Last Day in China!

Saturday, April 25







We had a morning in the Yu Yuan Gardens -- a perfect end to a great trip!

Weston students with our tour guide, Li Jun -- he's a super star in our book!


Final thoughts: What a wonderful introduction to China for American students! This was a fabulous way to open their eyes to a much larger world outside of suburban America. We visited three of the most important cities -- Xian, which represents China's past, Beijing, which represents China's present, and Shanghai, which represents China's future. There were just some things they would not be able to replicate as tourists, such as the visits to the different schools in Beijing and Shanghai. The students are on the road to being leaders and active citizens of the United States, and to give them such an opportunity to experience and appreciate different cultures will shape them into the kind of global citizens we need for our future. Unfortuntely, this trip is limited to only 20 students a year. Pathways to China should be a trip that all students from our community take!

Last Day in Shanghai

Friday, April 24

We were on the move pretty much all day instead of sitting on the bus, so no students had a chance to blog about the day. Here are some final pictures!

Breakfast Soup Dumplings -- a Shanghainese specialty food

Shanghai Museum -- perfect for a morning visit on a rainy day

Afternoon down Nanjing Road -- Sivana has become a Communist Party Member!

Dinner and evening at Acrobatic Show

Kathleen Marvels at Shanghai

Kathleen Chen -- Thursday, April 23
The river cruise that we went on yesterday was definitely worth all of the wind and cold. The buildings and things were all lit up, and it was so beautiful. The TV tower had both spheres lit up with lights that were alternating in color, which was very nice to watch. A lot of the other towers had lights on as well, and the whole scene was very beautiful. There was definitely a contrast between the more modern side of the river, mainly the area with the TV tower, and the older area that was on the other side. Both had lights and were visible in the night, but it was mostly the architecture and such that were different. I really liked to see all of the buildings that were so different from those in the U.S., and I have never really seen anything like it before.
A lot of people were on the cruise last night, probably for the scenery as well as for the social aspect. Many people were taking pictures, or eating in the dining area while watching the lights go by. I was on the top level with Cassandra and Emelia, and we were mainly just looking at the buildings and towers as they went by. We saw some interesting boats go by as well, such as on with a large TV screen that was advertising some product that we did not understand. Most of the boats had lights and were nice to look at, but some of the cargo ships did not and so were almost invisible in the night, which seemed pretty dangerous. While on the top deck of the ship, we met a group of students from Needham high school that had been traveling also. Their trip was strangely similar to ours, since they were in China for ten days and went to the same cities that we did. Granted we had different agendas, but it was weird to see a group from an area somewhat close to our school in such a large country.

Molly Loves Pandas

Molly’s blog
Wednesday April 22, 2009
School and Pandas

Today, we took a long bus ride to visit a rural school in Xian. As we traveled on the bus, we passed the Qing Ling Mountains, which are huge and green, and passed by lots of fields and crops. Once we arrived at the school, it had already started raining a bit, and we lined up in two lines to greet and pair up with the students. My girl immediately grabbed my hand and we all went up 6 flights of stairs to a big room where there were tables with vegetables on them and a projector screen set up. We were led to our seats, and they had all sorts of welcoming songs and presentations for us. Groups of students performed songs and played guitar and recited poems for us. They unexpectedly called on a few of us to sing songs, so, even though no one had prepared, Hamish and Mike sang ‘Kiss the Girl’ from the little mermaid, and Cassandra and Matti sang ‘A Moment Like This’ by Kelly Clarkson, which they had sung at karaoke last night. After more introductions, etc, we were led downstairs on our own with each of our ‘friends’ to classrooms. In my classroom, the teacher spoke English, and asked his students to ask us questions, but they were too shy. He wanted to know some advice for how to learn English since it’s so difficult, but how do you answer something like that? For us, we just do it – there’s no real trick to it. Next, we had lunch. We lined up by some windows where we got bowls of rice and vegetables or some other kind of meat, etc, and then were led to classrooms to eat. The students’ teachers told the students to teach us how to use chopsticks – we thought we were doing it right, but apparently not! After lunch, we had free time to spend with the students – some were shy, and wouldn’t ask questions, others were pretty open, asking about hobbies and subjects in school. One girl even asked me “Explain your country”. What? I’m thinking, do you mean democracy, or how it looks? If I ever didn’t understand their questions, I would ask them a question back to clarify, and then they’d go “Oh ok”. Um, wait, what? I was able to give them my postcards about Massachusetts, and other kids had stickers or pencils or fun things to pass out, and they would give us little books, things they had written, candy or trinkets. We spent a while going between classes, getting introduced and just chatting, until finally we got back on the bus. Some of the students even got on the bus with us to say goodbye!
Once on the bus, Li Jin had a surprise for us – pandas! We stopped by a zoo, and even though it was raining, we walked outside along the paths to visit first pandas that were in dark rooms, and then peacocks, crested ibises, pheasants, and even some more pandas in open air enclosures. We even got a chance to see some pandas that were close up, as they were in little rooms about to be fed. By the end, everyone was pretty wet and miserable, but we were all in a good mood, and no one complained because we had gotten to see such cool animals. Back on the bus, wet but happy, we’re about to head off to the Wild Goose pagoda. What a morning!

