Day 15
Nothing much happened
today. Managed to get some extra sleep because there wasn’t class today and I
could sleep in. but most of the day was spent just studying for the upcoming
test on Wednesday. I find it quite lousy how the university is forcing us to go
for bonding activities when the next day we have a test. But we don’t have a
choice so I just have to make use of today to do all the major studying as
tomorrow I won’t have much time to study
Today we had a
Chinese cultural talk buy the dean of the foreign language school about Chinese
culture. The lecture was on china’s history. It was rather interesting to learn
about the various dynasties of china and their reign over china. It was also
interesting to learn about the various weird practices and leading style of the
various emperors of the various dynasties.
After class, we went
for some games. We had a rock climbing event, a card number game and also what
they call ‘ 150 second challenge’. It basically comprised of 3 different games
which consisted of a different number of people. But before any of the games
started, we were split into two different teams. The first thing we had to do
in our teams was to create a flag, a cheer and also a tag line. My group was
named rou-lee mijit. We couldn’t think of a new catch phrase so we just used
the ngee ann poly’s catch phrase which is ‘always something xtra’. The mascot
for our flag was a campfire looking like guy with hands and logs for feet. Once
we had done all these, the teams went their own ways to their various activites.
The first game my
team played was the card game. There were about 28 cards. On each card, there
was a picture or some hint. This hit or picture was to help you guess what
number the card was. The objective of the game was just to get all of the cards
in sequence. There are 10, 30 second, rounds. And inbetween the rounds, we were
given 5 minutes to discuss as a team. My team and I managed to get all of the
cards in sequence with one round still to spare.
The next even was rock
climbing. Kenneth was almost about to pee his pants when he found out he had to
climb the wall as he is extremely scared of heights. I on the other hand, was
extremely excited as I love rock climbing. But the rock wall that they had let
us climbed was extremely difficult as there were parts where there were very
little rocks to hang on to or the rocks weren’t screwed into the wall tightly
enough, which caused them to rotate. It was also extremely slippery as it had
rained before we had come. But I am proud of Kenneth. He managed to overcome
his fear and climb the wall.
After the rock
climbing was the 150 second challenge. It consisted of three different
challenges. The first being a game involving 16 people. 16 people would hold a
string that was attached to a drum. Then we would have to bounce a ball on the
drum, while only holding the string, for 8 times. The next challenge involved
10 people. There were ten sticks in a ring. The ten people would pick up one
end of the stick, with the other end on the ground, then hold it straight with
only the palm of you hand. Then everyone would transfer their sticks from one
person to another by walking quickly to the next stick. after that, was a ball transferring challenge by using pieces of cut pipe. That was the challenge that slowed us down. but winning and losing didnt matter.
I felt that these various activities had really brought the oip group closer together. It was worth all the time it took up and also all the effort we used for these various activities.
After the bonding session, we had a barbecue with some of the local students of the university. Everyone in the oip group had donated 10 yuan to buy some ingredients for the barbecue. when the barbeque first got off, there were a lot of hiccups. first off, the students didnt know where to get the charcoal from or where to start the fire. For most of them, it was their first time ever having a barbecue. so they didnt know how to start a fire or how to cook on the barbecue. most of the food came out raw but it didnt matter. what mattered was them. they all seemed to enjoy themselves and were all having a good time. and we got a chance to interact with them. but most of them werent the most interested in interacting with us as they all seemed to want to interact with mr lee. in the end, it was a rather enjoyable experience and the interacting and bonding we had gained today was invaluable.
The BBQ experience was a eye-opening one! From the BBQ party, i can see that the Chinese had not tried BBQ like how we does in Singapore. We Singapore youngster would always go for BBQ parties with friends and hence have some experience. However in China, the locals did not try BBQ party before that some were the first time doing it. Despite that, they isisted that they should do the cooking while we just sat there and wait for the food. This is one thing that we should learn as being a host. In China, when they are the host, they would do everything for you to make us feel that we are the VIPs and insisted that we should just sit there and not help them. In Singapore, we always help ourselves to the food and drinks and sometimes the guests have to do the serving as well! Hence, it was a great experience though the food was mostly not fully cooked!
ReplyDelete-Chiam