Ni Hao, Scarsdale!
May 7, 2018
SHS students had a life-changing experience when they traveled across the Pacific Ocean to China during spring break. The students participated in the Chinese exchange program hosted by Scarsdale High School and Pinghe Bilingual School in Shanghai, China. The SHS students were paired with a Chinese high school student, and each student spent two weeks in the different schools. Alex Hart ’18 journaled a typical day in the exchange program.
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Our first full day in Shanghai was a Saturday, so the Ping He students took the opportunity to spend as much time with us as they could. It was challenging for them to stay with us all of the time because we were in China during their finals week, but on this day, almost every exchange student went to the same places. First, we all met at a hot pot restaurant for lunch. We split into two rooms of ten people, sitting around a table with two vats in the center. One was for cooking spicy food, and the other for foods without spice. The exchange students ordered at least 10 dishes and a bunch of drinks that none of us had heard of. Some of the food they ordered was really unique, and we never had it before, like cow stomach, which is actually really spiky, and cow tongue. Not all of us Americans had really mastered our chopstick skills yet, so there was a lot of food around the table by the time we finished. At one point I had to try at least 10 times to pick up the single most annoying noodle on Earth while a few exchange students cheered me on. After hot pot, we went to an “escape room.” We had to wait for an hour, so we all got cards in the lobby, and then we split off into groups for our rooms. Everything in the room was in Chinese, and even with 3 Chinese exchange students, it was an intense struggle. I only figured out two hints, and that’s because I could recognize numbers and the characters for “radio channel.” Needless to say, we did not escape the room. The group split off after that because many of us Americans had not yet adjusted to the full 12-hour time gap. I was feeling plenty awake though, so after dinner with my exchange student and her mom, I went to see a movie. I saw Ready Player One, which was only shown in English with Chinese subtitles. There was no Chinese version, so half of the people in the audience were on their phones. We went home after that and chilled out with some tea for a few hours before.
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If you are interested in learning more about the exchange program and the students who participated in it, be sure to read our article spotlighting the different exchange students.
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