Emelia Makes some Xian Friends

Emelia Barron
April 22, 2009

Today we went to the school that is located 2 hours away from our hotel in Xi’an. Each Pathways student was paired up with a student from the school. The school had about 6 flights of stairs. We had to go to the top floor. They offered us pickles and tomatoes. They performed many songs and a dance. Gabby and I had to go to the bathroom so we asked our buddies to show us where it was. They brought us all over the school up and down many flights of stairs. We finally found the bathroom and the stalls had no doors. It was disgusting. Gabby held a jacket in front of the stall so no one could see and then we switched. Then our buddies brought us to a classroom on the bottom floor. There we sat in and listened to the teacher. The teacher asked us about the NBA and their players. Then they made us sing our national anthem. After, they sang their national anthem. Then we had lunch. For lunch we had rice, pork and a bun thing. I didn’t really like the lunch. The rice and the bun were good but I didn’t really like the pork. We ate lunch in a classroom. I sat with my buddy, Nicole and her buddy, and Alliyah. We gave them our pencils and stickers. There were a group of guys in the back of the classroom that wanted to meet me. My buddy brought me to them. I sat in between all of them. There, they gave me a tomato and drew me a picture. They asked me about where im from and they told me that I am very nice and pretty. It was kind of awkward because they tried talking to me but I couldn’t understand them so I asked Kathleen to help translate. After, I went to go and hang out with Nicole and her buddy. We gave them stickers and pencils. We showed them who Hannah Montana was but they didn’t know who she was. So we took out our ipods we let them listen. Then one of the boys gave me a notebook with lyrics to a love song in Chinese and a note that said, “please accept it. It’s our present. The best wishes for you”. I thanked them and said “dinguagua” but they laughed at me because I said it weird. Then we had to be back on the bus by 1:00. We said our goodbyes and we are now on the bus traveling to go to meet the Brookline students.

Liz's Xian Adventures

Today was our second day in Xi’an. As usual, we got up early, but today I got up extra early go on a hunt for “senior disco”. Since the retiring age is so young in China (from 50-60 depending on the job) many retirees enjoy working out to Chinese pop music in the local park, and since the park surrounds the mote and city wall of Xi’an, there were many types of early morning senior dancing and working-out to be seen. Instead of our costly gyms, the parks here actually have weather-proof, non-electrical work out equipment in the parks, and even at 6:30 am, it was bustling. There were also at least 10 ping pong tables, and lots of elderly men walking their birds. After breakfast, we got to see the terra cotta army, which was actually a series of 3 pits, with a total of 1,000 soldiers. To my surprise, the actual tomb of the emperor has not been unearthed. Our local guide explained that it’s because they do not want to destroy or ruin any of the tomb, and thus want to wait until they have better technology before excavation. I am not sure if that would happen in America, but it’s good to know that at least for the warriors, preserving history is important enough to wait. Later in the day we went to the mosque in the Muslim Market. It was great to see the mixture of cultures which had occurred because the beautiful mosque was clearly Islamic, but was very architecturally similar to many of the Chinese pagodas. At the end of our busy day, we even got to eat a “dumpling banquet” with 18 different types of dumplings ranging from cashew, to beef, to pumpkin, and while my table couldn’t finish it all, one student broke the previous record eating over 50 dumplings! After today, I’m really excited to see more of Xi’an.
Good night!
-Liz

Aquene's Post

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Today is our 6th day in China and we are just beginning the day. This morning I walked with a group to the park and saw people exercising, it was like a fitness club but without electricity and the large membership charge. There were some older people dancing to modern music and we joined in, well I didn’t but it was funny to watch everyone. We are now on the bus going to see the Terracotta Warriors which I am very excited about. Having learned about the Terracotta Warriors I have to see all this intricate detail, thousands and thousands of individual, unique soldiers. I cannot fathom what that can be like so I have to see it. Tonight is the dumpling dinner, I’m really excited about that as well I love dumplings and I cannot wait to try all of the different types tonight. Well we’ll see how this day goes bye