OELP Daily Reflection~Lixian

Day 1-The Bund & HuangPuJiang

Along the bund, there are a lot of western and old historical buildings. The Chinese government transformed them into shopping which sells clothing or bags. This allow Shanghai to preserve the historical value of the buildings while earning money as the bund is now a famous tourist attraction. The shopping district also helps in contributing towards Shanghai's economy. Singapore can learn from Shanghai in terms or Bukit Brown and Tanjong Pagar train station.

Day 2-French Concession, TianZiFang, Shanghai Urban Planning Center & HaiDiLao

The way Chinese government preserves the historical value of the buildings in the French Concession and TianZiFang is similar to the buildings at the bund. Old and new can co-exist, while western and eastern can stand together. At the Shanghai Urban Planning Center, we witnessed how Shanghai transformed from a small fishing village to how it is now. We also visualize how Shanghai is going to be developed in the future, which mainly consists of more skyscrapers. At HaiDiLao, twe enjoyed service that was rendered to royalties. Even though we were only young adults, the waiters and waitress treated us with immense respect. Their discipline politeness earned our respect towards them and we were amazed by their service. The food was delicious as well. Singapore can learn by creating more courses in training the waiters and waitresses to be more customer-oriented.

Day 3-Yechun Restaurant, Slender West Lake, Yangzhou Museum, Dongguan Street & 千秋粉黛 performance

We had our breakfast at Yechun Restaurant. The bun there was delicious and we used a straw to drink the soup of the bun. The breakfast of the Yangzhou people are very heavy, as they often skip lunch. However, we only eat very little or even skip breakfast in Singapore, thus, we could not finish all the food. At the Slender West Lake, we enjoyed scenic view and learnt how the official in the past would do anything to let the emperor be happy. The scenic view relaxed and refreshed us. At the Yangzhou Museum, we saw how people in the past had to painstakingly carve out word by word in order to print a book. This taught us to never take any things we have now for granted, as it was all because of the hard work of our ancestors. We had a blast shopping at Dongguan Street. The things sold there were cute and cheap. We could also bargain with the shop owners, which was amazing and fun. Dongguan Street is our favorite place out of all places we visited. The performance was beautiful as the actress sung and danced.

Day 4-扬大附中东部分校初中学部 , Lushi Old Mansion & Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal 

At the school, we saw how attentive the students were and their active participation during lesson time. They did not slouch in their seats and respected their teachers. The students were hospitable and greeted us with warm smiles. They made us feel at home.  They had nap time during lunch break and eye movement exercise twice a day. Compared to their lesson time, Singapore's educational system was far more relaxed as we have more CCA choices and shorter curriculum time. We enjoyed delicious dinner at Lushi Old Mansion. We realized how rich the salt merchants were in the past. The dinner we had was basically what the rich salt merchants had on a daily basis, which was a lot, as in 1 meal, we drank 4 different types of soup. During the boat ride at the grand canal, we experienced the hard work of our ancestors. It was as if time was turned back and we witnessed how the people worked hard to dig up this canal.

Day 5-扬大附中东部分校初中学部 , Xinhua Book Store

We had paper-cutting, 中国结 making and dumpling making exercise students. They were patient as they taught us step by step. Afterwards, We basked in the lovely performance of the students as it was the last day that we visited their school. At Xinhua Book Store, we bought cute and cheap stationery as well as the large volume of books available there. We ate the dumpling made with the students late at night as we emailed them as we started missing them.

Day 6-Geyuan, Paper-cutting Museum, ZhuZiQing former house, Volkswagen, Daming Temple, Dongguan Street

Confucianism influenced the architecture design of Geyuan. The master of Geyuan emphasized on studying a lot. He built a library for his sons to encourage them to study as much as possible. There are 4 gardens in Geyuan, spring, summer, autumn and winter. Each garden has their own specialties and is unique. The master also loves bamboos, and it is because of the arrangement of the leaves of the bamboos, which is similar to 个, that the master name this house Geyuan. We did another round of paper-cutting at the museum and we were impressed by the works put uo at the museum. It is sad that young people nowadays do not like to do paper-cutting, thus an important and high value activity is slowly dying. At ZhuZiQing former house, we saw how much he respected and loved his father. He is an important person that contributed a lot to Chinese Literature. The adventure at Volkswagen factory was amazing and we simply loved it. It is rare to have a chance to see how cars are created and it was also the first time that we got to sit on electric car, which was awesome. At Daming Temple, we saw parent praying for their children to do well in the upcoming national examinations. This is how the parent in China express their love and care for their children. However, this is a rare sight in Singapore. We had another round of shopping craze at Dongguan Street. This time, we saw an old man making sugar art, a dying trade of Yangzhou. The sugar was delicious and the making of the sugar art was simply incredible.

Day 7-Bullet Train Ride

The bullet train traveled at high speed. We could eat and drink on the train, something we cannot do in the MRT in Singapore. The interior of the train was spacious and clean, even though we can eat in the train. This shows how responsible the commuters are. Also, the chair were able to be turned so that we can enjoy talking to the people sitting behind us. It was an amazing experience.