GGS

Friday

Went to school this morning and had meetings with the art, music and english teachers to discuss possible projects for the future. lots of great ideas to share our 2 cultures and everyone is very excited about this. Now I have more meetings!

Wednesday

Today has been great so far..Spent the morning visiting local sights - 2 fasntastic temples - Yuangtong (bhuddist) and Golden (Taoist). The former was very picturesque with the typical chinese style gates ornataely carved and painted in different colours, a beautiful ciruclar pagoda anbd surrounded by water with terrapins and fish - people throw them in for luck. There were monks in beautiful orange robes. And lots of people burning incense and praying. There were huge bhudda statues and orante wooden carvings in fairly gaudy colours.

Tuesday

It is about 1pm and I have just eaten lunch at the canteen along with the other teachers. It costs about 30p for a huge plate of food! I had rice, shredded potatoes (perhaps their version of chips?), stir fry veg and meat, steamed egg and tomato and egg soup.

I spend the morning watching lessons - English, art and music. They were all great. In the English lesson the students learnt about Shakespeare, watched a bit of Romeo and Juliet and then had to make up their own play asnd perform it. The whole lesson was conducted in English and the students seemed to have a very good level of English and spoke well. They were all very keen to speak to me and came up and asked lots of questions in English such as 'what is your favourite movie' and I even practiced a bit of my chinese and spoke about my family. Of course they corrected my pronounication but they understood me. In the music lesson, the students learnt a typical folk song and had to dance. In art, the students practiced paper cutting and made paper cuttings. They all gave them to me as gifts so I now have lots to put on the wall at school. In all the classes, the students were very attentive and paid attention well. But there was a nice atmosphere and it wasn't as formal perhaps as I expected. There are so many students in each class so the style of teaching has to take this into consideration with the teacher talking a lot from the front. The students are lovely though and very friendly.

Plus got to watch the students take part in the daily exercises. Everyone went outsiode during morning break to do exercises together to music. They stood in their lines and followed the movements - a bit like aerobics but static. It was incredible.

Now I have some meetings with the students and the deputy about the link..

I will try to post some photos if I can. 

Our partner school - Monday

I was picked up from my hotel at 9.30am and driven to the school, which was about a 10 minute drive. I then had to give a formal speech at the welcoming ceremony. It was held in the playground with all the students (1700!) standing in lines on the dusty pitch, just like we do for fire drills. There was a raised platform for me and the deputy principal and my translator. I wore a tartan sash from the Highland Kiltmakers shop to show I was representing Scotland. The speeches were all translated, and presents were handed over - a shield from the Highland Council, a quaich from Imrays which was engraved with the school names, a scottish flag and the school scrapbook. Afterwards I had a meeting with the deputy principal who I have been emailing to set up this link. His name is Michael and he speaks very good English. The headmistress is away at the moment in Shanghai on a training course for 3 months so he is standing in as the head and is very busy. He is very nice, friendly and easy to talk to. We had a brief meeting and I talked about our school and showed him where it was on the map...There was a big banner welcoming me in Chinese and English and a huge wall size colour information poster about our school with photos. It looked great.

Then it was time for  a quick tour of the school. It is based around a courtyard which has ponds, trees and plants. Around the 4 sides are the classrooms and they are on 4 floors. The students don't move between classrooms, but the teachers do. There are specialist classrooms for the library, 2 computer rooms and science labs - specific ones for each subject and all very high tech. There are about 50 students in a class and they all sit on individual small desks in rows. They have a uniform which is white - it looks like tracksuit bottoms and a top. They look very smart. There seems to be different colour stripes for different year groups..The school seems very friendly and has a nice atmosphere..

I spent the afternoon visiting the Yunnan Nationalities Village which has different houses on display for the different ethnic groups with people dressed in the typical dress. There are 50 or so groups in China and 26 of them are in Yunnan, so it is a big part of their culture and they are very proud of it. The houses varied from courtyard style with intricate patterns to bamboo houses on stilts. I saw them dancing and singing, and even got selected as the wife of a Muouso horseman!

