HCI Beijing Satellite Campus

Life in BSC is an all new experience to me. This camp has prompted me to step out of my comfort zone and live independently without much assistance from my parents. Overall, life in BSC is slightly slower in pace than Hwa Chong, but it still depends on how one plans his time. Many spend almost all their spare time in front of a notebook. That is what I meant by living life at a slow pace. What they do could not be criticized but in my opinion, time should be better planned rather than allowing it to flow through one’s hands when one grabs a handful of sand.

One could do stuffs that one is unable to back in Hwa Chong. For instance, we could travel more around Beijing to visit its well known monuments. This also allows one to acquire a deeper understanding of the Chinese culture. Meanwhile, one could also attempt some ACE assignments posted by the teachers in Hwa Chong (in my case, quite a number of my subject teachers have suggested ACE assignments), which is something one should really do early as the school’s curriculum might be more closely packed as the terms progresses.

Perhaps I should elaborate more on how I feel about what I do in BSC. First of all, I have to wash my clothes myself. I am still not quite sure about how much detergent should be used each time for washing up to date(the others are uncertain as well though), but I could still manage to keep my clothes clean. I find myself spending more time with my friends during my stay in BSC, though I do see my friends everyday at school, we do not have much time to interact with one another. There is more joy and laughter ever in the hostels as we talk freely after school. These are the moments I treasure most. I believe the days remaining would become more and more exciting and enriching.

Its March… and it snowed 2 times in 2 weeks. I think we are quite lucky to experience snow in March, much less such heavy snow. Well not everyone might consider it a good thing because it lowers the temperature by a good 5 degrees. Basically everyone here has a form of sore throat, be it severe or minor. It is a unavoidable truth that all of us have to face.

But back to the subject, this week is immersion. Finally something we’ve all been waiting for. Having lessons with the local students here in Beijing is very interesting, and a good change from the “normal” Singaporean lessons that we were having. From one week of immersion I found out that the students here in Beijing are very disciplined, are very particular about cleaniness and have very long lunch breaks. Another thing I found out while having immersion here. Running in such a cold and dry weather is not fun.

This week we went to the Great Wall of China, but it’s not the Great Wall that was the most memorable. It was the trip. The bus broke down a total 7 times, turning the trip from a moderately long trip of 1.5 hours to a grueling 5 hours of sitting in the bus. Yours truly slept for 3 hours. But finally when we reached the Great Wall, we had to test our leg strength. We climbed up a few hundred steps that was snowy and slippery. By the time we reached the Wall we were all exhausted. But it was all worth it. The view was incredible, especially because the Great Wall was covered in a white blanket. It is really amazing to see a wall built so long ago still standing and in such a good shape. However inclined we were to show off our manliness by climbing down the Great Wall manually (MORE STEPS) most of us decided that the cable car was better for our legs.

Well that basically sums up this week of BSC ^^

On the 7th March, a couple of friends and I went to the Mudanyuan park. It was snowing slightly, with the snow dangling from the tree top and grass, creating a beautiful landscape beyond imagination. The contrast between the stone statue and the surrounding makes the mesmerizing picture indeed insightful, which no one will ever see in Singapore. Although the weather is extremely cold, but this allows the snow to maintain its shape and freeze the lake into ice. We went and took several photos while sliding on the ice and eat mutton stick along the way. With the mouth-watering delicacy and the excitement of “ice-skating”, we spent approximately 30 minutes running on the lake. Lastly, we went to climb the metal horse in the park. Due to the copper being a good conductor of heat, our hands gradually grew numb… Our visit to mudanyuan ended abruptly when the guards started chasing us!

I have always looked forward to weekends in BSC. Weekends at BSC marked our freedom to visit places of interest on our own. We could take our own sweet time as there is no scheduled timetable and it also gave us the ability to choose the places we were interested in.

Over the past weekend, we visited various tourist attractions. On Saturday, the school brought us to the Beijing Zoo. In the Beijing Zoo, there was a large variety of animals, of which some are native to
China and hence, cannot be found in the Singapore Zoo. For example, there is the South China tiger and the panda, which symbolizes China.

