A group of girls from The Queen’s School took the trip of a lifetime to China as part of the school’s status as an Advanced Confucius Classroom.
The youngsters spent two weeks experiencing life in Qingdao and Beijing, learning about Chinese culture and history, visiting sites of cultural and historical interest in addition to having around 20 extra hours of language tuition.
The trip is part-funded and organised by the Chinese Government and is a way for children to very easily understand life as a teenager in a very different environment.
In Qingdao, in addition to improving their Mandarin and visits to local temples, museums and tourist attractions, girls learnt a whole host of new skills.
These included mask-making, photography, making traditional Chinese food, Chinese cinema, paper cutting, calligraphy, traditional singing and dancing.
In Beijing they visited the Confucius Institute Headquarters, Beijing Zoo, Tian’anmen Square and the Forbidden City, the Great Wall of China and Summer Palace. They also enjoyed a shopping trip to Hong Qiao Market, where the girls honed their bartering skills in Mandarin, and a live martial art performance.
The school won an excellence award in the Achievement Exhibition in Beijing.
Group leader and Mandarin teacher Lucy Whittam said: “The trip was a wonderful opportunity for the girls to discover another culture which is very different from their own.
“They had a packed itinerary and we made the very most of our time there.”
