Week Without WallsQing Yuan, ChinaMay, 2011Grade 9

By: Jamison Fletcher

Monday, May 23rd 2011

Arriving at the hotel, after 5 hours on the bus…

Qing Yuan had beautiful scenery, animals, and gave us a break from the urban life we lead in shekou.

We all tried new things… I (attempted) to overcome my fear of heights…

Bike riding through mountain ranges

Climbing to new heights

Rock Climbing

By rock climbing, I was able to encourage myself to try things I was uncomfortable with. I was expected to try my hardest, and even if I slipped or couldn’t make it to the top, I had a positive attitude and kept trying to push the limits I thought I had.

Some were eager to begin climbing…

Some, like me, were more nervous…

But with encouragement from team members, myself and everyone who was scared to climb tried our best to get a few meters off the ground.

Even in the presence of climbers who seemed to be experts….

I was happy enough to have made it half way to the top.

Camping

I got closer to my classmates this trip, sharing the experience of building our own tent. No matter what I thought we wouldn’t be able to do by ourselves, my team pushed through to think of creative ways to hold our shelter up.

I was given the chance to get in touch with nature…

And everyone took the opportunity to take a relaxing break from school.

Sometimes we disagreed. I had to work hard to communicate throughout the trip and collaborate in order to be successful. I think I pulled through to work together with my teammates for the week, and I was given the chance to talk to people I had never really interacted with at school before.

At times I had to think of alternate solutions, different ways to solve the recurring problems we had while camping. However, even my group didn’t think of using a rock to hammer our bamboo sticks into the ground.

Even through the hard times, getting hurt and seeing the living conditions of the village kids, I tried to focus on the beautiful area that we were in and being able to experience rural China for the first time.

Teaching

Teaching at the local Chinese school was a moving experience for me. It opened my eyes to how lucky we are to have the school that we have, and how so many children in the world have to be educated in cramped, dirty conditions. I also learned about Chinese culture, and how they do morning exercises every day. I thoroughly enjoyed being a part of all of these kids day and being able to see through their eyes.

I think that teaching was definitely one of the highlights of my trip, especially seeing the adorable little kids like this one.

Some of the kids wanted autographs or pictures with us, and I was surprised that we were treated like celebrities. I felt that it was more our treat, being able to experience their daily school life for a few hours.

Even though it was hard to control some of the kids (and I now have a new appreciation for substitute teachers) it was worth it to see how happy the kids were just having us be there to show them flashcards in English. I think that if i had planned more and been more prepared to handle the time and space that we were provided with, things could have gone even smoother.

As we were taking the group picture at the end of our teaching day, I realized how much our hard work had paid off. Seeing all of the kids smile and jump around in front of the cameras made me proud to have made a difference for them, even if it’s just for a few hours.

Caving

After making my way through the mud-filled cave, I was happy to be in the sun again, wash off my shoes, and even kind of enjoyed our mud fight.

I think that caving really helped us to gain trust in each other, as we worked together to navigate the cave and make sure that none of us went the wrong way, tripped, or ran into any rocks that our team members hadn’t seen.

I’ll never forget the good times, the laughs, the smiles, and the bonds that we made on our Grade 9 trip to Qing

Yuan, 2011 :)