Besides the native animals, there is also a wider variety of animals from around the world in the Beijing Zoo as compared to the Singapore Zoo. For example, in the Singapore Zoo, we can only find the Asian Elephant whereas we can find both the Asian and African Elephant here in the Beijing Zoo. We can also find the Mississippi Crocodile in the Beijing Zoo whereas those breeds found in the Singapore Zoo are mostly only from around the region. This is because the Beijing zoo has a larger area compared to the Singapore Zoo. Therefore, it has a larger capacity and is able to keep a larger variety of animals. However, I still prefer the Singapore Zoo as the Beijing Zoo is too large to be covered in a day and there are some exhibits whereby one has to pay extra to be able to see the animals. The Beijing Zoo also lacks a good transport system. It does not have a proper tram system with like the one in the Singapore Zoo, whereby one can hop on when one is tired.

On Sunday, I went out with my family, who came over to visit me. That morning, we woke up at about 4am in the morning as we had planned to go to the Tianmen Squaremto see the flag-raising ceremony. However, when we arrived, we learnt that the Tianmen Square was not open to public on that day due to security purposes. The situation worsened when it started snowing heavily. Eventually, we still continued to wait until 6:30am, when the flag-raising ceremony would commence. As it was still snowing heavily at 6:30am, we were unable to see the flag-raising ceremony clearly. Later in the afternoon, I visited the Summer Palace. The view was especially beautiful as it was covered in snow. However, in some areas, the ground was slippery as it was covered in ice, making it dangerous. After exploring the Summer
Palace, I was amazed by how the palace was able to be built on a mountain side despite how backward technology was in the past.

For dinner, I went to Wang Fu Jing, where we could find a large variety of food, ranging from barbequed lamb shank to fried scorpions and lizards. I look forward to the coming weekend…

While Singapore and China are alike in many ways, one major difference that I have to adapt to is the difference in temperature. In Singapore, I just couldn’t stand the heat and would need to stay indoors to avoid the heat and to enjoy the air-con installed in our classroom. In Beijing, I too couldn’t hope more than to stay in the classroom but for an entirely different reason, to avoid the cold wind blowing right into my face and I literally had to bow down to the wind. However, despite the cold, I am very fortunate to experience two snowfalls and we had a lot of fun playing snowball fights.

This week, for excursion, we went to climb the Great Wall of China, and it is indeed a fun and fulfilling experience for us. However, it doesn’t start out smoothly and not soon after our departure, the bus broke down and as a result, there is lesser time to spend at the Great Wall of China. The climb is also very tiring and the cold just make it worse. It is very hard to imagine that anyone could actually build Great Wall of China in the ancient times where there is no modern technology and humans had to build it with simple tools. Enough of the bad parts and let us talk about the fun part of this trip. The view is just spectacular and we had a lot of fun there. We had snow fight as it just snowed a few days ago, and there is a lot of snow on the great wall. One scene that I remembered very well is that everyone was like bombarding Shuen Rong and by the end of the fight; he looks like a snow man walking. David joined in too, and many of us (including me) were like taking our chance to get back on him. However, the cable car ride was rather overpriced but at least it saves us from dying again from the walk down the Great Wall. There were a lot of goods being sold but beware most of the stall keeper will try to scam your money. From my experience( although I was scammed too), you should try and haggle and when they don’t agree with the price, you pretend to walk away and magically, the price will dropped. Another advice is not to rush into buying anything, try to go to a few stall first as most of the things that they sell are the same. On the whole, I had a lot of fun and exciting experience in BSC and that’s all for this week.

The last two weeks in Beijing have passed very quickly. All of us are starting to get used to the weather and the life here.

Our time here is definitely more interesting than the usual mundane schedule that we follow at school in Singapore. Aside from our usual subject lessons, we have China studies, Wushu and Chinese calligraphy conducted by the local teachers here. Coupled with fieldtrips every Tuesday and Saturday, we had a really fun filled two weeks so far. I am sure there will be more of that in the next few weeks.

Today marks the end of the immersion with the Chinese students. Our class, Victor, was split up into small groups that would be following different classes. I was posted to 高一(9). There were many small differences we noticed between their classroom environment as compared to us. The students were very serious during lesson time and we did not notice anyone sleeping during lesson time for the 5 days we went there. They had eye exercises and field exercises too between lessons, which was something we do not have in Singapore. We had difficulty understanding certain terms in Mathematics and Physics, as all of their lessons other than English were conducted in Chinese. Their school hours are much longer than ours in Singapore too, ending around four in the afternoon each day.

