When rechecking our blog,I feel like talking a little bit about how I feel about our short-term trip in the United States, which here also can be summarized as the proverb Mike taught me before , ‘When in America, do what Americans do’, coming from the old, famous saying, ‘ when in Rome, do as the Romans do’.
In my opinion, our American life experience can be detailed as four main parts, campus life, food, tourism and friendship. So here we go.
We’ve visited two great universities, Ohio State University, which we stayed a little longer, and the University of Tennessee. Both of them get beautiful campus. And personally, I like OSU's better.
Between the two universities, we traveled along passing quite a few states and big cities, like Idiana, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Ohio and Tennessee of course. We had tasted all kinds of typical American food, and American-Chinese food, too.
NY and DC are our last two destinations. They’re fantastic!
Wherever we went, we met new guys made friends with them and had a lot of fun.
I think the true meaning of cultural exchange is to find out the biggest differences and make yourself get involved, which here equally means “when you’re in America, do what Americans do”. In this way, we need curiosity, openness and the little but necessary courage to talk to people. And sometimes we may even need to change ourselves a little bit to adapt the new environment. This is actually what we did in the US and we’ve learned pretty a lot.
Moreover， I am impressed by Matt Dixon’s words after our cute discussion about poems. He wrote that, I came away with the perception that people all around the world are the same in many aspects. I think we are all inherently good people, and we all like to have fun. Even with the language barrier we could communicate and express our genuine like for each other. I think if societies had more interaction we would see that we all have more in common than we think.
You know what, I feel almostly the same way!
All in all, I want to tell all you guys that this is a wonderful trip and thanks to it, we become a big family; thanks to it, our future won’t be the same!
And I want to express my sincerely gratitude to OSU, University of Tennessee, and Wuhan University, additionally to those people, both American and Chinese, who's been working so hard on this program to provide us this once-in-life opportunity to check out what America is really about! Thank you all! Miss you all!


Have a good day.

Silly girls

I found this short video yesterday, and found it was really funny.

It was taken by Faline when we were playing at the Smoky Mountain, we were really happy that day, too happy to act like a adult, but I think this video is very funny, hope everyone can have fun in the rest summer holiday!

PS: what we are singing at last is a very old song for little kids, something about encouraging the kids to go to school, we were really crazy that day^~^

Bob and Pete return!

Three better friends of the summer programs in Wuhan and Columbus cannot be found than in Minru (Han's dad), Bob and Pete, and Minru picked me up and we went to meet them at the airport at midnight last night. Great to see them return to Columbus!

Hope all you students are enjoying the Olympics and I hope more of you can reflect back on our time together and write some short posts. I'm working on a post about the Ohio Historical Society and our trip to the Statue of Liberty. I'm also working to edit some video from the trip and I'll be posting that soon!

Miss you all in Wuhan!

Mike

Away From Home (written by Grace)

this is grace's writing. grace was having trouble with posting, so she sent to me to try. here it is!




Every journey has its end. When the end comes, memories remain. All the beautiful memories in this trip make me feel obliged to keep it somewhere I can always recall. It is the people here making this place feel like home when I was...
Away From Home
Ellis Island, a famous tourists attraction today, has been witnessing millions of Eurpean immigrants leaving their homes, heading for the great expedition which gave birth to what is America today. Hundreds of years later, when I was standing here, I wish I could find out the stories behind them. What were they thinking when facing the unknown world? What gave them the courage?

One of my friends had a conversation with me recently about what to do after graduation. I suggested finding a job in Beijing, Shanghai or other big cities. Hearing this, she strongly opposed just because these places were “too far from home”. She might be a little too overwhelmed, but it is, undoubtedly, an important part in Chinese culture that one should stick to their homeland. This can be proven by countless poetries, novels and other Chinese literatures expressing people’s sentiment towards theirs homes, which is so strong that war, poverty, even diseases can never shake it at all.

“Home, Sweet home” is a universal term but interpreted in different ways. Many Chinese, including me, have this mindset that home is the place where you were born. While, an western saying is that “home is where you hang you heart”, which means, home is not necessarily one’s birthplace but the place where you have a sense of belonging. Under these two principles, in tough times, some people make every effort to stick to their homeland, while others, who are more adventurous, try to make a new place feel like home by speaking the language, making new friends, being a part of the community.

I have been encountering plenty of “cultural shock” this summer. What impressed me most is how the concepts and understandings of “home” in both countries differ. Such dicoveries, even though they may not be correct, help to broaden my mind and understand what a “global citizen” really is.I am very grateful for this oppotunity and hope this will not be a “once”-in-a-life-time experience.

Team China -- Dream Team: Who's that Star from OSU?

I just watched the U.S.--China basketball game as you did in real time. No big deal that Dream Team beated Yao's team with big margin.

