Students get firsthand look at China

YOUNG AMBASSADORS- Viewpoint School students relax on the steps of a building in Shenyang. The teens visited China in a two-week educational exchange, giving presentations on American culture to students and faculty of the Foreign Language College in Shenyang. Nineteen of Viewpoint School's Upper School students recently returned from a twoweek educational exchange in China, which included visits to Beijing, Xian and Shenyang.

After a few days of sightseeing in Beijing and Xian, the students participated in a four-day learning exchange with the freshman class at Shenyang Normal University in Manchuria. Each student had the opportunity to teach a class in English in the morning and in the afternoon studied Chinese language, carving, calligraphy, painting, martial arts and dance.

The Viewpoint School delegation was formally greeted in a ceremony at the Foreign Language College of Shenyang Normal University. Several hundred faculty members filled an auditorium as the Viewpoint group mounted the stage for introductions and a gift exchange.

The Foreign Language College has an enrollment of several thousand students, with a total university enrollment of approximately 20,000. The city of Shenyang has a population of 10 million.

Each morning Viewpoint students made presentations to audiences of 50 to 100 people on topics such as U.S. national parks, American football and the Viewpoint theater program. The students, most of whom are studying the Chinese language, were paired with student hosts who took them around the campus.

"The opportunities for crosscultural connection between our American high school students and the Chinese college freshmen were extraordinary, especially in this important year of the Beijing Olympics," said Viewpoint Director of Admissions and trip chaperone Laurel Baker Tew. "Seeing the friendships that were made during the exchange and the relaxed and warm way these teenagers interacted with one another reminded me once again of how small a place the world has become.

"To Viewpoint's students, the idea that they would have a friend or acquaintance to text or I.M. (instant message) who is 8,000 miles away in a place called Manchuria is neither remote or farfetched. It's a routine part of the interconnectedness of the world they will inhabit and influence for years to come."

Viewpoint School in Calabasas is a nondenominational, coeducational school for children in grades kindergarten through 12.

For more information, visit www.viewpoint.org.