Wednesday 1 April 2009

Stretton in the newspaper

There is an article on Stretton's study tour in the China Times (national newspaper here in Taiwan that is also published in Australia, and Europe) Rebecca at Wen Hua has kindly translated it for us. A television station also filmed us today during tea ceremony


News from China News, Monday, March 30th

The 13 students and teachers from Stretton State College, Queensland, Australia are having a 3-week study tour in Taiwan, which is sponsored by Taipei Municipal Wenhua Elementary School. The students take part in activities such as making dumplings, diabolo, calligraphy, ceramic, pressing flowers, etc. The students were more than hilarious in the dumpling class. Their faces were full of expressions while they were rolling the dough and enclosing the filling of the dumpling.
Teachers, parents and students gave their hearty welcome to these young guests from Australia, who will stay in Taiwan for 19 days. This year’s study program has been prolonged to 3 weeks in contrast to last year’s 2 weeks. This will give the chance to have a better insight into Taiwanese culture and lifestyle. Dr. Huang, San-chih, Principal of Wenhua expressed that the study program will be filmed and later be broadcasted around Australian cities, to show that Taipei is a friendly and safe city and also to encourage western students to choose Taiwan to study either for a long or short term.
Due to the careful planning of Wenhua, the Queensland Government approved the abroad study tour for elementary school students for the first time last year. This year the program was prolonged from 2 weeks to 3 weeks.
The local school, Wenhua not only arranged these Australian students to join local students’ classes, but also organized cultural experience courses such as Chinese language, calligraphy, ceramic, flower pressing, lion dance, diabolo, dumpling making, folksong, and tea ceremony. There are also excursions to famous places such as Beitou Hot Spring Museum, National Palace Museum and the Taipei Zoo. The Australian students study together with the local students in class, playing together during the recess. In the evening they stay with their home stay families. In this way they experience how the Taiwanese family life is like.

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