Beijing 2001 - our exchange with Middle School No. 5

Sunday, May 20, 2001, Railway Station "Zoologischer Garten", Berlin, Germany.

We are heading for Beijing! We, that's three nine-graders, eleven 11-graders and one student just three weeks before A-levels, accompanied by two teachers, Mrs Roeber and Mr Grund. None of us has been to China yet. What do we have to expect? How will we get by with the Chinese language? What will the food be like? Where will we live? Will we get on with the Chinese students? We considered us to be well-prepared for our fortnight stay in Beijing. In several sessions and meetings we have acquainted ourselves with Chinese history, sights about Beijing, Chinese living conditions and habits, school, eating habits and the Chinese language. We got a lot of important and interesting information from students and teachers who took part in the exchange in the past. But what will it really be like in Beijing?
First of all we take the Intercity Express to Frankfort, then it takes a ten-hour flight by Air China directly to Beijing.

Arrival: Monday, May 21, 2001 in Peking.

Our first impression: It's very hot here, nearly 35 degrees centigrade, there is some smog in the air and everything is thronged with poeple.
At the airport in Peking we are met and cordially welcomed by Mr Gao, one of the four headmasters of our partner school, and Miss Chen, a history teacher. The bus of the school takes us to Middle School No. 5. For the following two weeks our students will live in the families of their host students. In the reception room of our partner school the Chinese students are waiting impatiently for "their" German exchange students to take them directly home. Although many of us are quite tired - the families have prepared a whole programme: There is a lot to tell and to see, presents are distributed, and quite a few of us immediately after a short rest get an invitation to a restaurant. We teachers will be put up a bit more comfortably, but less "thrillingly" in a hotel. We are immediately led to an abundant reception meal in our hotel, which we can enjoy in the company of the headmasters and the hotel manager, where we feel obliged to show proof of our ability to eat with chopsticks.

In the following fortnight we are having a largely varied programme. We get to know a lot of new things, many of which seen quite strange to us.

We are visiting a large number of sights of Beijing and its environment: The Tian'anmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Lama Temple, the Beihai Park and Jingshan Park, the Peking Zoo, the Beijing University, the Summer Palace, the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs.

Two days from early morning till late afternoon we spend at school together with our Chinese partner students and get to know Chinese school life.
But there still remains some time to have a look around the large number of various little shops near the school, to go for a walk in the Wangfujing Dajie, a well-known pedestrian precinct in the centre of Beijing with enourmous department stores, to take a glance at the silk market or to rummage through the market stands in Liuliang Street.

A special surprise our Chinese hosts prepared for us was a three-day excursion to the city of Handan, 400 kilometres south of Peking. Handan is an old cultural centre of China - nowadays considered to be relatively small with only 7 million inhabitants, textile and steel industry. We leave on Wednesday morning (May 23.) by train and arrive at about noon in Handan. In this city there are not yet as many tourists and western visitors as in Peking. Life in the streets and on the squares still seems to us very original and natural. Our excursions within the city of Handan and in its environment are a real experience for all of us.

Departure: Sunday, June 3, 2001.

Sunday morning at 11 o'clock we are back at the airport of Beijing - ready to check in and return to Germany. All suitcases fully packed - only the one with the two ducks in it refused to close properly! They should have flown by themeselves!! But finally all the presents we got were properly packed, every piece of luggage was closed, and we were ready to take some last photographs - an attack of lightnings rather than flashlights was illuminating the airport for several minutes, catching the Germans, then Chinese and German people together, the exchange partners... On Friday night there was a tremendous welfare party with an excellent dinner in the hotel where it became obvious that within this fortnight a large number of exchange students had got to know each other fairly well and even managed to establish close friendships. That is why for many a student saying good-bye was really a sad thing. Even the prospect of meeting soon in Berlin could not much really change the general mood. But for now, of course, all of us are looking forward to welcoming our Chinese guests in October in Berlin.
(© Peter Grund, August 2001)