2015/06/28

Blog#3: Chinese Dragon Boat Festival

Dear Parents,

Updating time! It is weekend again and let's see our dearest students' activities in the past week.
This Monday(Jun.22) was the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival(Held on the fifth day of the fifth month(excluding leap month) of Chinese Lunar Calendar. It is a traditional Chinese festival and now it is made as a regular national festival). Many host families took students out. Some visited the umbrella, fan, scissor and knife museum, some went to Xianju to pick Chinese berries, and some saw the dragon boat competition. 
 
On Tuesday, students visited the Department of Foreign and Overseas Chinese Affairs of Zhejiang Provincial People's Government. The director warmly welcome us and introduced the history and development of Zhejiang province to us. He also encouraged students to help build up relationships between their schools in the States and schools in Hangzhou. 

Classes were still busy and students' language proficiency was progressing greatly, especially in listening. Although it was hard to adhere to the language commitment because there were many things they didn't know, but they all tried very hard to speak Chinese. In the afternoon, students started to learn seal carving and Taiji. Everyone successfully carved a seal of their own Chinese name. And they all learned the first few moves of Taiji and will be able to do the complete Taiji in two more sessions. 

Taiji 



Seal Craving


As the Chinese performance night is approaching (scheduled on 7/5), everyone was busy preparing for their performances. Teachers were amazed by everyone's talent.


 

If you want to know more about this, please look forward to our post next week!

 


2015/06/21

Blog#2: First Week @Hangzhou

Dear Parents,

Our IUHPFL students have already settled down in their Chinese homestay family and started their amazing learning journey here. Here are the photos about their first week of study.





When students first arrived in Hangzhou, they had a chance to walk around the west lake. There were many old people singing loudly and dancing happily by the river. Teachers told them stories about Leifeng Tower and Baoshu Tower. Many Chinese tourists were excited to see a group of American students and started to chat with them. Students happily exchanged greetings with them and took a picture together.
 
On the same day, students had a campus tour. Hangzhou No. 14 Middle School is located in the downtown area, not far from the west lake. It ranks top 5 in Hangzhou and provides AP track for students who want to study abroad in addition to the regular track. Two Chinese students from the AP track introduced the campus to our students.
 
"Learning Goals"
Every day students start class at around 8:00am and gets off school at around 4:45pm. Several host families live close to each other, so families take turns to send students to school. Some students live near the school and take a bus or walk to school. In the morning, students first share our observations and experiences staying in China. Then they have Chinese classes. 

Chinese Class

Baolaoshi teaches phonetics and grammar class. Penglaoshi teaches communication and literature class. Lilaoshi teaches communication and culture class. In the afternoon, they have sports class and activity class. Both are taught by No. 14 school teachers. 
Chinese Caligraphy,"Fu"(means good fortune)


"Hulu Si" 



















So far, they have played basketball, badminton, pingpong, yoga in the sports class and learned Chinese instrument – Hulusi, Chinese painting, calligraphy in the activity class. They have all showed great interests in Chinese culture and amazing talent in mastering these skills.
 

To be continued...

2015/06/11

First Update: Arrival, Welcome Dinner and First Batch of Photos

On June.11, we group landed in Shanghai Pudong International Airport around 11 am local time. Here we come, the "Middle Country", China! After another hour roadtrip from Shanghai to its nearby city, which is the location of our program, Hangzhou, everyone is exhausted but excited! See our smiling faces!

Two instructors joined us, Bao Laoshi(left)& Peng Laoshi(right) in this photo

Picture 1-3, Group photo on depature.
During Tranfer

Yah! WE MADE IT! Hello, China!


Picture 6-7, We had welcome dinner at "Waipo Jia"Restaurant(which means "Granny's Kitchen", very authentic Hangzhou Food)
After dinner, now we are ready for the program!

The students are scheduled to meet their Chinese homestay family on Friday(June.12). We will have more updates of their kick-off.