Day 6 MingWei

2nd Last Day in China. Firstly, we went to Xidi(西递）, it was originally called 西川 because of the water streams flowing through it. It was pretty similar to Hongcun, but one thing that's different is the semi circle tables in the living room of the residences. When the master of the house isn't at home, the semi circle tables would be split to the sides of the living room, however when he's at home, the semi circle tables would join together and form a circle. This allows anyone to know if their master is at home. When the first time i saw it,  I thought it was juz for decoration purposes or just to save space, never to know that it had such meaning behind it. This night, there was a night lecture by a lecturer by a vice principal from a tourism school if I'm not wrong. We addressed him as 胡教授. During his lecture, he covered a lot more than what we have learnt. However, what he said seemed to be too chim for me lol. It was obvious that my chinese standards are not high enough to even understand what he covered. But, at least I understood some parts. However,1 thing that puzzled me is that if he's the vice principal of a tourism school, why would he not know about the population of Singapore.He told us that it was around 3.5 million , and kept repeating that. However, none of us raised any objections when he asked us if it's correct, I was too shy to even say anything and to be honest, as it was late at night around 9 o'clock, I was feeling pretty sleepy. I tried my best to stay awake and listen while taking down notes though.After that, as it was the second last day of our trip, Mr Wong and Ms Ho decided to have circle time. We shared some things about our class, such as cliques, bullies which seemed strange to me lol. Since when was there bullying in our class, if jokingly yes, but in seriousness, no. Well, perhaps I'm not aware of it or I'm part of the bullying(bully/victim) just that I'm not aware.

~MingWei :|

Day 5 MingWei

We woke up in the morning at 4.15 and had to rush down to the lobby to assemble so that we can watch sunrise :D and definitely we saw it. We were told to use the large sweater, whatever u call it. However, I thought that it was enormous, too big for me and I decided to wear my jacket which wasn't even enough to keep me slightly warm. When I stepped out of the hotel, that first step, I was trembling. It was freezing cold, I totally regretted not taking the large sweater which I assume it would keep me much warmer than my useless jacket. However, suffering this little cold is totally worth it as we were able to watch the beautiful sunrise.It was mesmerizing. I never thought i would be able to see a sunrise as close as this. If only my phone didn't spoil at Changi Aiport, I swear I would have at least 100 pictures of it for all of you to see, but sadly 'IF'. We were told to return to hotel or it's pretty much free time for us till breakfast. at 6.30? Some of us were outside the hotel enjoying the morning breeze though it's really cold, but well it's once in a lifetime or maybe not. We were talking,chatting about some stuffs and time flew. Later on, we went to Hongcun. It was started or established by the Wang Family, and majority of the people there were 汪s. The school there was also for the Wangs only. And they were allowed to study for free. Jordan was sick, some of the guys and some girls accompanied him for the 2nd time. We had some fun time and had some photo shots in there.

~MingWei :D

Day 4 MingWei

Today was a pretty simple day, we had our morning and it's time to leave Hefei. We set off to HuangShan！We had a approximately 3.5 hours bus ride to Huangshan. Later on we had to take the cable car up and then begin our hike! The cable car was enormous, not those normal ones you see, it could occupy a lot, I guess more than 100? Idk , I had forgotten. Well, Zhanting, Jeslyn and I was actually playing truth or dare on the cable car and that pretty much the whole cable car ride. And as usual, Yida having the phobia of heights, he stood in the middle of the cable car and closed his eyes. Very soon, we reached the other end of the cable car station. We had to walk around 15 minutes before we reached our hotel. We left our bags and most of our belongings there before we went for our climb to 光明顶. It was the highest peak at Huangshan at around 1840m.It was the 2nd highest peak at Huangshan with Lotus Peak(Lianhua Feng) at 1864m high.Well Zhanting, Yida and I decided to climb the mountain at a faster rate and definitely, we reached there around 30 minutes before the others. We had some free time while we explore 光明顶 before the others xD. Later on, when everyone reached, we had some class photos, guess our class bonded from this climb :D
Yida and I also bought a lock for fun and locked it on the ropes there. I guess it would be cut off before I will be able to go there and see my lock in the future. Later on, we had dinner and we were told that we would be waking up early to watch sunrise tomorrow. We were told that there was a 50% chance that we would be able to see it, which means it was only 50-50. Pray lord that we would be able to watch it or we would have to wake up at 4+ in vain.