Life in the dormitory was a new experience for me. The rooms might not be in the best conditions to live in, but they are still comfortable and sufficient for all of us to get used to.

It was definitely a surprise that there was snow yesterday. I came without expecting to experience snow. All of us were pleasantly surprised when it actually snowed on two separate occasions, once last Monday and once yesterday.

A third of our time here is over- I hope the remaining two thirds are as pleasant as the first.

The second week of Beijing Satellite Campus March 2010 has just passed. As our counterparts in Singapore took a break from academics to attend various sabbaticals this week, we in Beijing also spent some time outside of academics; Singaporean syllabus at least. This week, we had an equally fruitful time having immersion lessons in several Beijing Normal University (BNU) Senior 1 classes.

The 83 students of this BSC batch underwent a once-in-lifetime experience. Besides the obvious language (Chinese in BNU and English in Hwa Chong) and climate (about 0 in Beijing and 27 in Singapore) differences, the main thing that I was intrigued by was the emphasis on Physical Education or health in general placed by China and the BNU. Besides a mandatory 25-minute jog daily, the students in BNU also have a 45-minute Physical Education lesson every single day. A typical day would encompass the regular math, science, language and humanities lessons, plus a 3-round mass jog around the school track and a workout session starting with a 15-minute, intensive stretching session before students are presenting with a choice of badminton, chapteh, football, volleyball or basketball. I found these sports to be extremely helpful in perking me up for a lesson; it serves as a break from sitting in class for almost 6 straight hours. Perhaps I only thought so highly of this system due to the kind weather here, resulting in students itching to just go outdoors for a run to warm-up their body.

Also, I was impressed with the students’ devotion to eye care. Twice per day, there will be instructions played via the school’s P.A. system. Once it is played, every student in my class stop whatever activities they are doing, be it homework or a chit-chat amongst friends, to participate in the eye exercise. Even though I hardly knew any of the moves that the students were making, I felt compelled to join and mimicked the student next to me. It was, in fact, extremely soothing to both the eye and the mind.

I hope the following weeks will allow me to undergo more different experiences and discover more intriguing practices or items.

The arrival in Beijing was an exciting change of climate. Within the first week, I adapted quickly to the much cooler weather compared to Singapore. So far, I have been to a few of Beijing’s famous places of tourism, including the Great Wall and the Beijing Zoo, where I finally got to see one of my favourite animals, the panda, up close. In addition, I visited Xi Dan during the free time I had on the weekends, Xi Dan is to Beijing as Orchard Road is to Singapore. Places of interest aside, I learned quite a bit about the attitude of the Beijing students after attending Bei Jing Shi Da Er Fu Zhong for 2 weeks already and a week of immersion with the local students.

The students are very well disciplined at all times. During lessons, the students would not make the slightest noise and raised their hands spontaneously to answer the teachers’ questions, where else in Singapore, the chatting of students could be heard at all times, sometimes even during times when  assignments were handed out. Furthermore, when group tasks or discussions were assigned, the students would promptly form their groups and get into discussion quickly, and I also noticed that they carried out with great depth and critical thinking. During mass jogs or exercise sessions, the students would also swiftly prepare themselves for the activities and not waste any time. I have to admit that back in Singapore, during PE lessons and morning assembly, students could be seen strolling towards the terraces. Sadly, I have to admit that I am one of them.

I can also see the great sense of national pride the Beijing students have in their country. Even during winter season when morning assemblies or flag raising cannot be carried out on the field, flag raising is still carried out in the classes with the aid of the national anthemn broadcasted on the television and students would be informed of daily notices via the form of live video screening.

All in all, I greatly admire the learning attitudes of the Beijing students. I feel that they are holistically developed and possess great learning attitudes, and I look forward to students in Singapore, including myself, to improve in their attitudes towards lessons and discipline.

This week is pretty cold but we kind of adapted to the cold although it’s still pretty cold, the great wall was a superb trip, I stole more sleep from the bus ride than I actually thought I would, well, who can blame the driver, the bus just broke down for who knows how many times, it crawls maybe a couple of metres and just dies, but the chat on the bus was enjoyable not to mention our ‘tour guide’ from China Travels.

