Blogging from China - Day 7

Day seven is our final day that I will be reporting back to let you know what we are doing. We leave tomorrow, but this is my last day with computer access. We spent today visiting high schools in Tianjin. We started our day visiting Tianjin Nankai High School. This high school is the birthplace of the Nan Kai schools. Tianjin Yaohua High school is a traditional Chinese High school whose motto is diligence, simplicity, loyalty, and honesty. There are 5200 students and over 400 staff members in the high school. Teachers teach three classes a day with 50 students in each class. School begins at 7:30 am and ends at 5:20 pm. All extra curricular activities occur after school. All students take the same classes. Students do not move between classes. Teachers move from classroom to classroom and each class last 45 minutes.

We then visited the Tianjin Experimental High School. It was established in 1923 and is directly under the Educational Committee of Tianjin. The first Confucius classroom in the world was set up by the Experimental High School. The length of the school day is the same, but there are only 25-30 students in each class. The Experimental High School is for gifted and talented students. Ninety Eight percent of their students are accepted into a University in China. (photos)

Our trip to China has been a once in a lifetime experience. Mr. Newsom and I would like to extend a special thanks to the College Board and the Hanban association for their sponsorship of this trip. China is a country with a rich history. The educators that have been our guides this week are wonderful people committed to providing quality educational experiences to their students.

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Even though I am the pickiest eater you will ever meet, I thought the last day I would share with you a typical menu from one or our meals. As you will soon see, our group was truly treated to a wonderful cultural experience through food.

Menu

• Six kinds of cold dishes
• Steweddrie mushroom with abalone sauce
• Prawintheshaprofpho enix tail with golden shreds
• The glutinous rice steams the young bone
• Pineapple ancient meat
• Crispgrain with salt and paper
• Spicy diced chicken with peanuts
• The black fries with the shelled fish shrimp
• Steamed tench with scallo
• Crispy chicken
• Boiling Vegetables
• Dessert
• Yangzhou style fried rice
• Vegetable soup
• Fresh Fruit
  

A typical dinner takes about 1 ½ hours. The food comes out in stages allowing you time enjoy your dinner.

Signing off from China for the last time...


Bob