~MingWei :D

Day 3 MingWei

Day 3 was gruesome. Horrible. And it left me in pain,ashamed. I'm ashamed to be even typing about this thing but whatever. In the morning, we went to the museum and learnt many things there. HOWEVER, it isn't the main focus of day 3's reflection. It was the 中国非物质文化遗产园 that we went to. Firstly, we had the cock fighting.There were 4 cocks that were fighting in group a and b. They were fighting brutally against each other, where blood could even be seen. Meanwhile, my friends and I were actually excited, trying to guess which one will win. Later on, there was the horse and dog racing. As usual, we did the same thing we did during the cock fighting. We actually neglected the fact that they are actually fighting each other for survival. The dogs are racing for food. We did not consider things happening behind the scene. Who knows if the dogs were starved and the people at the 中国非物质文化遗产园 used a piece of meat as a bait so that the dogs will chase after it and be able to eat it. BUT, only 1 dog, the winner will be able to eat it. So what about the other dogs? Do they starve just because they aren't able to run faster as compared to the other dog? And if they continue losing, will they have no food at all? Will they just starve and die of starvation？ And to the people at 中国非物质文化遗产园， they will just be like okay this dog died, then get another dog to replace them. Where's the compassion? I neglected all these and was just in my world about who's the winner. To be honest, not because of the next show, I do not think that I would be able to reflect and think of all these things that I said just now. And the next show was the circus. A live circus. The first part of this circus show, was the lions and tigers performing. There was 2 Chinese youngsters that were holding metal bars in the arena/stage trying to control and make sure the animals perform. One could evidently see that the animals were not well prepared for the performance as they were not cooperating with the two youngsters. Just because of that, the 2 Chinese men used the thick metal rod to whack the animals. It was obvious that it was animal abuse but what could i do. I felt so helpless. The animals retaliated by growling at the 2 men, the 2 men was also taken aback. 1 of the 2 men also jumped back after the growls. I could not take the show anymore and decided to leave the circus. However, at the beginning, Mr Wong did not allowed my friend and I to leave and told us that we can stay behind and just not watch it. We heeded his advice and closed our eyes. WIthin a minute, some classmates told us that we can leave the circus. There were a few more classmates not being able to take the performance and requested to leave the place. However, after staying outside, I thought would it make a difference if I was watching or not, why not watch the whole thing and understand more about it and see what I can do to help in the future. Then, as I was about to enter the circus, Charmaine came out and told me that there were no more animals performance, and asked me to ask the others to enter the circus. That day was a really bad day, however it actually taught me many things. It taught me to look at a thing with different perspectives etc. Well, the 2 men at the circus may have no choice but to do so. But why? Because they have to survive! Even though, this day wasnt too much of a good day for me, I realised I learnt alot.


CSI
Color : 

The color red represents pain and shame. 
Symbol:

We need to protect the animals, show care and help them.
Picture:

From today, I certainly learnt a lot from the incident at 中国非物质文化遗产园.

~MingWei :(

Day 2 MingWei

Today is the day where we had a different tour guide, it wasn't our previous tour guide-- Jessie, but an unknown man. Tour guide Jessie said that she would want to make friends with her and enjoy the next three days with us. Well she's gone, at least not our tour guide for the next days. We were told that she was sick, but was she? This new tour guide for pretty good, he was informative and loaded us with tons of facts, etc. I didn't fall asleep today, at least that's what I can recall.

Tdy is also the day where we met our China buddies, I had a tall buddy called Liyuan. He is pretty nice and gave me a warm welcome. This guy was always speaking English yet I repeatedly requested him to speak Chinese as he was speaking far more slower than that of what I listen frequently. I wasn't used to it, however, I think my spoken Chinese was so horrible that he wasn't able to understand it thus using English all the time, or he was worried that my Chinese proficiency was not high enough to understand their Chinese. Well, I don't deny that. Firstly, my Chinese sucks(yes,it sucks). Secondly, I'm not used to their accent, which I can't be blamed for that as every country has their own different accents, slangs etc, where it goes our infamous 'Singlish'. But one thing, I don't understand is that why do the Chinese students think that we don't understand Chinese. Do we look non-chinese to them? Or did the school not inform them we are able to converse in mandarin lol. I guess the school wanted us to communicate, have fun with them ourselves. At 合肥45中, I did not dare to enter their toilet as it had an awful stench. I didn't want to even get close to the toilet, till Zehan asked me to accompany him. It was really horrible. Just standing at the staircase outside it, I wanted to puke. After my first step into the toilet, I almost puked, I ran out of the toilet straight away. It was unbearable, that was one of the worst toilets I ever seen, ever entered. I don't understand how the students there were able to survive in that toilet. This led me to a puzzling question--- Why do they not take proper care of toilet hygiene? We had several lessons there and the lesson that I understood best was Math. They were learning about average, mean, etc. After lessons, we were to visit our buddy's home. His mother was ready, outside of school prepared to send us to their home. They live on the 5th floor, his house was pretty simple like every HDB flat one can see in Singapore.  However, one thing about their floor is that they did not build floor panels on it, so it was pretty much like those in Rv corridors. At his home, I played Chinese Chess with him and amazingly, I BEAT HIM IN IT! Not sure if gave chance to me though, but the feeling to win a Chinese student in chess is great. (Not implementing that every Chinese/Chinese students are good in chess). His mother gave me many food like dumpling, yoghurt, etc. Later on, he introduced Ultraman to me lol. I totally have no understanding about Ultraman, and he told me his sister was an avid fan of Ultraman. I had a pleasant time there, however good things always seem not to last long, it was time for me to leave and return to their school to meet with our tourguide and teachers. Sadly, I had to part with him. Well, it was nice to meet him, and I hope that he will pay me a visit in Singapore , and I'll certainly give him  a warm welcome :D