Dinner was the typical dish of the area - Cross Bridge noodles. Basically a bowl of very hot broth served with raw meat and veg and noodles that you put in the bowl and it cooks. Lovely. But this was only one of the dishes! Also had pigs ear, seaweed, a variety of pickled mushrooms, wild veg that looked like grass, Peking duck with pancakes and a chinese style pork pie (slices of pork piled into a pryamid that you put into a white 'pie' made from rice) - very odd. Also saw traditional folk dancing...A long day.

Kunming seems like a lovely city - very green with lots of flowers blooming and trees and hedges lining the road. It is enormous and stretches as far as the eye can see. It seems quite modern with lots of new buildings and skyscrapers. But lots of green parks and areas to rest. Wide roads, with lots of cars but also bikes and mopeds and people walking. Very busy...However it seems fairly relaxed and not too hectic...And definately not as much traffic as in Beijing. Great weather - blue sky and sun and a hot 25 degrees!

Ni hao

That's hi in chinese! I have landed at Beijing airport and am emailing from a free email stand. Not bad....Just had a 9 hour flight to get here from Amsterdam plus another another to Amsterdam from Edinburgh. So left home at 9am Sat....My body clock is completely messed up. I am sure I should be tired and sleeping but am wide awake. Unfortunately I didn't sleep on the plane either, so will be exhausted by the time tonight comes. But first there is another plane to get. A 4hr flight to Kunming - the final destination. Thankfully I am being met by a teacher from the school and my interpreter...Although I did spend the journey on the plane revising my mandarin and trying to remember how to greet people and say basic things like yes and no....I think there is a formal dinner tonight and a tour of the city...Bright and sunny here but lots of haze and you could see all the pollution as the plane came into Beijing. On the flight also got to see lots of snowy mountains in southern Siberia. Pretty cool. Anyways...gotta catch a flight.

Chinese partner school

Grantown Grammar School has been linked up with a school in China, called Xinying Middle School. I will be visiting the school next week and keeping you up to date with my visit on this blog.

Here is some information about our partner school.

Location

The school is in the southwest of China in the city of Kunming, the capital of the Yunnan province which is about the size of Japan! It enjoys a tropic highland humid monsoon climate, characterized by cool summers and warm winters. It is nick-named the City of Eternal Spring as it feels like spring all year round. The annual average temperature is 13-20°C and the annual rainfall is 1100 mm. Kunming is an important city in China as it used to be the gateway to the celebrated Silk Road that facilitated trade with Tibet, Sichuan, Myanmar and India. Yunnan Province is very diverse with mountainous terrain in the north and rainforest in the south. It is rich in flora and fauna, and is home to half of all of China's plant and animal species. There are many temples, pagodas, national parks and over 26 different ethnic minorities such as Yi, Bai, Miao, Dai and Hani.

The School

Xinying Middle school has 1700 students aged between 11-18 years, with 117 staff and 34 classes. The school is very modern and was only built in 1996. Some students travel a great distance to the school and can board. The students study a variety of subjects, such as Chinese, English, Maths, History, Geography, Politics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Music, Arts, Sports and Research Study. Every year there is a big sports and choir competition. The school website is: http://www.plxyschool.com/

Partnership with Grantown Grammar School

We hope to set up joint curriculum projects with the Chinese school in different subject areas. This will enable the students to learn about life in another country and see things from a different perspective. In the summer term we hope to carry out projects which focus on what it means to be Scottish and living in the Highlands. Students may compose pieces of traditional music, write poems about identity, draw pictures of their area, learn about local customs related to food and consider the implications of living in a national park. It is hoped that the Chinese school will carry out similar projects and the students will exchange their work, and thereby learn about life in each respective country. In the future, there will be many more such projects, mandarin lessons and hopefully exchange