So the climb up to the great wall was like climbing the Himalayas the cold and snow just made it worse, I bet the Mongols were like cursing the Chinese for building it up the mountain but I got to admit the view was simply amazing it was like looking at it off a post card. We continued with the snow fights on the wall and my hands were like going to fall right off. So leaving the wall, when we went down, we realised the damn ride down with the cable car was a ‘a bit’ overpriced  65 RMB, so with the 65 Yuan- 3 min ride down, along the stairs down an oil painting caught my eye, a young girl in the picture held a rubber band in the shape of a communist star, Kelvin saw it too so we haggled till half its original price and I bought it. Kelly wanted it too but he got the one with the communist girl instead, so the bus ride back we chatted more and we went to some burial ground for a Chinese King, the tomb was kind of dim and there were not much stuff down there I was hoping a mummy or a skeleton but there was none, so we just went back to the dorm and had hotpot for dinner it was like 50RMB for each person but there was quite a lot of food, so it was pretty fun and filling.

Finally on that day, I experienced crossing the road, it was adrenaline pumping it was as though looking at a car heading towards you and you dodge at the last moment. On Sunday we camped at the dorm till 3 or 4 pm before we decided to head out to WangFuJing the Orchard of Beijing. The stuff there were not as cheap as I expected but it found 2 jackets at this shop called Semir and it was quite cheap in my context. That day we got cheated with Zhajiangmian where it was 12 Yuan for a small bowl of noodles with salty sauce, so we had to fill out stomachs with scorpion, grasshopper, BingTangHulu and takoyaki, the tokoyaki was good and the scorpion better than expected but Edgar poked himself with the stinger and it seemed really painful but he said he felt better after a while. So we headed back to meet the 9.30pm curfew and the cab there was really cheap compared to Singapore. So this kind of rounds up the entire week.

The weekend arrived after a full week of immersion in a Chinese learning environment, and Saturday was spent touring the incredibly awe-inspiring Beijing zoo, where there were chickens (peasants), foxes and other uniquely Chinese cretins of the natural world. The greatest attraction were the happy-camper pandas, who spent the whole time during which we were there, chomping down bamboo and some unidentified yellow sponge-like things in a cheerful-brightly-lit windowless hollow concrete cube with a plastic shield for visitors (us) to stare at them and blind them with camera flash.

After this enlightening experience observing pandas in an all-natural environment, we went to the aquarium which had koi, arrowana, clown-fish, dory fish, and the usual average-day high-class aquarium fish. There was a noticable lack of anything remotely exciting such as jellyfish, sharks or stingrays. The most wonderful exhibit would have to be the turtles or the starfish. Said turtles were periodically prodded by over-inquisitive children whenever they came up to the surface for air, while the starfish in the nearby pool, were regularly dragged out of the water, waved around, and thrown right back into the pool by the same over-inquisitive children. Such experiences must surely improve the physical well-being and mental capacity of these harmless marine animals, and this behaviour is definitely condoned by wildlife enthusiasts world-wide.

The seal show was fairly entertaining, with extrodinarily enthusiastic clapping at every opportunity. The seals looked positively excited to be performing for such a large audience, who actively destroy their ear-drums with disturbingly loud clapping. The show itself was actually alright, and all of us left the show enlightened regarding the atheletic and musical prowess of seals.

After getting dismissed, the large majority of us crossed the road to take a look at the large shopping centre across the road from the zoo.  The interior was much like Far East Plazza back in Singapore, and offered cut-throat pricees for ripped-off goods. After this journey which enlightened my wallet, I and a few friends progressed to Zhong Guan Cun, the techy area of China, where we found the solution to the internet problem in the class.

Sunday was marginally more invigorating, morning was spent playing badminton with a couple of my friends from the Chinese immersion class and a friend from Voyage. (The Chinese buddies are pretty good.) After which they brought me out for lunch at this cushy hotel restauraunt where we had duck, tofu, white radish and claypot chicken. It has to be the best meal I’ve had in quite a few years.

The afternoon was idly spent socialising with fellow dorm-mates and playing games.

And so the weekend passed, leaving little of consequence in its trail, while opening the path to a new school week which shall be filled with joy, happiness, and all sorts of other interesting, important emotions which are rarely felt otherwise.