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Content Introduction School Life Life in host family Interaction with the community Outings Conclusion. Suzanne Kwong Zoe Ng Karen Chan Bessie Hung Joey Chan Suzanne Kwong. Introduction
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Content Introduction School Life Life in host family Interaction with the community Outings Conclusion Suzanne Kwong Zoe Ng Karen Chan Bessie Hung Joey Chan Suzanne Kwong
Introduction In September 2002, about 150 students from our school went to San Francisco for Education and Cultural Exchange. We introduced Chinese culture to the Americans through performing Chinese Orchestra and Dancing. We also learnt about the American culture through school experience and home stay.
While we were in the Cupertino, Karen, Suzanne and I studied at Miller Middle School, while Joey and Bessie studied in the Lynbrook High School. In this part, I will talk about the Miller Middle School. Usually we said Miller in stead of its full name. In their school, they did not need to wear uniform to school. School Campus First, I will talk about the school campus. Their school campus is larger than the school in Hong Kong. All the classrooms are on the first floor and they don’t have the second floor. They have a very very big ground for them to play sports. Now I will introduce the places in their school to you one by one. This is the Miller Mustang!! It represent their school! This is the appearance of Miller. Here is the Office!!
We have P.E. lessons in these few places. Is the field big? Here is the hall !! We usually buy food here when it is lunch time. Sometimes they will have P.E. lessons here too!
Lessons They have seven lessons every day. Each lessons lasts 52minutes. They have fewer subjects than us! They only need to study seven subjects because they have the same lessons every day. I have Spanish, History, Mathematics, Woodshop, Science, P.E., Language every day. Apart from these, they also have Japanese, Cookery and Music. Some of the subjects like Japanese and Woodshop are electives. They need to go to a different classroom for every lesson, so they will met different friends in different classes. History Class Mathematics Class Integrated Science Class
I think the Spanish, Woodshop and the P.E. lessons are the most interesting lesson. In Spanish class, the teacher was very nice. Although we didn't understand what they were talking about, and we were just sitting there and listening, I learned a little bit of Spanish when was having the lesson there. I learned that “mé” means “I”and “gusta” means “like”. We made a wooded piece of our name when we had Woodshop. Although it’s ugly, it was fun while during the process. Our friends helped us a lot because we couldn't use the dangerous machine. They had P.E. lesson everyday. I think it is very good for our health. They have to run around in a big circle for warm-up. It was very tiring after we run once. The circle was extremely big, and it was at least 4 times bigger than our school playground. Sometimes they had dance lessons. When we were having lessons there, we danced “cha-cha”and had a lot of fun.
Teachers and Classmates During the time that we stayed there, we knew many teachers and classmates. Although I forgot most of the teachers’ names, I will remember them because they were so nice to us. I think the principal was very kind too. He gave each of us a “mustang” and a T-shirt. Integrated Science Teacher Mathematics Teacher P.E. Teacher Language Teacher Woodshop Teacher Spanish Teacher
I also made many friends. My best friend was Michelle, who was not my host. We followed her to have lessons and she was kind to us. She came here from Hong Kong few years ago. The guy beside her is Aki. He played sport very well. It has great for Aki and Michelle to dance Cha-Cha together because they were the best partner in the class. Some other friends that I know include Jonathan, Milad,Jennifer, Diana, Eunice , Scott and Marcel. She is Jennifer. She is Eunice who came from Hong Kong too. She was our classmate when we were in the primary school. He is Marcel. He was the host of Suzanne and Karen. We are friends also. He is Milad. He is Scott. Is he cute?
Life in Host Family
My host family members are Tony, Hella, Chantal and Marcel Stieber. Tony comes from Ireland and Hella comes from Germany. They all speak German at home, which is a language that I do not understand. They know many instruments. Tony plays the piano; Chantal plays the piano, the French horn, the flute and the violin; Marcel plays the piano, the guitar and the bass. This is the place where Suzanne and I lived. The cat below is Bobcat. We usually call him catty or just bobcat. He is very cute. Apart from the cat, they also have three chickens, and the chickens have name too.
