Silk Factory Museum
Today we took a tour of an old silk factory and museum. Our tour guide,
John, explained the life cycle of a silk worm and showed us viles with
silk worms at each stage in their lives. We got to see antique looms
with plastic ladies weaving beautiful garments. There were straw
baskets with silk worm cocoons and machines that unraveled them into
strands of silk. The factory workers let us touch the duvet
made of silk that they were working on. It was very soft. It was really interesting to see the process of fabric being made as well as the final products in the store.
Love, Lia
Suzhou High School SIP (Suzhou Industrial Park)
Finally, the day for which we’ve been preparing for three months when we’d share our urban issues films with our Suzhou HS hosts then head off individually for our home stays with our new friends. SIP, contrary to what we might imagine on hearing ‘industrial park’ in the U.S., is the name for the all new area of Suzhou built up on former marshes and farm villages. Suzhou old city population is 6M. The SIP expands that number to
15M, mostly living in miles of high rises all built in the last 20 years! The high school sits on a huge parcel of land (about 10 NYC streets x 5 NYC avenues) and includes not only the giant academic complex with a three-story museum housing relics including 4000 year old jade pieces (we almost lost David there permanently), but also a separate 3-story cafeteria, 4 dorms, a field house, a regulation track, and wetlands they preserved. About 1500 students attend.
Students and some faculty were out in the sun to meet our bus. They had put a huge welcome sign on their electronic board and continued making us feel at home with special treatment for the rest of the afternoon. We had lunch served in ceremonial boxes, classes in which we made miniature gazebos of paper and toothpicks, and generally great walks and talks. And our time with the 40 students to share urban issues flew by, leaving us feeling like we’d only just begun to scratch the city surface. By the
time we left with our host families after school at 4:45, no one had the slightest need to have our faculty hovering to say goodbye!
Home Stay – Peter
After visiting Suzhou No. 2 and presenting our topic on urban studies to a class, we went to the students’ homes to meet their families and learn about their lives while living with them for two nights. I stayed with 朱一泓 (Annie) and her family and her two friends 顧舒靖 (Jean), 費熠 (Zoe). Her little cousin, 高鈺 (mocking), also came touring with us and was 很可愛 (very cute)！！！ When I got to Annie’s home the first night, she showed me around her estate, which was very large! Later that night, I taught her the game Uno and played ping pong with most of her family.
The next morning, we fed the fish at her house and set out to go boating, where we saw wonderful views of a Suzhou lake. We then went to her Aunt’s home to have lunch. She lived in a more city-like neighborhood and we walked around and walked up a hill for several hours. We even got ice cream at Dairy Queen. Later we all went to a billiards shop to play pool and had dinner with many of her family members at a restaurant nearby. It was late, so we returned home after a long day to play Uno and ping pong once again. We then all slept soundly before waking up early the next morning for our departure.
Home Stay – 耀永
On Sunday the 21st, we met our Home stays at Suzhou No. 2 High School. My Homestay, Jun Xiao (or Shawn), lives over an hour away from Suzhou, in a small town next to Taihu Lake. We walked around the town the first night, got a haircut and some tea. The morning of the first day of the Homestay, we went to a Garden near the town where we rode bikes around to see. There were also people flying kites. After some karaoke and going to see the lake from a pier, we drove into Suzhou to meet some of our classmates for dinner at Times Square/SIP. We then all went to play pool at a local place. That night, Shawn and I stayed at one of his classmates houses in Suzhou, because it was easier to get back to the school from there. The next morning we ate breakfast and drove to the school, where we met up with all of the other pairs. Overall, I had a great time with Shawn and the other Homestays and learned about their lives as students in Suzhou.
