Graduation, Chinese Style (sort of)

Wednesday was the graduation ceremony for Wuxi International School.  Monday and Tuesday the kids did nothing but practice for graduation, and, when you see what graduation included, you'll understand why.  This year, we did not have a Grade 12 class.  The Grade 6 students graduated to middle school, and the Grade 9 students graduated to high school.  Except for a few students who are leaving (probably because their parents are moving), they will all be back next year.

Now, even though this is an international school, it is run by the Chinese government, and shares a campus with a Chinese public high school.  So, how do they do a graduation ceremony in China?  Well, first, they have a welcome sign:

Illuminated Signboard:  "Warmly welcome to our Graduation Ceremony!

Perhaps the English is a little rough.  Then, they have speeches.  Principal Hu (whom I have never met) gave a speech in Chinese, with translation by one of the high school students.  Two of the students, a 6th-grader and a 5th-grader, each gave speeches in English, representing the students.  One of the students' parents gave a speech in English, representing the parents.  My colleague April gave a speech, representing the teachers.  Then came the presentation ceremony.  Each student was presented with a diploma, and a bunch of flowers:

The Grade 6 class of Wuxi International School

Note that this is the entire Grade 6 class.  Next, the family and friends were allowed to present gifts (or give presents?):

Family members giving gifts to the graduates.

Graduates holding their gifts

Next, the scholarship recipients were honored.  I don't know what they had to do to earn these scholarships, or what form the scholarships were given in.  I suspect they scored high on some kind of standardized academic test, and the awards were given in cash.  I know these award amounts wouldn't go very far towards defraying the school tuition that their parents pay.

Simon, Cathy, Mona, Dora, Jonathan, Felix, Nora, Alvin, Grace, Linda, Sophie, Jazz, and Sylvia

(Personal note:  Mona and Dora, in grades 4 and 3 respectively, were in my science class.)  Next, they had an all-school chorus:

The Student Body of Wuxi International School

The song they sang was "We Are The World".

Now it's time for my personal version of Where's Waldo?:  Can you spot the student from New Zealand?  I'll give you a hint:  she sticks out like a sugar cookie on a plate of brownies.  Not enough detail in the above picture?  Here's a closer shot:

WIS Grade 1 Students

It's Lilly, the Kiwi.  I had her briefly for Grade 2 Oral English, before two of the teachers returned from a matrimony vacation in the U.S.

Next, they had a piano solo by one of the high school students.

Piano Soloist

He's actually quite good.  After the piano solo came something a bit more fun; a skit from Grade 3 English called "Super Red Riding Hood":

"Super Red Riding Hood"

Guess who's Super Red?

"Grandpa"

And, instead of Grandma's house in the woods, we have Grandpa's house in Shanghai.  Jerry played Grandpa, an old man with a cane who could barely walk until he was given "magic food" to eat.  Of course, the story had a moral:  "It's always good to share."

After the morality play, came a martial arts demonstration by the Grades 1 & 2 boys.  Here's the best photo I could find of this:

 But this thing really needs a video clip to capture the visual performance.

While watching this demonstration, it occurred to me that one of the boys might have a mild learning disability, like AS.  Of course, that sort of thing is not really talked about in China or Korea (in my experience).

After the martial arts demonstration, came my students, the Grade 7 class.  They sang the song "Not Alone", based on Michael Jackson's rendition.

From left:  Rika, Teresa, Qi, Ryan, Alex, Cathy, Jenny

(There is one student hidden behind Alex.  She's not in my class, and I don't know her name.)  I would upload some video, to give you an idea of what I've been hearing at lunchtime for the past two weeks, but the video is almost 64 MB, and I'm on a slow DSL connection.  Instead, if you can just imagine the song "Not Alone" being sung by several middle school students, from Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, and mainland China, you'll get a pretty good idea.

After my students, some boys from the primary grades attempted to sing "For The Longest Time" by Billy Joel.  I say 'attempted' because this song can really not be done without off-beat snapping.  Apparently, that is a skill that these boys have yet to learn.  We'll give them time.  They're young yet.

