Three weeks of wonderful experience in England

First of all, I would like to say a big thank you to the Rotary Club of Wan Chai for giving me such a great chance to visit England. I learnt so much during the trip.

First arrival in England

I still remember when I arrived at Heathrow after a long flight of twelve hours. It was a sunny afternoon. 'England, here I come!' I was so amazed by the airport, Heathrow, which I had never been to and all the foreigners there. Our destination was Cambridge, a city famous for its colleges and intellectuals, two hours from London. Grassland, trees, houses, churches¡K All the things fascinated me. I was always asking myself: is it a dream?

My host family

When I first knocked on the door of my host family, I felt so nervous. Someone from behind the door replied, 'Yes!' A woman opened the door and smiled at me. She was my host mother, Shelley. She told me not to be afraid and help myself to everything in the house. She then introduced me her daughter, Caitlin, aged eight. Caitlin is a lovely person. We played HANGMAN together. Although she is a child, she knows how to do the housework and help her mum. I was embarrassed as when I was eight, I seemed to be 'A LITTLE CHILD' of my mum. Shelley worked as a part-time secretary. She only went to work 3 days a week. Every day after school, she would always ask me how the school day had been. She is a caring 'mother'. Once, when I was sick in the first week, Shelley was the one who looked after me.

My school days

From Monday to Friday, we had four lessons each day. We were all relieved because in Hong Kong there were 8-9 lessons every day. The lessons in England were very different from the ones in Hong Kong. We didn't use textbooks there. Instead, we always had discussions on certain themes such as gender gap, businessmen/women ¡K In Hong Kong, we spend most of our time on our chairs and just listen to the teachers. However, we were always moving around in the classroom and speaking English there. In addition, we had a lot of interesting projects like creating a love story, drama performance¡K. For the drama performance, our class did a mash-up of 'Brokeback Mountain' and 'Twilight': two guys became gay after being bitten. The whole story was created and acted by us.

My foreign classmates/friends

In most of the classes, there were only about 13 students. In my class, other students came from Croatia, Italy, Russia, Germany, Czech Republic, France and Japan. During the recesses, we taught each other our own languages. For example, in Russian, 'hello' sounds like 'BLEVIET', 'bye' sounds like 'BAGA'. When we taught them Chinese, people were so surprised that there were two different languages used in China: Mandarin and Cantonese. They said they would rather be Chinese because we know more languages than they do. On Sundays, we went shopping around the city centre. We always had fun together. On the last school day, we quickly exchanged our e-mail addresses; I hope our friendships will last forever.

Life style in Cambridge

In Hong Kong, we usually have rice for meals. In England, people mostly eat bread or cereals for their breakfast; sandwiches for lunch; pastas, potatoes and salads for dinner. They seldom eat rice. They will cook the vegetables in boiling water which makes the food very tasteless. That's why Caitlin does not like vegetables, especially carrots.
In Cambridge, I had to go to school by bus by myself. The buses there were greatly different from what we have in Hong Kong, passengers paid the fare and the driver would give the change back to them. Sometimes we had to wait for a long time for the bus to start again if there were many passengers getting on the bus. Moreover, when you get off the bus, you should say thank you to the bus driver. It would be regarded as impolite if you said nothing!
It always rains in summer here, but oddly enough, the English do not usually carry an umbrella. If the rain is heavy, they would choose not to go out or just walk in the rain without an umbrella. Once I saw Shelley and Caitlin all soaked after running into the house, they said they didn't have any umbrellas at home!
You may see shops in Hong Kong open until 10-11p.m. However, shops in England close very early at night. At 8:00 p.m., most of the shops in the shopping arcade are already closed. That's why, nights in Cambridge are quite quiet.

London day trips

Every Saturday, our school would arrange a day trip to London for all students. We finally saw Big Ben, the largest clock tower in the world. When we got off the bus, we heard the clock chime (What a coincidence!). We also saw London Eye in front of us. It is really a big wheel. It was a pity that I diddn't give it a try.
We visited several famous places in London, such as Buckingham Palace, Marble Arch, etc. The traffic police in London do not ride on motorcycles but real horses! We wanted to visit both the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum, but there were so many people queuing outside the entrance of the Natural History Museum that we only went to the Science Museum. The museum is very fascinating; we could try a lot of experiments. During the day trip, we saw lots of traditional architecture that could never be found in Hong Kong!

After-school activities

At 3:00 p.m., all our lessons were finished. We had various activities like sports on Parker's Piece, church/college visits, disco/casino/video nights, swimming and punting. The most unforgettable activity must be punting! At the beginning, I thought punting was an easy sport. However, the wooden pole was so heavy, I couldn't even navigate the boat. I think it would have been better if we had had lessons before! Along the river, we saw some famous colleges and beautiful bridges. At that time, I immediately thought of a poem written by Xu Zhimo. It was such a glamorous place! On the disco night, our school students were allowed to go to pubs. We saw a lot of teenagers dancing on the dance floor. Of course! No alcohol under 18! This was my first visit to a disco. Students from other countries or even my host family were shocked when they knew Hong Kong people are not allowed to go to a disco unless they are18.

Goodbye England

Time flied. 3 weeks were over and we had to go back. On the last day in the morning, we three had a full English breakfast, including fried egg, toast, bacon, sausages, beans, hash browns and coffee. We were very full after finishing it. In the afternoon, we had to leave. I remember before getting in the taxi, I gave a hug to everyone in my host family. Then I started to cry. I missed them!
If I could go to Cambridge again, I would certainly visit my host family for they were really kind to me. Lastly, I have to thank the Rotary Club of Wanchai again for offering me this trip which has coloured my secondary school life!

 

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