Here is “Lu Lu”. Chantal and her friend painted it all by themselves! It’s really brilliant. Suzanne and I followed Marcel to Miller Middle School during school days. The students all treated us very well. Every day after school, they brought us to different place, like the pool, the library, the supermarket and the shopping mall. They also brought us to the Coast Redwoods. Coast Redwoods is the world's tallest tree and one of the world's oldest trees. It is several hundred years old. Some of the trees are 200 to 240 feet tall, and have diameters of 10 to 15 feet, and some trees were more than 360 feet.
Here is a photo of the Coast Redwoords. On 22nd September, Marcel needed to perform. He played the bass. Suzanne and I enjoyed living with them because They were really funny and they treated us very nicely. We thanked them on 24th September, and we left. We send mails to each other to keep in touch.
Here is a photo of our great fried rice and steamed eggs. This is Marcel. He was playing the bass.
Interaction with the community
Performance The 21st and 22nd of September were a special days for us because we performed at the Moon Festival of Silicon Valley 2002. The aim of this trip was to perform at the Moon Festival, so it was very important. The Moon Festival of Silicon Valley was a cultural fair that took place in the Cupertino Memorial Park. The event was based on the traditional Chinese celebration of the full moon. There were many programmes on Chinese culture. For example, we had the Face Changing show by Chun Yip Cheung who was 11 years old, Reverse Calligraphy by Mr. Luk Zhen Ting, and a fusion of Eastern & Western music by 150 students from our school, dance performances by students from our school, Kung Fu by local Wu-Shu school, lantern parade, Fashion Show and many other performances.
We took part in the dance performance. Our dance was Israel Dance and we practiced hard. On the first day, there were many people coming to the fair. Before we performed the dance, we were very nervous because we were afraid that we would make mistakes in front of the audience. When we were dancing on the stage, we tried our best to dance. At last, our performance went smoothly and also, we got a big applause! On the next day, we were not as scared as we were onthe first day. We had experience and we improved. There were as many people as there were on the first day. It was really a big cultural fair! Aside from the dance performance, the Chinese orchestra from our school also did very well. At the end of the programme, all of us from St. Paul’s Convent School did our dance on Our Father and Hope Never Dies. Our performance was quite satisfactory. If there are other chances for us to perform in this kind of this fair again, I think we will do better. It was a good experience to be able to perform in this cultural fair. We learnt a lot from this experience and hope we will have chance to join such an event in the future.
On the second day of our trip, we went to Great America to play. In Great America, there were many facilities. We were divided into group to play. Great America is like the Ocean Park, with many exciting games and children’s games, such as the-merry-go-round. It is not the one in Hong Kong, because it has two levels. Many adults and kids lined up to play the games. The games, “Sky Flyer” was very exciting. Three people were put inside a bag, and there was a string to hold them. The players can they will fly. The roller coaster was also very exciting. The track was made of wood, and whenever the roller coaster ran along the track, some sound were produced. It was very interesting! Some Form3 students in our school went on that ride. There were also many souvenir shops. We bought many gifts for our friends and relatives.
On the last day of our trip, we visited Stanford University. We first went to the canteen for lunch. The we looked around the university in groups. Most of is went to the Stanford Bookstore, where there were many souvenirs for sale, such as T-shirts, notebooks and books Then we went to a building that had 14 floors. It looked very tall because there were no other tall buildings around. We went up to see the view and it was very beautiful.
Then we went to the Garden Bridge which was very beautiful. There was a gift shop and many of us went there to buy things. Then we went to the Fishermen Pier to shop. There was a museum called Believe it or Not. Inside the museum, there were many strange people and things for us to see and they were interesting. Then we shopped in groups and had dinner. There were many shops in the street that we walked along. We bought a lot of things. In our group, each of us bought a mood ring. It would change its colour whenever you become cold or hot. Finally, we left the Fishermen Pier and we went to the airport.
Conclusion After ten days of Education and Cultural Exchange, we gained lots of valuable and useful experiences. We made a lot of new foreign friends. We think the Americans gained some knowledge of the Chinese culture through our performances and we learned about their culture as well. We look forward to joining another exchange program in the future. Suzanne Zoe Bessie Joey Karen
