Day 6 - 30 October 2015

Today is the 30^th of October. We travelled three hours to sight-see a 700 years old building, in Hakka village, built in the 1300s. It survived three earthquakes and the building heals its own cracks as a result of the flexibility of bamboo shoots, used as foundation. It was inspiring to see the Chinese preserving and embracing their history and culture. Besides visiting Hakka village, it was also my birthday today. The teachers and my mother prepared a cake and surprised me after dinner. It also came with a cute golden crown I gave to Sze Ting. I felt touched and appreciated in that moment. I would like to thank the teachers for the wonderful surprise. It's one birthday I won't forgot.

-Roisin

Today together with my schoolmates,we travelled 6 hours back and forth from Xiamen City to the Hakka Village.We spent 3 hours there and saw many eye opening structures that despite the hours long journey i had learned that one of the Hakka Earth Buildings is 700 years old built in the early 1300s.An interesting fact is that it is even older than the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. It was definitely an experience I will not forget. In conclusion, having been here makes me realise how lucky i was to be in an UNESCO,World Cultural Heritage site.

-Taedra Lee

Day 5 - 29 October 2015

This morning, we visited Jimei Primary School and I am surprised that most of the students were able to use English to communicate with us. The talented students also put up a show for us comprising dances and poetry recital. We also shared our Singpapore culture and food with them, and taught them how to dance to the Singapore neighbourhood workout. In the afternoon, we visited the Overseas Chinese museum. I learnt about the terrible condition my forefather had to go through in order to have a better future. The lecture by Professor Chen helped me understand how my Chinese surname came about and more fun facts about Chinese wedding custom. I am very honoured to meet such an interesting 80-year old lady.

-Raynar Teo

Today, it was a really heartwarming day. I was not expecting that at all. This was what happened. We were at Jimei Primary School and we were just joining them for their PE lesson.  After the PE lesson, we joined a class, year 6. Then we just taught them how to dance “Great Singapore Workout”. It was so fun teaching them. After a few performance and presentation from them and us, we had an interaction session. Right after the teacher said that it was interaction time, a whole group of students ran towards me. I was so shocked. I felt so welcomed. The way the children looked at me was so pure and innocent. Then, there was this boy Harry that gave me a greeting card that me made by himself.

-Queena Ong

Day 4 Reflections

Reflections for Day 4

I have learnt that friendship can happen between people no matter of age, gender,race and even duration. Take today for an example, many of us made new friends with the Xi Yuan Primary students after knowing one another for just a day. I have seen many friendly children and they are all very nice and kind. Their classrooms are quite small but it is able to accommodate many students. All of the Xi Yuan Primary students treated us with genuine and sincere hearts and they are always positive and happy going. I felt really sad and emotional when we were departing and I felt really bad as they gave me sweets and longans that they have harvested but I have nothing to give them except some chewing gums and sweets.

-Joanne Wee

I learnt that the kids in Xi Yuan Primary are all very nice, some of them are very naughty, some are very sporty. At first, I thought the village school's facilities was going to be very old, but actually they are quite modern. Like their whiteboard, it is touchscreen. I saw their hostel, it is very small, and has only 9 beds and nothing else. They also have table tennis table, a big field, a badminton court,playground, etc. There are many children from different age groups which is about 7 to 13 years old.

-Seet Min Yi

Day 3 - 27 October 2015

Reflections for Day 3.

During my trip to Jimei Middle School, there were a few observations I had made between Broadrick Secondary School and Jimei Middle School. First off, the classrooms in Xiamen are relatively small compared to ours. However, they do have more activities than us such as the extra libary lessons and also an eye relaxation lessons exercise. Some similarities that I noticed is that the lessons are quite similar to ours, they attend a flag raising ceromony like us and we have the same index no routine to identify students easily.I have also made a friend named Xiang Xue, she lives in the hostel and wakes up at 6.15 am everyday. She loves to draw and she is very hard working. She is from Xin jiang and wants to be a tour guide when she grows up, to top it off, she can sing too.

-Haniya Lim

On my trip to Jimei Middle School, I saw a few differences and similarities between Broadrick and Jimei Middle School. One example will be that Jimei Middle School has two canteens for the students, one of which are for the Muslims whereas in Broadrick there is one canteen for all students of all religions.

- James Wong

Day 2 - 26 October 2015

Today we attended Chemistry, Physics, Chinese Literature and Computer lessons in Jimei High School. As the lessons were conducted completely in Chinese, we found ourselves trying hard to figure out what the teachers were saying. The students were very quiet and well-behaved, and saved all their questions to the very end.

We ate lunch at the school! We met Mr Tan during the recess. Unfortunately, we were not able to spend much time with him as he had to rush off for an important meeting after lunch.

We went on to Hulishanpaotai which was located about 1 km south of Xiamen University. There, we managed to catch a performance, which portrayed Qing Soldiers operating large cannons. It was set up very grandly... the cannon itself was majestic looking... However, when it fired, we couldn't help but laugh. It made the sound of a party popper; which was totally not what we expected.

We went to see the optical illusion in Guai Po (Strange Road), where bottles rolled uphill instead of downhill. It was interesting!

We then ate another seafood dinner. Sadly, once again, we're were too hungry and tired to remember to take a photo!

Lights Off!

10:00!

Zzzzz.....

Day One - 25 October 2015

Today is the first day of our trip!

After saying goodbye to our families, we took a three hour long plane ride to Xiamen. It was a very peaceful flight, because everyone was sleeping as we caught a really early flight.

Once we touched down in Old Xiamen Airport, we met our tour guide, Cathy, who despite having English as her second language, spoke quite well! We also met our bus driver, Mr Wang.

We ate a vegetarian lunch! We had 3 soups, Mushroom. Cucumber, and Peanut, which were all pretty delicious.

   

We visited the Nan (South) Putuo temple and the scenic Xiamen University afterwards!

We ate a seafood dinner and it changed our opinion of oysters forever. We loved it! (Such a pity we ate it so fast and were too tired, so we didn't take a picture of it. ^^;)

Lights off!

9:30 pm

Zzzzz....