When we first arrived, there were some kids playing in the court. They were quite young so when they started waving frantically at us, I thought it was perfectly normal. I think we all thought that the trip later was just going to be visiting the classes and playing the games we had planned for them, something like the Meiko visit to our school. So after our meeting with the principal and vice-principal, we were told to go out to the court where Mdm Chan would make a short speech about our school and present some gifts to them.
But little did we expect this:
It was like WOAH! There were so many students! We were seated in a straight line in the middle of all the other students, also seated in straight lines. It felt like we were a choo-choo train in the middle of all the other chu-chu trains (geddit geddit? Chu-Chu Trains as in Chu Van Ann Trains?).
So after Mdm Chan’s speech, we were told that they had planned games for us. We were quite shocked but we participated anyway. The first was tug-of-war. Eight of us were called up (including me I have no idea why. I’m strength-less) to battle 8 other girls from Chu Van Ann who were MUCH YOUNGER than us.
Round 1: They won. Round 2: WE WON. YAY! (I think they purposely let us!) Round 3: They won.
Here’s me not really contributing much (I know! I wasn’t even holding it properly! haha! and I looked kinda stupid too):
But we weren’t sore about it (even though they were much younger and smaller than us. Haha) It was quite fun actually. And even though we were on the losing side we still had a “TEAM SINGAPORE” cheering for us! And they were the Chu Van Ann students! (Gasp! What happened to the SAC girls?) They were like “GO SINGAPORE GO SINGAPORE!” or something along those lines. It was really encouraging to see strangers from a foreign land cheering us on!
And then, there was the traditional dance. I’m gonna try my best to explain it but I think it’s better to look at the pictures. It involved a few people holding sticks and hitting them to a certain rhythm, while the players had to get to the other side without getting their feet trapped. Something like that. I sucked at it and got my feet trapped quite a few times. OH WELL. That explains the picture.
And then came the MEET-AND-GREET SESSION. HA-DI-HA.
AT FIRST, we just went around having conversations and stuff. Like, for example, there was this girl telling me that she was going to come to Singapore to study in a few years time. So it was all normal and calm and everything UNTIL, they asked for our emails and autographs. THAT WAS WHEN IT ALL BECAME CRAZY.
Everyone was just pushing and shoving each other and it all became some race of WHO-GETS-THE-PEN-AND-PAPER-TO-THE-SINGAPOREAN-FIRST. It really gave me a taste of how it was like to be a celebrity for a day. But still, they were very polite and gracious in asking me for my email or autograph and that was very welcoming. So everything was going fine.
THAT WAS UNTIL I HAD THE WEIRDEST REQUEST IN MY FIFTEEN YEARS OF LIVING ON EARTH.
I was asked by this guy to SIGN ON THE BACK OF HIS SHIRT. O.M.G. I was soooooo shocked and at first I tried to pretend I didn’t know what he was saying because it just felt too weird. Then, I tried to come up with some lame excuse about him not having any shirt to wear anymore if I signed it. But finally, I thought WHY NOT?
After all that frenzy, it was time for the students to go back to the classrooms and for us to go for the school tour. While walking past the classrooms, I noticed that they had framed pictures of Ho Chi Minh inside every one of the classrooms. This tells me that the amount of respect that they had for him was like HUGE.We were told that many of these students learnt languages such as Russian or Japanese on top on their native language Vietnamese and English. This made me realise that we shouldn’t complain so much about our school life but try to be grateful that we have the chance to study. All in all, this trip to Chu Van Ann was a great experience and has given me a different perspective on life.
LOVES!weiling)
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