It’s hard to believe that we have spent about one week in
China already. We have seen so much here in Shanghai and learned a lot about
its culture and people. It makes me very
sad to leave our new friends from SFU, but I am very excited to continue on
with our journey.
Our last day in Shanghai was spent partly on campus and partly
downtown. While at SFU, the students
finished their last class with Ms. Guojiao learning a few more words to use
while here. They learned words for food,
drinks, and things to buy, which will hopefully help us while we are out and
about. For example, Rachael was able to save me when I was trying to order a
bottle of water at lunch. She said “wo
he shui”, which I learned later translates to, “I’ll drink water”.
The Lakeland students had closing ceremonies immediately
following lunch where they were recognized with certificates of
completion. Linda presented the
certificates with Dr. Zheng, Dean at SFU. After we spent some time taking pictures and
saying our “goodbyes”, we headed downtown to do more shopping at People’s
Square and sightseeing at the Bund. The
Bund is located in central Shanghai and is one of the most famous tourist
destinations here. The area is on Zhongshan Road and runs along the western
bank of the Huangpu River, facing Pudong district. After dark, the buildings along the river
light up and the skyline is breathtaking.
The Muskies woke up bright and early on Saturday morning to
head to Nanchang, a much smaller city than Shanghai in the center of the
country. There are only about 11 million people in Nanchang compared to the 23
million people living in Shanghai. We boarded the train at Hongqiao Railway
Station at 7:40 a.m. and arrived in Nanchang about 6 hours later.
Once we arrived in Nanchang, we were greeted by several people
from our sister school in the lobby.
They were holding a sign that read “Welcome to ECIT”. ECIT stands for East China Institute of Technology. Lakeland College
and ECIT signed an initial sister school agreement back in 2006.
After checking into the hotel, they invited us all to a welcome dinner. At dinner, many of us started to recognize some of our favorite dishes. Something that shocked me was the dessert dish, sticky rice balls. At our first dinner, I wasn’t a fan, but now I was asking for seconds and even third helpings of it. It appears that many of us are acquiring a taste for the food and most are really enjoying it! It is amazing to me when I think back to our first welcome dinner with SFU, and David was teaching us how to use the chopsticks. Now, most of us have no difficulty using them. Practice does make perfect I guess!
We had fun spending the rest of the evening back at the hotel. Almost everyone gathered in Coach Amber’s and my room, since we have a Mahjong table in our room. Mahjong is a very popular traditional Chinese game and the students had a lot of fun learning to play with the ECIT students.
Our first full day in Nanchang was spent with an orientation
at campus. We were given a brief background
and history of ECIT. We also found out that ECIT and Lakeland have a very
strong connection. Since the summer of 2007, ECIT has
sent between seven and 22 faculty and staff members to Lakeland’s Summer
Professional Development Program. A total of 58 ECIT members have participated
in the program. Several ECIT students have participated in Lakeland’s Summer English
Language Institute, and there have been many visits by ECIT administrators and
scholars. We are the first group of
students/staff from a sister school to visit ECIT. At the end of our orientation we were introduced
to the twelve ECIT student ambassadors, most noted that they were excited to
have new international friends from LC. One of the
ambassadors was Jia Cheng Yang, who studied at LC last year, and many of
our girls know him very well.
Our student assistant, Yao, led us on a campus tour. ECIT has around 30,000 undergraduate students and an additional 10,000 graduate students. We were able to eat in the canteen before heading downtown. Coach Amber and I visited the August 1 Nanchang Uprising Memorial Museum where we learned about the day the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) revolted. This was the location where the leaders of the CCP arranged for the uprising against the alliance Aug. 1, 1927. This event was significant for the communist party and eventually led to the Long March, the civil war, and of course victory for the CCP.
We wrapped up that day at the Music Fountain in Qiushui Square. This large series of fountains lines the west bank of the Gan River and there is a water, light, and music show twice a night. There were thousands gathered in the plaza, making the area a bit crowded, but it was beautiful to see and hear the show. The highlight of the show was when the giant spout shot water nearly 200 feet in the air.
I will plan to post a new blog on Tuesday after our game. In the meantime, check out our new photos on our gallery link on the Muskie women's basketball home page. Thank you for following us!
Coach Vande
No comments :
Post a Comment