Spring Festival/Field Trip

          Wednesday, the ILP teachers didn’t have to teach because all of our kids were going on their Spring Outing/Festival/Field Trip. We met at the building at 7:45, grabbed our lunches consisting of bread rolls, fried peanuts, drinks, and packaged meat and headed onto the buses. I was a bit hesitant at first to go because why would I want to spend another day with these kids, but the closer it got the more and more excited I got to see their real child side and bond with them in a more relaxed and fun environment.

Only a corner of all of the students lined up, and so orderly!

We arrived at this place… I have no idea where we were at… and ALL of our kids (the school I’m with has 2 campuses, so I think there were kids there from the other campus too) lined up so orderly in this big open square in front of a mega statue. There they had a little ceremony where a child read some Chinese to everyone, and then some other children marched around the flag. The younger children (my class’s age) lined up in the front half of the group and the slightly older kids lined up behind them in the second half. At one point the child announcing had all of the older kids do their salute and chant a memorized thing. Some music started playing and all of the kids sang the song, perhaps an anthem or something.

The mega statue everyone lined up in front of.

These are the older kids (only the back half of the entire group) saluting during their chant.

Can I just insert right here how impressed I was about the behavior! Holy cow, Chinese kids know when to be good! The younger kids were instructed to hold this red scarf a certain way in front of them the whole time and every single student did without even playing with it. In America, that kind of ceremony wouldn’t go down in such and orderly manor, especially with 6-9 year olds. Then the child announcing said something abrupt and all of the older kids marched forward into the younger children’s line and folded the red scarves around their neck and tied them in a traditional way. Come to find out this was the "Pioneering festival" and it's been a tradition for students (not sure if just at this school specifically or everywhere....) and some of the parents even remember doing it.

The older kids tying the younger kids' scarves.

Then the kids took a class picture, so cute! One of the ladies said told us ILP teacher that we could be in it so of course we jumped in! I stood next to my little girl Ana but then Alice, the cuddly one, couldn’t resist the opportunity to kiss the teacher. These guys can be crazy but at the end of the day they are always more adorable.

After the ceremony we all gathered at this big grassy area and ate our lunches and played games for about 2 hours together, which was an absolute blast! That was definitely my favorite part.

The kids were putting blossoms in my hair but scattered when I tried to take a picture of them.

Jessica's mom brought her little sister... so CUTE!

Next we went to this museum that was for the Revolution… I didn’t really know because everything was in Chinese, and we hustled through it. It’s neat to see the children learning when I’m not the teacher, because you can sit back and appreciate their intelligence. Some of them were really interested, which was super cute!

Declin, whom I'm going to learn to love, saluting.

Last, we walked to this mega monument. I have no clue what that is for because after hiking up the stairs we were there for like 10 seconds then hiked back down. At this point, though, all of the kids were roasting because they had on their long sleeve shirts, sweaters, coats, and backpacks. In China, they bundle their kids and all, even the parents, still wear winter coats when it’s warm outside. The parents didn’t think anything of the sweating and complaining kids so one other ILP teacher and I hustled about stripping off everyone’s coats and putting them in their backpacks. Then a little while later when we sat down under some shade to wait for the bus, some of the students put the coats back on. What? Haha, I don’t understand, China!

This monument looks like the one in DC with the long water in front of it and everything.

All in All it was a super fun trip, and I’m really happy I got to go, plus I didn’t mind adventuring away from the school and getting a little sun ;D.