Mandarin students experience China

With little more than a backpack, Sisters Mandarin language students spent an event-filled two weeks in China earlier this month. They explored the sights, but it was no leisure vacation.

The students worked.

Nine Sisters students from David Perkins' second-year Mandarin class made the trip accompanied by nearly as many chaperones, a mix of parents and friends.

Immediately upon landing they knew it was going to be a Mandarin-language-filled week.

"The airports were new," said student traveler Trevor Condel, "similar to ours, except all the signs were in Chinese. Only the flight times and departures were in English."

Their first stop was the Beijing Yucai School as guests in their international department. Students had the honor of staying in school dorms shared by other international students, and going to school. It was a place to test their mettle; classes were in Mandarin.

There are about 4,000 students at the school, and 700 board on campus.

The students were introduced to cultural niceties.

"They showed us the proper way for drinking tea," said student Maddy Anast. "The women have to hold it differently than the men. All the women have all their fingers on the cup, except their pinky. I believe the men just hold with their thumb and index finger. We drank tea with all the meals and restaurants usually served chrysanthemum tea."

"Students learned Chinese calligraphy, tai chi, Chinese handicrafts, including painted masks of plaster of paris, Chinese paper cutting, and knot tying," Perkins said.

The school also set up a program for the students for the week they were there, featuring Chinese acrobats, a visit to The Great Wall of China, the Temple of Heaven, the Forbidden City, Olympic Stadium and the historic Tiananmen Square.

Locals get around on scooters. For the students, negotiating their way around China was a challenge in using taxis, the bus, and getting used to local bathroom etiquette - or lack thereof.

"We got lost trying to find the 608 bus, but we kept asking and asking, and finally we found it," Perkins said. "Beijing taxi drivers would refuse to take us. They were very persnickety, but we finally realized we had to go on the side of the road they were traveling."

Bathrooms in less modern areas were a hole in the floor. One student expressed gratitude that chaperone Paula Perkins had saved her by having toilet paper, which isn't part of the more primitive bathrooms. Even the bathrooms at the school, while modern, had their differences.

"The shower is handheld and is next to a toilet and sink," Perkins said. "It all gets wet. The hot water heater is on the ceiling and it took them a couple days to figure out how to turn them on."

The students went on to Xian to view the famed terra cotta warriors.

"The terra cotta warriors were my favorite sightseeing day," said Condel. "Each one looks like a real person in the emperor's army. They've built buildings around the dig sites. They were buried in the emperor's tomb and were originally all colored. The color fades when they are exposed to air. They're not all dug up. It takes six months to dig one out and six months to put it together. Right now they're trying to figure out a way to dig them up and preserve the color."

Students volunteered at Starfish Foster Home, which acts as an orphanage and is home to about 50 babies, most with special needs including spina bifida, cleft palate and heart defects. Founded in 2005 by Amanda de Lange, Starfish takes care of children aged 2 weeks to 2 years.

"We were at the orphanage for three days and split up into three different rooms," said Condel, who said he would return to China just to be able to volunteer at the orphanage. "It was fun to see so many people come together and help those little orphans, and as far as a job is concerned, I would feel honored."

Receiving the benefit of their Mandarin teacher's connections in the shoe industry in China, the students had another opportunity to work. This time in Guangzhou, at a shoe factory. It was also a glimpse of a way of life.

"A lot of these people are doing one thing (on the assembly line) for 10 or 20 years," said chaperone Joey Hougham, parent of two of the Mandarin students. "They live in barracks of six or eight bunks, no mattresses, and a small cabinet to put their stuff in. They're fed and housed and make about 70 RMD per day, which is about $9 U.S. On the average, 4,000 workers crank out 20,000 pairs of shoes a day."

"It was overwhelming just to see that many people in one room doing the same thing all day," Condel said of his experience working at the factory. "In that half hour I helped make a hundred shoes, so they make hundreds of shoes a day. It was something, getting to see the work that goes into one shoe, at least 500 people working per room, four or five lines, both sides of the line and two people doing the same job."

Later this year a special visitor will be coming to Sisters from China. Joey and Stacy Hougham are hosting an exchange student, a senior named Angel.

"Angel's mother teaches English, so her English language skills are good," Joey Hougham said of their future guest. "She got to spend time with our kids in China, so she will already know some people when she arrives in Sisters."