CID individual reflection

Day 1:

  On Sunday,24 May 2015, me and my classmates assembled at Changi Airport all ready to head to Hang Zhou,China. All of us were feeling overwhelmed with excitement,afterall it was our very first time going for such a long trip together as one class. On the first day on the OELP trip, there were fewer activites that were planned for us as most of our time were taken up by our flight to Hang Zhou but nevertheless I had a fruitful day. 

  A 5 hour plane ride seemed very long to me but what was most surprising to me was that time flew by very quickly with the company of my friends with me on the plane. We busied ourselves by taking short naps,playing card games and the simplest things such as chatting. The 5 hours was spent very meaningfully to me because it was a golden opportunity for me to spend more time with my classmates and to become closer with them. I have learnt alot of new things about my classmates and I believe I would have never found out about certain things if I was not seating near them on the flight.

  Upon arriving at Hang Zhou,China,we have our dinner, visited the Song Dynasty City and enjoyed a spectacular Song Dynasty performance. From the night visit to the Song Dynasty City and the performance that we watched, I could infer that the people that lived in those days lead a prosperous lifestyle, indulging into recreational activities such as dancing. The performance showed me that dancing was in fact a major part and was very much integrated into their lives back then. I believed that they was able to integrate dance into their lifestyles was because of the fact that in those days, people lead peaceful and safe lives and did not live in poverty.

  I have also learnt that the Song Dynasty City was incorprating culture,heritage into tourism. It is indeed very clever to have a fusion of culture and entrepreneurship in a business. It reminds the people of their roots and a visit to the Song Dynasty City would allow oneself to understand and remember more about the Song Dynasty. Not only it provides entertainment for us tourists with all the stunning performances and mini “games”, it educates people. This is something that I feel that we as Singaporeans should learn from,killing two birds with one stone.

  However, we certainly would not be able to truly experience the actual lives of the people who lived in the Song Dynasty. The visit only showed us a more superficial side to people's lives but not in depth to how they operate in their daily lives. Also, there were alot of technology that were involved and definitely, the technology that were implemented did not exist back then. There are limitations to what the Song Dynasty City theme park can educate us about.

Song Dynasty City 

Day 2:

  On Day 2 of this trip,one of the places that left a deep impression on me was the visit to Wahaha company. Firstly, the name of the company “Wahaha” was an interesting and unique that caught my attention and I was curious about how Wahaha operates as a company and the reasons behind their success and achievements. Wahaha produces a large variety of products,specifically drinks in particular. The drinks that are sold out in the market are such as vitamin drinks,fruit drinks,nutritional drinks and Future Cola. I understood from the tourguide at Wahaha that nutritional drinks for children was first introduced to China as the founder of Wahaha realised that there were no such products for children out in the market and took the opportunity to start marketing the nutritional products. This was one of the key reasons to why Wahaha is so successful today, being China's leading domestic beverage producer. Another reason to the success of Wahaha was due to the fact that the founder was bold and used marketing strategies such as advertisements on television which was something fresh and new back then. The founder of the company made sure that they were unique and certainly they stood out from the rest. He made very courageous decisions to do something different in both the products that were produced and the marketing strategy that was implemented. There was definitely a good chance that his business would fail, but the he dared to give it a try and succeeded eventually. Of course, Wahaha's success did not come by easily, it was through hardwork and perseverance, also there was a period of time where Wahaha was heavily in debt and was struggling to pay off the loans.

  Another of my key takeaways from the visit to Wahaha was they made used to nationalism to ensure the success of their adaption of Cola, which was Future Cola. The tourguide shared with us that Wahaha started to produce their very own version of Cola was because the Chinese felt that is the Americans could have their own Cola, they could have it too. This made the Chinese willing to purchase Future Cola.