5 things I like about RV
1. Clean Toilets (YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS)
learnt to be grateful to the cleaners in our schools for keeping our toilets so clean compared to 合肥45中.
2. Small Number of students as compared to their classes
They had like 50-65 students in their class and that is really a lot, really A LOT. It would be really hard for the teacher to take care of every single student and make sure all of them understands. OR perhaps I'm underestimating the teachers' power.
3.Shorter lesson time
Their schools end at around 5, and THATS CRAZY. I can die even when school ends at 2.30 usually, and idk how can they survive so long school hours.
4.School Canteen
We need a school canteen to have our meals, however at 合肥45中, there wasn't a school canteen and they were dismissed from school to eat outside and to enter school later on to have lessons. This would be pretty troublesome.
5. School Facilities
As compared to 合肥45 中, RV has much more facilities than them. We have a fitness corner, track , football field,etc. However they only have some basketball courts and a fitness corner that is not properly taken care of. The metal bars have gone rusty.

~Mingwei

Day 1 Mingwei

The first thing i can rmb was that The food was horrible. It was disgusting especially for the first 2 meals of the day. Breakfast had food that were not cooked, corns look pale in color, food look revolting to an extent that I had no choice but to only eat toasts and a drink of orange juice. Lunch was even horrible, they did not serve plates but only a bowl for us to eat around 10 dishes, rice and soup. Best still, only 2 spoons were given for 9 people to drink soup. Their service attitude was bad when our teacher asked for plates and one of the waitress simply asked, "what for"(in Chinese). It was one of the most tormenting eating experiences i ever had. Fortunately, dishes for dinner were slightly better and I was able to eat more. You guys may be thinking that im eating very less, all I can say is I have no appetite to eat them, thus I ate what I think is adequate for myself.I hope this would clarify why im eating much lesser compared to the others.Hopefully, these dishes would change for the better. Not for the dinner, I believe I would be all dead, having no mood to write the reflection now.

We also took the high speed railway train to Hefei in Anhui which was around 3 hours. I've no idea what happened on the train as i was deep asleep as I was exhausted from yesterday getting little sleep.

We also visited the sanheguzhen today, we had to walk for a little over 3 hours which was unbearable due to the glaring sunlight and the warm temperature. My back was totally wet. There were several attractions at the sanheguzhen, for example sunliren residence. There was also the yangzhenning former residence, he is the first  Chinese who got the Nobel award thats related to physics. In the preserved residence, there were also information boards which introduces the renowned people of Anhui.  The preserved buildings dates up to 600years back which is really surprising as they have not been demolished but kept as a tourist attraction.

In a nutshell, it was a terrible day for me and my friends, I guess.

~MingWei

day seven china(last day)

written by jeslyn(6)2E:
we went shopping at the laojie, something that everyone(i think) was excited about. however, as we did not have much time left, we only shopped for forty minutes, just enough time for me to buy some items for my friends and family.

next, we took the boat to another place. we learnt that the river we were on was actually man-made. although the scenery did not seem rather fascinating to me, we still took photos together.

we went to a place that has a statue of yuefei, a general who loved his country, and it also has yuefei's tomb along with his son's.

today, we did not go to alot of places as it was the last day and we mainly travelled a long journey on the bus to the airport. and as we arrived at the airport, i could not help but feel rather sad about the fact that this OELP trip was coming to an end.

throughout the entire OELP trip, i have truly learnt alot, from cultural history to knowing more about the people around me. i made new friends, i gained more knowledge of the history of a part of china, i bonded more with the class. during dinners, my dining table will always be playing games, to eat finish the food, and we are the table that always seem to get about two-three plates of the same dish. but through the many dinners, we know more about each other, we laugh together.

through this seven days of OELP trip, we as a class, we became more bonded as we climbed huangshan together, watched the sunrise together, ate dinner together, took photos together, and most of all, spent quality time laughing along with each other. perhaps, even after this OELP trip has ended, my friends and i will look back to these memories and ask each other," did we really do that?" and the think back to how much fun we had together, as a class.

and i am certainly glad i have been on this educational trip with my class, afterall it made me widen my knowledge of what is around me and the people around me.

PICTURES!:D