Renxing

Popst Trip reflection

Year 2 Suzhou OELOP
Name	School	Class	Stream	Period of Internationalization Experience	Country of visit
Liang Renxing	River Valley High School	2G	Integrated Programme	20 May to 26 May 2016	China
Reflections: I chose to go on this trip so as to experience and understand the Chinese culture, gaining further links to my race and the understanding of cultures and customs. Through this trip, I was able to do some comparative studies between China and Singapore, focusing on standard of living; monuments and heritage; and education. On the second day of the learning journey, we went to a silk factory. There, we learnt how to make a painting through sewing. The tour guide told us that there are different thicknesses of silk, used for different paintings depending on the picture. Human paintings are the hardest to sew and would take about 1 to 4 years to finish. We were also assigned a buddy from a local school, Li Da Secondary School, which we visited. We then went to our buddy’s house. Xue Ren, Lee Min, Russell and I went together as our buddies are friends. As it was raining, our buddies were not sure whether or not to bring us to Shang Tang Street. Eventually, we decided to take the train and we could experience their transport system firsthand. Suzhou’s train system is just like our MRT, except that there is security check at every entrance to every station. While I understood the need for scanners for security reasons, I felt that it impeded the flow of traffic and this would obviously not be applicable to Singapore, especially during the peak hours! Another place that we went to was Mudu water town, where we immersed in an experience to take an imperial examination. We wrote Chinese calligraphy毛笔字 for the emperor to choose the best from. We were also given a fan to write that we could keep it as a souvenir. We went to the lion grove garden and learnt about the everyday lives of the people in ancient China. We learnt that the emperor liked to go to this garden during his free time. It is called the lion grove garden because the emperor saw lions from the natural rocks there. We went to Shangtang Street to watch a Ping Tan performance. The girls would play the pipa while the guys would play the small three-stringed lute. At Lida middle school, we had class with our buddies. During class, the students are very attentive and they are usually very participative in class. However, during breaks between lessons, the students are very loud and it is almost impossible to hear yourself. After visiting the Kun Opera museum, I feel quite sad that China is slowly losing its culture as less and less people are interested in Kun Opera over the generations. Personally, I feel that Kun Opera is quite interesting and could be done during our free time. Due to globalization, I feel that more and more Chinese are emulating the Western cultures, from taking up the English language, to learning more Westernized hobbies. This is also true in Singapore, and I feel that we should do more to understand and protect our culture, to ensure that we still remember our roots. At the supermarket, I realized that the food there are cheaper compared to Singapore. One reason would be because most of the food originated from China thus did not have to include shipping fees and they might also have less tax. Before we went to Shang Hai, we went to the Meiji Company in Suzhou. Meiji made Chinese characters and Chinese brand of packaging to meet the needs of the Chinese. They also emphasize on the freshness and trustworthiness of their products. The Shang Hai high speed rail is similar to our MRT in a way that they have the same design as our interchanges. The high speed train is clean just like our MRT. The differences are that the high speed train is smoother and faster from one place to another, but it actually travels across cities! We could see the transition from city landscape to the rural areas of plots and plots of farmland as we took the high speed rail. We went to Volkswagen before coming back to Singapore. There, we saw how the different parts of the car were pieced together and the hard work taken to finish making the car. There was 35 thousand workers at the factory and they have to finish the orders by the customers within the designated time. They sure have to work every hard as they also have to ensure the quality of the car made too. The learning journey exposed me to a globalizing China, where the traditional (eg. Opera) coexists with the modern technology (eg. Volkswagen). At the same time, I realized that cultural heritage is important and should be preserved.

Pre trip reflection

From these 7 days in Suzhou, I wish to be more exposed and to learn more about Chinese culture. I've been to different parts of China before with my family, such as Beijing, Nan Jing, Shang Hai,etc. But I've never been to China with my school, and I've never been to Suzhou. I know different parts of China have different cultures and practices and even though they are all Chinese,  they are all unique and special. I would like to specifically know more about Suzhou's culture and history, and learn about some of their tourist attractions such as the 观前街. I also would like to learn more about their food and compare it with those found in Singapore. I want to find out what type of food they prefer, noodles, 小笼包, etc.

I would also like to know more about their education system as Chinese students are generally better at studies compared to us.

I would like to know whether the students themselves feel stressed as they receive more work than us and have longer school hours.

I also really like to eat, which makes me very excited when I knew that we would be making 小笼包. I think that it would be very difficult as we have make sure that the soup in the 小笼包 would not flow out. 

I hope that as a class, we will as a class and through this trip. I hope we all enjoy this trip together. I would also like to make friends with my overseas buddy and maybe also be friend with my buddy's friends. After all this is a trip where we can make friends.

3-2-1

3 things I found out:

1. Singapore implemented a two child policy and promoted it using the baby bonus.
2. China has recently abolished their infamous one child policy and changed it to a two child policy.
3. The one child policy is not a long term solution for problems.