The real big deal for me, and I guess for all of you 44 newly turned Buckeyes too, is one Dream Team guard player Michael Redd:
He was a true buckeye and the top player of The Ohio State University Men's Basketball team a few years ago. An honorable mention All-American as a junior and sophomore, Redd ended his career at Ohio State ranked fifth in career field goals made (699), fifth in career points (1,879) and seventh in steals (149).
He remains an Ohio State sports fan, though he doesn't get too excited about a top-ranked football team. "See I don't get excited with that because we're No. 1 all the time," he says. "Either that or we win a national championship. Every year, year in and year out, we're like No. 1 or No. 2. They do a terrific job of recruiting."
He was born and grew up, and still lives in Columbus. If he were not playing in Beijing now, he would be coaching many young buckeyes at his Michael Redd Basketball Camp every summer.

For me and hopefully for you, Redd (from OSU to Team USA) is a living example of "Dreaming Big, Anything is Possible".

Xu Xin, Zhang, Liu Jun, Chen Kun, Francis, Tan Cheng, ....., it was truely my pleasure to play basketball with you at OSU and U.of TN. You guys were great! You make me feel young, thank you. Can we play again if I visit Wuda?

2 ceremonies in one day

I focused myself on 2 ceremonies on Aug.8th,2008,of course one was the opening ceremony of beijing olympic,and the other was...the closing ceremony of wuhan summer program.

As i was in the wuhan program last summer,so i wanna meet some of the teacher i familiar to(Such as Bob:D),and what's more,2 of our Wuhan to Ohio program will make a presentation there,so i fancied an afternoon to it:)

the closing ceremony was began with a speech by Principal.Liu of Wuda,it was the very first time i heard him speak english,he amazed me by his good english.haha -Princepal.Liu is making a speech-

after that,Mr.Li(Hans's father)made a speech too,to express his feeling about the program and showed his thanks to many people,include some of teachers in Wuda and Hans,haha.then Principal Liu gave Mr.Li,Mr.Zhao and Bob rewards to appreciate their contribution to the program both in Wuhan and the U.S .

here comes the pictures of our sister and brothers' presentations.Helen reported what we had learn in America(the education part) and gave lots of details about what we learned from Suzy,Bill,Charles s' classes and showed a PPT with some photoes on it.interentingly,she shouted"go bucks!"at the beginning of her presentation many times and everyone followed her,:D that was so cool.haha
Sean did the cultural exchange part and reported what we enjoyed in the U.S,including watching a baseball game,seeing a movie and going to a church.he said :"personally,i like OSU better..." "O-H?" "I-O!"we responded loudly.haha,you should never worry about our Ohio loyalty,hahaha.i guess everyone remembered "go bucks"and "O-H-I-O"thing deeply in mind:D

the closing ceremony varies from dacing ,singing to poem and even yoga exhibition,that was awesome. -Don and his poetry club-
-unique yoga exhibition-
-singsing campfire songs-
-all the teachers and volunteers singing "Welcome to Beijing"-

i think the reports----- "top 10 things U.S teachers love about chinese students","top 10 things Chinese students love about U.S teachers","top 10 things Chinese students don't love about the U.S teachers",and"top 10 things the U.S teachers don't love about Chinese students and suggestions" are the highlights of the closing,the reports are fun and special,what i remenber about thoese "tops" are:

"they love China,Wuhan and Wuda,and some of them can even speak a little Chinese!"----this is the top 1 of"top 10 things Chinese students love about U.S teachers,and i have the same feeling:D

one of the"top 10 the U.S teachers don't love about Chinese students" is "you only look at the teacher(but not your classmates)during your presentation or speech(how many of you are there?!we ALL have faces and are looking at YOU) " haha...this make me think about myself...

the top 1 of it is"you say 'firstly' when you start speaking and 'that's ALL' when you finish speaking(we know when you are starting or ending,but obviously is just not very creative or interesting)"that 's also what i sometimes do,haha...i may not use these words too many times in the future.

"top 10 things Chinese students don't love about the U.S teachers" are very interesting. "their english is perfect and sometimes they just can't understand out Chinglish." "we have to look up when talking to those tall teachers and it hurts our necks!" "some teachers are so handsome or beautiful that we can't concentrate on their lessons." 'U.S teachers give us lots of cookies,candies and ice-cream that after the program,we have to go on a diet!" i just couldn't help to laugh out when hearing these things,haha.but the top 1 is "they just stay here for one month and it's time to say goodbye."hearing this, i suddenly realized how strongly friendship they built during such a short time just like we did :) still,there is no "goodbye",but "see you soon."

ps,when the closing was over,i went out and saw one of the teachers was holding an umbrella,hahaha...

after i got home,i just waited for the opening of beijing olympics,it was such a wonderful feast that worthy to remember forever:>

G4 in USA~~~

G4 in Washington DC! We just looked like rock stars in our first CD album!

Don't judge our pose, we are not in THAT group,Ok? G4 plus HUIZHU~

G4's formal performance in the genius's hug! Why is there a running guy behind us?

We are great!!!Go Buck! Go China! Go Wuda!

United Nations Security Council (UNSC) was founded just in front of the United Nations!!!!

The crazy night we had in Friday's!

G4 and plus 2 are always a famliy!!! USA~WE WILL BE BACK~~~~