At Wahaha 

Day 3:

  On Day 3 , we visited quite a number of places such as Tunxi Street,Tunxi Ink Factory,Cheng Dawei Abacus Museum,Hongcun Ancient Villages and Xidi Ancient Villages  and the takeaways that I had after visiting those places all revolve around one main theme which is preserving culture and heritage. We had a “mission” to complete when we were at Tunxi Street, it was to take a photo of a traditional handicraft/snack/dimishing trade. I took a picture of a malt candy that was in a shape of the ever popular cartoon,minions. I felt that it was considered as one of the dimishing trades on the street as all of the malt candy were made and designed on the spot. It was difficult to find these malt candy sold nowadays as the younger generation are often unwilling to take up this business, finding it troublesome and impatient to learn the art of malt candy making. They see no future in it and refuse to learn more about it. Also, the malt candy that were sold on Tunxi Street were often designed as popular cartoon characters. This showed that the stall owners had to modify their products in order to keeping the trade alive and to attract more customers. In a way, the trade is still mostly preserved but not entirely traditional anymore,catering to the needs of tourists like us. The modernising of the products was needed so as to keep up with time and trends resulting the transformations needed to be made to those trades.

  Another very important thing that was brought up by our teachers was that should the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew's house be demolished as per his wishes or preserved as a heritage site? This was preferenced to one of the places that we visited which was Cheng Dawei Abacus Museum. The museum was orginally Change Dawei's house but after his passing, it was made into a museum,allowing tourists like ourselves to visit the place and understand more about the heritage and history behind this man and the concept of abacus. This let my and friends and I thinking if the government and us Singaporeans should respect Mr Lee Kuan Yew's wishes or should we preserved his house to let our future generations to learn and appreciate what Mr Lee Kuan Yew has done for us. I believe that this is a very difficult decision to make because I'm torn apart with either to respect Mr Lee Kuan Yew's wishes or to keep something that is so precious to Singapore because afterall it is the house of our very first Prime Minister who spent his whole life building Singapore to a first world country with his team. Also, it touched my heart to know that even until the very end, Mr Lee Kuan Yew still puts Singapore as his priority,hoping that when the time comes,his house would be demolished for further projects that will happen.

Cheng Dawei Abacus Museum

In the actual museum

Some of our classmates trying out Chinese calligraphy at Tunxi Ink factory 

Gorgeous scenery!!

Day 4:

  Day 4 was one of the days that I was looking forward the most to because we will be trekking on Huang Shan. I have heard about the gorgeous view on Huang Shan and was very curious. Unfortunately, on the actual day, it rained right before we were about to trek on Huang Shan.

  Of course, besides just plain trekking on Huang Shan, we had things to do that were assigned by our teachers. At Huang Shan, we saw and heard quite a number of things such as grotesque rocks,the people who works at the restaurants, hotel or shops,voices of people,the material that was used to build the flights of stairs. For example,the grotesque rocks that i saw are  mostly rather bulky in terms of the size but vary in shapes. Some of the rocks were protruding out of the surface,having sharp edges and also the surfaces of the rocks were often uneven and rough. According to our tourguide,the rocks are formed without any interruption from us humans and they contain many minerals.

  One thing that is most memorable when we were trekking on Huang Shan was the people we saw. The people we saw were mainly tourists,the workers and also a large number of the elderly. The elderly that we saw taught me quite a number of things. Some of us felt that they were people who were not only strong physically but emotionally. As I mentioned earlier, it rained on that day and thus the pavement were rather wet and slippery,they were strong enough emotionally to continue trekking even though it was difficult to walk on the uneven steps. Even us students faced alot of difficulty trekking at the steep stairs. It must have took alot of mental strength as the weather was not optimal with occasional cold gusts of wind.

Day 5:

  Day 5 was full of not only excitement but also nervousness. We were performing in front of a large crowd in our buddy school,Shou Chun Secondary School. We had been rehearsing very hard for the past two nights and we will be performances a few dances,specifically being Malay Dance, Indian Dance and Eurasian Dance and two songs that we feel truly represent us and Singapore. Our performances was not a smooth-sailing one. When the emcee called us our school, all of us were all mentally unprepared as we were informed that our performances were scheduled as the last segment of the competition that Shou Chun Secondary School were organising. In the end, we have no actual idea when were we going up on stage and with the addition of the unfamilarity with the area, our performances were clearly not up to standard.

