German Students Visit Wenzhou
Twenty students from Comprehensive School Giessen-Ost came to Wenzhou on April 8th for a visit. They willstay with 20 local families of 20 students selected from Wenzhou Foreign Language School in two weeks. Besides, they will visit the industries of “Made in Wenzhou”, such as glasses, garment and machineries. During the 2014 summer vacation, the 20 students from Wenzhou Foreign Language School are going to pay a return visit in Germany.
Based on the previous emails communication and the brief campus tour, the 20 German students got acquainted with their Wenzhou counterparts before the welcome ceremony yesterday afternoon. Lin Long, a second year student explained the courses for her German friend in English excitedly. She told the journalist that she had done ample preparation concerning her German friend’s habits and preferences in advance so as to help her friend adapt to the Wenzhou life easily. ‘My German friend is a vegetarian who likes sushi, spaghetti and pizza. I asked my mum to get prepared several days ago.’ Lin Long said.
Wenzhou and Giessen established the relationship of sister cities in 2004. In November 2011, Wenzhou Foreign Language School and Comprehensive School Giessen-Ost became sister schools and maintained good communication and contact since then. Last year they planned to visit each other in April and August 2014. This is the initial visit of Comprehensive School Giessen-Ost.
The 20 Wenzhou students are selected through interviews and home-visiting conducted by Wenzhou Foreign Language School. Equipped with good manners and English skills, they are qualified to handle the daily life of their German friends. From a series of specially tailored curriculum, the German students will have an opportunity toexperience the traditional Chinese culture through learning Chinese modern poetry, classical poetry, paper-cutting, playing Ping-Pong, Tai Chi, martial arts, shuttlecock, calligraphy, Peking opera and making wonton. They are going to experience the farming cultural in the ancient villages of Nanxi River and the fishing customs in Dongtou County. They will also visit the C&U (Cooperation and Unity) Group’s bearing factory, garment factory and glasses factory to investigate the technology innovation of the Wenzhou industries.
‘We are trying to display every aspect of Wenzhou and China’, said Jin Ge, the principal of Wenzhou Foreign Language School, ‘So we arrange local homestay families for them to experience Chinese people’s lifestyle. We add the field-trips to Wenzhou enterprises to their schedule according to the German students’interest’. According to Frank, the principal of Comprehensive School Giessen-Ost, Chinese language education is their tradition. Chinese courses are provided every week (four hours in two half days) for students in different grades. The current 20 German students all have basic foundations in Chinese and they are selected based on their voluntary participation.
Auch das Fernsehen der Region Zheijang berichtete über den Austausch: TV-Stream zum Schüleraustausch