Blogging by Bianca
After our first night staying at the Zhongshan Huaqiao Middle School dorms we woke up feeling excited and curious about the day ahead of us. We started our day with a huge breakfast of noodles, soup, and best of all, buns. As we ate we talked amongst each other about our first night. We all agreed that it was an interesting and new experience that we were ready to immerse ourselves in. We then engaged in conversations with the local students about our lives back home. Some of the students explained what their school days were like and it made us realize just how much our school systems differed.
Once we finished socializing with the students at breakfast we continued to the welcoming ceremony where Christal, who is currently attending UC Berkeley, started off by thanking the organizing committee, the volunteers, and Via for making this all possible. The vice principle of Zhongshan Huaqiao Middle School then kindly welcomed us and explained the importance of both this exchange of high school students and the relationship between China and The United States. The next speaker was our very own, Brooke! She explain what VIA's and AYPL's mission is and what we want to take back after this program. Nate followed with an amazing presentation highlighting his work with Alameda County students to promote urban sustainability through service learning. He emphasized the importance of shifting the focus in schools to these causes. Dr. Wujing also shared her work with VIA, the relationship between Bay Area and Zhongshan students, and her own life story which related to urbanization. Through her own stories she made us realize that we are fortunate to experience culture shock in our formative years. Later on we were formally introduced to the teaching assistants through their own videos and a wonderful dance. After a short break we did a fun team building activity and were able to learn more about each other. We were broken up into groups and assigned to two different cohorts and were further split up when we were assigned to groups with a teaching assistant. With our groups we engaged in fun ice breakers such as "Feet on the Ground" and "Guess the number."
After dinner, we watched the documentary called Last Train Home which followed parents in China who are migrant workers that struggle to both maintain a relationship with their children and ensure that they will continue their education. We followed with a discussion of the film. Our last activity of the day was a city planning simulation.
Our cohort broke up into different groups that you would find in any city such as government, utilities, police, markets, hospitals, schools, and banks. In this activity we were given tough scenarios which required us to figure out how to work together to reach every ones best interest. I learned just how complex it is to run a city. Overall our day was packed with fun activities which we all learned from.
Photos by Nate Ivy: