Daily reflection- Emma

Individual reflection

Day 1: Song Dynasty 宋城千古情 ——“建筑为形，文化为魂”

Song Dynasty Park

We visited the Song Dynasty Town at Hangzhou after our dinner. The Song Town is a theme park which was built to allow visitors to understand more about the Song Dynasty. During our visit there, we watched the cultural performance which portrayed the ancient times during the Song Dynasty.  The highlights of the performance were large-scale singing and dancing performance of the thousand-Year Love in the Song Dynasty Town, which employs advanced high-techs to display the glory of the Song Dynasty. I believed that I had gained more knowledge about the folks during the Song Dynasty. It was an interesting performance as the theme park had managed to amalgamate cultural and historical aspects into business. However I believe that their flaw is to enable all visitors to understand the performance fully.  As I believe that visitors who do not have understanding and background of Chinese history have difficulty catching on to the performance. However, overall I believe that I have learnt more about the Song Dynasty through this performance.

Day 2: Wahaha Factory

Wahaha drinks

On the second day of the trip, we visited the Wahaha Factory. It was too a fruitful experience as we were told by the tour guide about their company’s success story.  During the wee years of the company they only had a small workforce, thus they had to merge with a bigger company in order to stabilise the workforce. However through this they had to battle doubts of the new workers. But no matter how difficult it was, they managed to succeed. With the leadership of Mr Zong Qin Hou along with his hardworking attitude, they managed to prosper and become one of the biggest enterprise in China. From this I learnt that we should always believe in our goals and persevere on in order to succeed. We also got the opportunity to learn about how it became China's leading domestic beverage producer in the span of 11 years. They used advertisements and popstar endorsements, and made use of nationalistic emotions to attract customers to buy their products. By implementing all these ideas, their business would prosper and they would generally earn more profits. Throughout this visit to Wahaha I learnt that the steps to success lies in our very own hands, and we must never give up if we want to succeed.

Day 3: Ancient Villages

During the visit to the villages, we mostly saw shops along the street that were selling merchandise for the tourists. There were also traditional handicrafts and snacks made by the Chinese folks there.  What I learnt was that the shop owners were innovative and changed their packaging of products to suit and cater to the needs of the tourists . For example sellers of the malt candy made the candy in the form of a minion which was now currently trending around the world, through these actions, they can to keep up with the ever-changing world. From this I learnt that we have to change our ways and methods in order to keep up with the progressing world around us,  just like how the China folks made the necessary changes to attract more customers whilst still keeping the traditional trade going. Also I feel that this was a good learning experience as it was if we travelled back in time to see the houses that were built with concrete and stones. Although China is progressing economically, they still preserved many of these villages. I felt that this was a good action as these heritages can educate the younger generation and motivate to strive harder for the greater success of their nation.

Day 4: Huangshan

cable car!!!

cable car admission ticket

unique tree

We climbed Huangshan today and it was really fun. At the beginning of the hike, we were greeted with light drizzle. We had to take a bus ride to a certain point to ride the cable car to a point of the mountain. From there we had to hike all the way! During the cable car ride, it was really interesting as we were ascending to a really high point, although the weather was hazy I was really fortunate to be able to have a glance of the great view from the bird’s eye view. When we reached our destination the atmosphere was hazy and chilly, the path of the hike was really narrow and steep thus many of us had to partner up and support each other along the way. There was not really a designated pathway for us and we had to be careful with every step we took.  What I found really shocking throughout the hike was that most of the tourists or hikers were the elderly.  They were much more stable than us and manoeuvred around without any help at all! I felt that it was an interesting sight to see as many of us youngsters already had difficulty climbing up the mountain. I really enjoyed climbing Huangshan as the weather was really cooling unlike the weather that we have in Singapore. I also felt proud as we all managed to survive this hike together as a class, although it was tough, we all persevered and managed to succeed. It was a meaningful hike as we had the chance to view the really spectacular view and also able to observe the many different plants and trees. Overall it was another one of those fruitful experiences.

