killed at least 4 schoolchildren with alot more injured..

Update: Now there's an earthquake warning that there might be another quake in Beijing between magnitude 2 to 6 today evening between 10pm and midnight.

Update 2: The Straits Times just posted that over 900 students are feared buried alive and 100 dead.

Update 3 (May 13): The death toll is now over 12,000 and counting.. But there weren't any aftershocks or tremors last night.


Immersion Classes

We had our first day of immersion classes this week! I think the immersion is really abit short..it's only 4 days with 4 periods each + lunch. I was attached to a Sec 2 class. Their classes are alot bigger than ours and I think their classroom is smaller too so it feels quite cramped, but other than that there's not much difference (it's co-ed, duh).

The people are just about as crazy as us...they fool around, make noise and friendly-fight each other during breaks and even during lessons it's quite noisy. They study several subjects but only take exams for 4 of them, so they sleep in all the other subjects' classes. I was -almost- falling asleep too...cos I was really tired ANDD all their lessons are in CHINESE so I don't understand anything! :/ oops.

I'll take pictures of the class next time la (:

Day 15: Forbidden City + THE EGG!!

The Forbidden City was quite cool.. It was the palace that all the emperors and royal family and related people lived a long long time ago. It's quite interesting la, especially the fact that they actually built so manymany different buildings and took so much effort to paint all the different patterns over each of the buildings. We got to go up 天安门 too!





View from on top of 天安门


A REAL SUNDIAL!


And they have even more funny cute trees there! The first picture is supposed to be a couple tree or something..



Lunch was at this 面爱面 place, which serves NICE Japanese style food and nice ice cream! Apparently they have branches in Singapore too so I think I'm gonna find it one day. AND their milk tea comes with an interesting straw...


After lunch we went to 老舍茶馆 and we sat around a few tables drinking tea and watching a variety of shows like acrobatics, magic show, imitating sounds of animals and objects, and some super face face-changing thingy.

AND AFTER THAT...GUESS WHAT. We went (on ourselves) to THE EGG! It's actually the National Centre for the Performing Arts, and it looks like half an egg floating on water (and the reflection in the water forms the full egg). I couldn't really take nice pictures of the whole thing...now I really want wide-angle lens la :(

Day 11

We went to TEMPLE OF HEAVEN today! It's supposed to be a place where past Chinese Emperors went to pray for good harvest. But I think the things OTHER than the temple were more interesting...



There was this echo wall thing which is a circle and if you say something at one side someone's supposed to hear it at the other side... but it didn't really work when we tried.


There're alot of old (retired) people gathering there too doing what they like to do and interacting with each other... like singing, dancing, performing, playing chess, cards and some weird ball+bat game that we bought a set of.





Zhicong tried to dance around twice but slipped and fell both times and unfortunately the second time he was holding his camera... so when he tried to support himself he bounced his camera 3 times down some steps and the lens mechanism spoilt (I think).

And Bing Heng and Zachary were acting cute again...and being sick too! (Bing was trying to make his shadow look like a tortoise in the second picture).



They have funny trees at Temple of Heaven too!


AND there's this small boy dressed in an emperor's uhh...suit?

Day 10

Today's a lousy day.

SLEEPY the whole day there's like a sleep disease spreading. During some chinese song lesson we were all sleeping then the heads were swinging around.. I think the teachers got a bit pissed.

SAD cos I finished all my black pen ink and my blanko! I FORGOT TO BRING REFILLS!! And I don't like the pens here they're like...1.0mm thick YUCK

PISSED cos I'm HUNGRY! The people koped all the dinner food within like...5 minutes and by the time we went there was nothing left except some plain rice. So we waited a bit and went out to eat... then when we JUST sat down at some restaurant we got called back by the teacher. AND we were forced to eat at the canteen... the chefs brought out one dish of PLAIN ONIONS (yuck I hate onions. especially uncooked ones) and abit of leftover meat from lunch and we were supposed to just eat that with rice instead of going out.

And later they said WE MUST WAIT FOR THEM TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM, cos they were GOING TO scold the people in front who took tons of food (including nice-looking MEATBALLS!!) and threw away alot of food too. But scolding the people doesn't solve our problem right (YES) -.- It doesn't make us any fuller. We didn't pay 2000dollars to come here and FIGHT FOR the pathetic amounts of FOOD.

So if you go canteen early and you take too much (to fill yourself), you get scolded. If you go later abit, you starve.