The theme of the Sichuan Ya’an delegation is to promote friendship and to learn by sharing. Students from Ya’an started their official trip this morning (23rd July) after a good rest. Their first stop was the City University of Hong Kong, for an orientation and exchange programme. BPA teamed up with Sowers Action to warm the students up. Team games, brain gym and craft workshop enabled students strengthen their mutual understandings and cultivate team spirit.
Anthony, a volunteer from Sowers Action, started the programme with an ‘ice-breaking game’. He taught the students 3 kinds of greetings at the beginning – for example, there was a way of greeting to a plant, in which both students had to pat the arms of each other while swinging their own bodies. Simultaneously, they had to introduce themselves and share their hobbies with each other. Participants, included students from Sichuan and Hong Kong, their parents and Hong Kong volunteers, got along with each other easily.
Each team had to show their team spirit in the following games by coordinating with other team members. During a game called “Manual Puzzle”, right after Mr. Lee Ming-wai announced “to act like rocket launching”, participants acted immediately, discussed and lifted their team members. The rocket was launched successfully! Students also played the roles such as great pandas, alphabets and Arabic numbers in which they remarkably showed their creativity and team spirit.
100 visiting students from Ya’an were selected from a pool of over ten thousand local students. In addition to their academic achievements and conduct, many of them have special talents. When Mr. Lee asked volunteers to perform their talents, Zhou Yu-lou, a 10 year-old primary student, performed singing of ‘Song of Yaoshan Leaves’ and showed us her beautiful voice. Other students performed piano playing and Latin dance. It was as if a talent show was specially prepared for this exchange day. The outstanding performances of these talented students won the audience’s cheers and applause.
In the last section of the event, each participant could make a picture book for themselves. Under the guidance of the volunteers, students turned plain and blank sheets into a folded book and filled it with their names, their strengths, their Ya’an city, their homes and their dreams, etc. Beautiful sceneries were drawn onto the picture books with coloured crayons. Father of Mao Jun-feng said that both he and his son liked Hong Kong very much. The visit was not only a remarkable experience, but also a chance to feel the passion of Hong Kong.
The morning “warm up” activities ended as quickly as a twinkling of an eye. Students said goodbye to the volunteers from Sowers Action reluctantly. Yet, there will still be a series of programmes for the students to enjoy.