  However, I personally feel that as a class, we have already done very well. I do not as much if our performances was not up to standard or how the audience view us because I know that we rehearsed and performed keeping in mind that we are representing Singapore, River Valley High School and 2F. I cannot guarantee that all of us were thinking of the same thing but I am sure that most of us were. Comparing our performances with the perfomances of the students there, we still had many things to learn from them, but i am proud of 2F because we tried our best and actually that was enough for me. 

  Also, we sang Aung Lang Syne with our Chinese friends. When we were on stage, there were a clear difference with the Singapore students and the China students. We put our arms around one another,swaying side to side while the China students stood still in neat rows. I think the the most touching moment during the performance was when we put our arms around our China friend.To me, it was a start to something,the start to a new friendship, the start to the memories that we will create together. I can't help but smile when the audience applauded and cheered louder than ever when we put our arms around our China friends.

  Indeed, it is an unforgettable experience for me.

Class photo at Shou Chun!! :-)

Day 6:

  We visited Shou Chun Secondary School again but this time we stayed there for almost an entire day and we also went to the supermarket in Hefei to do some market research.

The second visit to Shou Chun Secondary School also gave many insights and I have  learnt a lot. There were quite a number of differences between Singapore and China education. The more significant ones are for example, lessons are all conducted in Chinese except for English lessons,the toilet had no doors and we had a hard time trying to adapt as we were rather uncomfortable in using the toilets. Also, they used black boards,chalk and wooden chairs and table instead of the whiteboard,markers and plastic tables and chairs.

  During my visit to our buddy visit school, I realized that they were all very warm and friendly people. An example would be, during the Chinese lesson that was conducted, we were learning a poem but however , we could not understand what the poem meant and had a hard time trying to catch up with the class. Fortunately, the teacher allowed the students to take some time to teach us and explain the poem to us. The students were all very helpful and guided us throughout the whole lesson. In fact, they were also very patient with us because I believe that the poem was peanuts to them but yet they are very willing to help us and understood that we are not exposed to Chinese literature unlike them.

I also learnt to be acceptive of culture differences, as I mentioned earlier, the toilets in their school do not have doors and they do not hire any cleaners to maintain the cleanliness in their toilets. Initially, it was difficult for us to adapt and we have to get a friend to stand in front of the cubicle as our human "door". However, we realized that there are advantages to a doorless toilet, it would ensure that the students will spent minimal time in the toilet and maximize their learning time in school. 

I had a great time in Shou Chun Secondary School and the friends that I have met there are certainly one of the highlights.

Day 7:

  

  On the seventh day, we spent half a day with our buddies but this time, we did not spend it in their school, we actually to their houses and also had a blast at their neighborhood. The house visit was in fact one of my favourite activities that was planned for us. We went for a nice walk at the park that was near their school and according to Ye Xin who is Joey's buddy,it is one of the biggest park in their area. Also, the park had some rides that were similar to the rides that we see at the pasar malam in Singapore when we were little. We decided to play on those rides and had a great time. It made me wanting to go to Universal Studios Singapore again! We also went to some museums and had a short walk on the streets.

  After spending some time outside, Ye Xin brought us back to her house for lunch. Upon reaching her house, the three of us were all in awe because of how magnificent the house looks. It was certainly better than what we live in and what we have expected. Our whole house is probably the size of the living room and the backyard combined. Her mother were preparing lunch for us and soon lunch was served. 

  Before I visited our buddy's house, I was nervous because I did not know what to expect. Will the buddy and her parents be friendly or otherwise? Will I be able to communicate well with them or will they not understand what I was trying to say because my Chinese is not good enough? Those were my main concerns. However, after this experience, I learnt that Ye Xin and her parents were very accommodating and friendly. I felt as if I was at home and I knew them for a very long time when we visited them, even though we have only met for a few hours. From Ye Xin, I found out that even though there are many differences in my school life and hers, there were still quite a number of similarities. For example, the students in China are often sent to tuition just like how we are and their weekends are all packed because of it. In Singapore, we have a Napfa test every two years and they have something similar too just that their requirements are very different from ours. To my surprise, I was told that some of the students in her class gets exhausted after running two rounds around the track.

From this experience, I learnt that I have a misconception about China students and in actual fact they are very warm and welcoming of us. I still have a lot to learn from them especially their learning attitudes in school.