We're Cheerleaders Now.

(Nik)

I woke up very excited for school. My host mother had set out an early morning banquet of dumplings, fruits, and soft-boiled eggs to fuel the academic pursuits she assumed would lay head for Charlie (my host bro) and me. While I'm sure Charlie had a feichang intellectual day, my education took a rather different direction.

Switching Gears

(Lindsay)

“There are a number of teachers here at Hangzhou who can forecast the weather by touching the walls of the school.” With this, William, the teacher who will be traveling to Dover in May, ran his hand along the tiles of the corridor wall, then turned to show me his wet palm. Sure enough, last night it poured. Buckets. And thundered with lightning and hail. This morning, everything was wet, inside and out. The corridors of the school buildings are arcades, open to the elements, and the floors everywhere are mopped regularly to clean away the dirt tracked in from the street. Since arriving in Hangzhou I’ve been told by many that this is the rainy season and that I should be ready for a downpour at any time. So far, it has rained heavily only at night, and I’ve been able to ride my bike to school each morning. I am getting accustomed to the dampness; fond of it actually, for the way it seems to bring out the songbirds.

A Big Welcome from Hangzhou

(Abby)

Today started off with a bang when my water bottle rolled off of the top bunk of the night train and woke everyone up at 7 am. Our 15-hour overnight train ride was coming to an end and we were going to arrive in Hangzhou in an hour and forty minutes. Despite the limited space and luggage, all of us managed to put ourselves together quite nicely, if I do say so myself.

At the train station, three teachers from Hangzhou High School met and took us to the school. The taxi ride through the city was amazing. I honestly didn’t expect Hangzhou to be as nice as it really is. New buildings and many types of trees are everywhere and the city itself has a safe and interesting atmosphere. As we drove up to the school, a sign was posted on their electronic screen welcoming “the friends of Dover-Sherborn High School”. Our homestay siblings met us next with beautiful flowers at the front steps. My host sisters names are Rich, my host sibling for the first two weeks, and Maggie, my second.

Bye Bye Beijing

(Ola)

We woke up with some mixed feelings today. It’s our last day in Beijing, which means our last day of traveling. The traveling portion of this exchange has been amazing and although we’d like to continue, we’re also very tired and are looking forward to settling down. After getting used to constantly traveling, we’ll now have to get used to living with host families we’ve never met before and attending Hangzhou High School.

How to Use a Small Child As a Weapon

(Nik)

It was a busy day to say the least: the Great Wall, a Cloisonné factory, the Ming Sacred Way, and a Gongfu performance. Kelly got us moving bright and early to drive for about one and a half hours to Mutianyu, a popular place to climb the wall.

As walls go, the Great Wall is pretty great. At its greatest length, it was about 10,000 kilometers long, and stretches from the Pacific Ocean north of Beijing and out across the parched northern plains. National walls were first constructed in quantity during the Warring States period in the 300s BC, and after Qinshihuang unified China, he linked up some previously-build walls to form the first stage of the Great Wall to halt nomads who were raiding food from Northern and Western farmers. It was further expanded by the Han and Ming Emperors.

Different Strokes

(Lindsay)

At first I thought the music was piped throughout the grounds, but as we walked along the open-air Long Corridor of Beijing’s Summer Palace, the tune became louder and more distinct, a drum, definitely, a saxophone and an erhu, and many voices in unison. It was about 9:00 in the morning. Who practices at 9:00 on a Saturday morning? I asked Kelly, our guide. “Come see,” she said, and we left the corridor, ascended some granite stairs around a bend of bushes and there they were, hundreds of older men and women, holding music or clustered around music stands, singing. Not just singing, but joyously singing a folk tune about Beijing. Their enthusiasm was overflowing. Many threw their hands in the air in motion with the music, and one woman even danced, while clutching a piece of embroidered green cloth in each hand to emphasize the festive nature of the song. They all finished the first song with a flourish and began another, this time one about swallows. I asked Kelly if this was a holiday. No, it was not a holiday. Did they just sing on weekends? No. “They come here every day. They are retired. They just come here to sing.”