Day 5: Meiling Electronics

We were very fortunate to be able attend Meiling Electronics for an industrial visit. For today’s activities, we had a dialogue session with their management. From the visit, we learnt that Meiling company used creative strategies to promote their products. One of the many strategies was the fact that they collaborated with reliable brands such as Electrolux and Panasonic in the manufacturing process of refrigerators. They also implemented many unique features in their fridges that attracted more customers. The features that were added were MP3 players, cookbook recipes, and also a software that allowed the consumer to view the expiry dates 

After the visit, we spent a few hours preparing painstakingly for our performance that we were going to be performing for the students at Shoucun Middle School. Although it was difficult and we had many difficulties, we managed to end with a great rehearsal.

Day 6 School Exchange

mask

wrapping dumplings

Lunch at Shocun school

It was finally the day where we could showcase our performance and have a great time mixing with the China students. As the ride to the school would be quite long, we had to wake up earlier that usual to be able to reach the school on time. 

Soon, we had arrived at Shoucun Middle School and we were warmly greeted by their principal, teachers and students. Throughout the day, we attended lessons and mixed with the China students. It was a great as we had the opportunity to experience the way they conducted lessons and also gain more knowledge about their education system. It was a day filled with many activities and we were really packed. During our visit to the school, we learnt how to wrap dumplings and paint masks. We also had a friendly match with their school’s badminton team and we had a whale of a time playing many ball games with them. I learnt more about their Chinese culture through the activities planned out for us and definitely had a better understanding and gained more knowledge.

Day 7: House Visit

Li Hong Zhang Musuem

fruits

street food

Today we went to our assigned buddy’s house. When we first met up with our buddy, she was really friendly and warmly welcomed us to her house. The walk to her house was around 5 mins and it was really convenient for her as her school was really near. Her parents were equally nice and they entertained us with many activities. After arriving at her house, her parents immediately started serving us their local fruits and introduced us to many local treats. They also managed to convince us to bring some home although we refused profusely. Their house was big and spacious, unlike the houses in Singapore, it had a cozy feel to it and I felt really delighted to be able to visit their really pretty house. After settling down, their father suggested for us to walk around the local streets. At first I was worried that her parents would be very strict however, they proved me wrong as her father was really accommodating and generous. While touring along the streets in the city, her father treated us to many snacks such as a 30 cm long ice cream and many other  more food as we went along the way. He also brought us to Li Hongzhang Musuem where he paid for our admission fee and he also bought a pack of souvenirs card for each of us. I felt kind of bad as he was literally paying for everything that we wanted even though we wanted to pay for ourselves. During the walk in the museum, we managed to take a look at many figures and exhibits of the olden day costumes. After the fun experience to the musuem, we were greeted with a sumptuous meal when we arrived back at our buddy’s house. Her mother had prepared an array of food and the whole table was filled with many different dishes! Overall I felt really comfortable as it did feel like was at home when I spent the half day with them. They were so kind and generous with everything that they had done for us. At the end of the visit, I felt really shocked when her parents presented us with a full calligraphy ink set. I am sure that the gift was really valuable and expensive, I felt the need to reject it politely, however with their persistent persuading, we had no choice but to accept their generous and thoughtful gift that they had specially prepared for us. As we were leaving, we had many items to carry and our buddy’s father offered to help carry the gifts as it was rather heavy. Again we tried reasoning with them that it was okay but he still helped us in the end. Overall I was really touched by their thoughtful spririt and great hospalility I believed that we were really fortunate to be able to experience this!

Day 8: Haidilao

high speed rail

Haidilao!!!

Haidilao with the food!!

Today was the last day of the trip and I believed everyone was rather sad that this fun trip was coming to an end.  We took a ride on the high-speed rail from Hefei in order to reach Hangzhou. This made me think about the upcoming high-speed rail project occurring in Jurong East from Singapore to Malaysia. This high speed rail is similar to the upcoming project and I am sure that this will benefit many people. The high speed rail is spacious and comfortable and convenient for many Malaysian workers to travel back and forth from Malaysia to Singapore. This high speed rail will decrease traffic congestion as it is faster and more convenient rather than driving across the Causeway. 

Before boarding our flight, we had our lunch at a Haodilao restaurant in Hangzhou. It was one of my favourite meals among our eight days as the service was impeccable. They were really friendly and readily served us from the start of the meal to the end. It was a really good experience.