2 new perspectives I gained
1.  I would be very upset if I was pregnant with a child when they just implemented the one child policy, because I would have been taking care of my unborn child but now would be either forced to abort him or her or pay a fine for his or her birth.
2.  I would be very angry and a bit confused if I had two children before the government implemented the two child policy and had just given birth to the third child just after the government had implemented the policy and started giving baby bonus to the third child onwards.

1 question I still have
1.Will Singapore bring back the two child policy to slow down the population growth rate?

Happiness vs Poverty

  Happiness means pleasure. My thoughts on happiness are feeling joy when doing things that I like to do.

  Poverty is the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support. My thoughts on poverty are having not enough money to be able to survive.
  In my opinion, being rich or poor is not linked related to happiness. Being rich, we cannot buy family ties, friendship and time with out money. Therefore, the excess money becomes a "want" and not a "need" . We use money to buy the daily necessities, pay the bills and things we need to survive. We still have to work hard for the excessive money even though we do not need them. This causes us to spend more time at work and spend less time with our families and friends. Soon, we will have no friends as we do not have time to play or hang out with our friends anymore. We also will quarrel more between siblings as we spend less time with them and we don't have time to understand their point of view.
  However, being poor does not mean that we will be unhappy. We will first have to earn enough money for our daily needs, which means that we will spend less time at work and we can spend more time with our families and friends. Thus, we will not have quarrels at home as we will get use to what others will think, and we can hang out or play with friends whenever we are free. These are the things that money cannot buy, so being poor can be happier than being rich. As being poor, we have family ties and friends, while being rich, all we have is money.

Chingay Reflection

 On the 30th January, the secondary two students went to the F1 pit to watch the Chingay performance. This year's theme is 'Lights of legacy, brighter Singapore'. The first Chingay parade was held on the 4th of February 1973. It was held partly as a result of the ban on firecrackers in 1972 as a result of fire hazard. Some people felt that the ban would dampen the festival mood for the Chinese New Year period thus, the People's Association and the Singapore National Pugilistic Association jointly organised a street parade from Jalan Besar to Outram Park to address the problem. The street parade features signature floats, acrobatic acts, lion and dragon dances, stilt walkers, and the like, to bring back some cheer to the public.

  The largely Chinese parade became a multi-cultural one from 1977. In 1985, the parade moved down Orchard Road for the first time.  In 1987, an international flavor was added to the parade when a group from Japan participated for the first time with their floats. In 1990, the Chingay parade became an evening-to- night parade, changing the overall feel of the parade towards one in which lights and pyrotechnics dominate. In 2000, the parade was shifted out of Orchad Road to the Civic District centering at City Hall, an area steeped in Singaporean history and culture. In 2004, the parade moved back to Orchad Road along with an effort to introduce audience participation  and involvement in the traditionally passive parade. This is also the first year that firecrackers were let off in a Chingay parade. In 2008, the parade was held at City Hall, with the route lasting from City Hall to The Esplanade. In 2009, the parade was centralised around Parliament House with the performers going around the Padang, and it also featured a magical Grand Finale. This was also the first year that telecast on television was a day late. In 2010, the parade took place on part of the Formula One Marina Bay Street Circuit route.
  I think that these changes happened because of the advance of technology, for example, the lights and pyrotechnics, the developing of the country, for example, the building of buildings and places for the people in Singapore.
  This year, the Chingay performance was actually very nice with the LED lights, fireworks and the acrobats. As the theme this year is Lights Of Legacy, Brighter Singapore, I think that the usage of light bulb with our hopes for Singapore was very creative.

The ordinary thing in our every day life I am going to write about is classrooms. They are available in all the schools, that is why it is ordinary. However, not many people see the extraordinary part of the classrooms. Classrooms are indirectly our second home, because spent a lot of time in classrooms. They can also be our storage room, because most of us keep things under our tables. They are also like libraries because this is where we learn from our teachers and other students. It is also a place where we can work on projects when we cannot decide on a place as classrooms have no distractions. They are also the place where teachers can interact with students and give us tips. They can also be where students do their homework when we want to stay back. It is really amazing, how ordinary things can actually be extraordinary.

Self Introduction

  Hi, I am Liang Renxing.  I am 13 going to be 14 years old this year. My birthday is on the 11^th of November. My hobbies are gaming, playing table tennis, reading certain books and surfing the web. I live in Jurong East and my family consists of my mother, my father, my sister and me. I chose to come to RV because my sister also studied here and I think the programs in RV suits me. It was also not very far from my house thus, I did not have to wake up too early to be able to go to school on time.

  I enjoy reading comics and books from the horror and mystery genres above the others. I like surfing the web as it keeps us updated and give us information of certain things we want to find out.

  During the holidays, other than doing my homework and RV60, I went back to China to see my grandparents. I went back with my parents and we normally go back to visit my grandparents once a year. As for RV60, I was a backstage crew. Because we have table tennis competition early in January, thus the school did not want us to send too much time on RV60 and wanted us to focus on our upcoming competition.