It was a wonderful day at Siding Elementary School. We were all very excited to meet the P5 pupils whom we had made friends with yesterday. The principal of SES gave us a warm welcome. We were then led to the Tea Museum which was also their library. A group of pupils sang an English song, ‘You Raise Me Up’ to welcome us. Following that, it was our turn to perform. We sang two songs, ‘Reach Out for the Skies’ and ‘童话’. We were told by our teachers that the performance was splendid! Kudos, Hong Wen!
Each pair was then assigned to two pupils who taught us the art of brewing and serving tea. The stages of brewing tea are very new to us. It was an extremely exciting experience, we thought it would be easy at first but in fact, it was very difficult. There were many steps to take note of. It was said that the learning of the tea culture will shape our character for the better, as patience is needed in this form of art.
It was lunch time and we headed back to the hotel before returning to the school to learn 扯铃 (Bell-juggling). A group of pupils displayed their amazing skills. We were then given a Che Ling each and were taught by the pupils how to do some spins. We managed to pick up some of the complicated moves. After the session, we were then brought to the computer lab to post comments on Siding’s website (see
http://www.sdps.cyc.edu.tw/)
We then proceeded back to the Tea Museum to have a final gathering. The pupils from Siding sang a farewell song to end the whole programme. Though we couldn’t understand what the lyrics was all about, we could feel that it was a touching song. The atmosphere soon broke into an emotional one whereby some of our friends (from both schools) broke into tears. We gave out souvenirs to our friends and the students from Siding were very grateful. The teachers from both schools never expect that a 2-day mingle with pupils from Siding will allow us to build close friendships. It was surely a memorable experience at Siding Elementary. May we continue to maintain close ties with our friends in Siding Elementary.
That evening, we had dinner with teachers from Siding.
Xavier Shee & Lawnce Goh
(on behalf of all Taiwan-trippers)