Next came another piano solo:

(Sorry, I didn't see Ali walking by when I took that shot.)  After the piano solo, the Grade 1 and Grade 2 students came out and sang a song in both English and Chinese, apparently called "Peace and Happiness".  I didn't recognize the song, I think it's a traditional Chinese song.  Some Grade 3 students (in teal) did hand motions:

Grades 1, 2, and 3 Students

After this song came something I cannot describe.  I'm just going to have to try to upload the video, and hope that it works:

After that unique performance, the girls in Grades 5 & 6 did a dramatic recitation of Shel Silverstein's poem, "Sick".  Sorry, no pictures from that one (none of them were my students), but it was very entertaining.

Following the poem, we had a performance called "Summer Dance", with the Grades 1 & 2 girls:

I thought the girls were very cute, even if the lyrics and motions were rather mature for that age group.

 After the dance, we had something a bit more serious.  There was a video presentation, showing clips of the students who were graduating.  First there were short clips, then clips with them smiling or laughing, then clips with them looking more serious.  Then, they showed longer clips, where the graduates were expressing their gratitude and "warm fuzzy feelings" (my term) for the school.  After that clip, there was a song:  "I Believe I Can Fly."  Then, the graduates lined up in two groups, like this:

Sally (6th), Sharilyn (6th), Sophie (6th), Wandy (9th), Desmond (9th), Michael (6th), Ali (6th), Allan (6th), Daniel (6th), Jesmond (6th), Anson (6th)

Then, they thanked their parents in whatever language they chose.  Sharilyn and Sophie, from Singapore, spoke English.  The rest used Malay, Korean, Urdu, Mandarin, Cantonese,or whatever language they felt comfortable using.  I felt that was much better than trying to make them all speak in English.

After this, came something a bit more lighthearted, but especially meaningful to me.  Some of the senior high students took it in turns to recite "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" by Dr. Seuss.  Now, this was meaningful to me, not merely because I grew up on Dr. Seuss, but also because the content is very applicable to my life, and especially my current situation.  What places have I gone to?  Korea and China, all because I didn't find any streets in the U.S. that I wanted to go down.

When they came to the section in the poem with a list of names, they replaced those names with the names of the graduates.

Next came a presentation of Certificates of Merit, for some kind of academic excellence:

This was done while the band set up behind them  Yes, we had a band.  Two of the players were my students.  Desmond, from Malaysia, on backup acoustic guitar:

And Ryan, from South Korea, on drum kit for the second song.  I couldn't get a good photo of Ryan (backup electric guitar kept getting in the way), but here's the whole band, performing the song, "Yellow" by Coldplay:

During part of the song, some of the students were up on the balcony, doing this:

I think someone blew up some 200 yellow balloons to make this possible.

That's the last event I have photos of for that day.  After this was another all-school musical number.  This time, all the teachers were expected to join the students on the stage.  I complied, of course, trying to get in the spirit of things.  Then there was a big buffet-style lunch in the dining hall, which had plenty to choose from.  Then, there was nothing more for me to do but head for my apartment, stopping at the market on the way there to do a little grocery shopping.

Knitting
No more progress to show you on any of my projects.  I did, however, find additional sources for knitting needles in the market.  They seem to be mostly small sizes, and the size numbers seem to be more like the U.K. system than anything else.  If someone could find some info on the U.K. needle sizing system, and post a link to it, I'd appreciate it.

Prayer Requests
My big evening on Wednesday went well, so you can praise God for that.  Now, however, I learn that they want me to do more of them; at least six more on the schedule, in fact!  This has nothing to do with the quality of my work, as the guy who made up the schedule was not there.  I need God's help to do this.  Please pray that God will grant me the grace and wisdom to serve Him well in this area.

Also, I'm looking for paid summer work.  I just learned on Wednesday that I will not be needed for summer camp at WIS, because (news flash) the middle-school students don't want to take math classes in the summer.  Jane offered to help me find a part-time job, but she also suggested that I look for one.  Well, I found an ad on Wuxi Life for native-speaking English teachers for the summer, and I sent in my résumé.  Looks like I'll have an interview on Saturday, exact time TBD.  The location is downtown, very close to the church building.  Please pray for this interview to go well.  I don't know how much it pays, but I could really use any extra cash.

That's all for now.  Thanks for reading, and thanks for praying.  God bless.