OELP Daily Reflections

Day 1,
24th May, Sunday
We finally reached China,the start to our long awaited OELP trip finally began. We had dinner and was fast on our way to the first location. Obviously we were all very excited. The first location was the Song Dynasty City. It was a theme park meant to replicate what was life like in Song  dynasty. We went for the performance, it was truely unlike anything we have seen before, amazing. As the Chinese saying goes  “台上一分鈡，台下十年功” this was their “一分鈡” that they have practice so much for, and it definiely didn't disappoint. But as for learning about Song dynasty, I felt that we needed a lot of explaning from the teachers to understand it, thus a little homework on this subject is definietly needed for someone planning to really learn about this place. With that we went to our first hotel and ended the night.

Day 2,
25th May, Monday
We started off the first day with a visit to Wahaha factory, we read up on it first to have basic knowledge on Wahaha. An employee took us around and told us about the various obstacles the company had and the successes it had achieved. Those successes was definitely because they had smart leaders who knew how to attract buyers like studying the market and also lots of research plus advertising. Despite having already started selling products in South-East Asia, I have never heard of Wahaha in Singapore before, does those stradegies that brought them successes in China, failed here?

Later on we went to Xie Yuda tea plantation and  tea musuem, something I fell in love with in China was definitely... tea.( What/who were you thinking I would say?) I actually didnt like going to the tea plantation cause it was pretty hot and there was not much there other than tea plants and we learnt what kinds of leaf is ready for picking , but i enjoyed the tea musuem a lot more. We got to drink tea which I really enjoyed, we learnt about the different types of tea and where it is from. We ended the day at our second hotel.

Day 3,
26th May, Tuesday
We started the day at the Tunxi Ink Factory, we got to see how ink is made and went through, I learn that ink was not always a hard stick instead it was like play dough before being harden. After that we wen to Cheng Dawei's residence and the abacus musuem. The tour guide at the musuem told us about the life of Cheng Dawei and how we invented calculating using the abacus. There was also a lot of different type of abacus from big one to small ones. We went to his residence also and we saw the living conditions of olden time people.Next we went to Tunxi Ancient Street ,it was interesting to see how much a street from the past have evolved. Although the main structure of the building have not changed, the people and their business have definitely changed to keep up with modern times, like how they are selling more modern things to continue attracting customers to keep them in business, like tradidtional caramel candy with modern desgins. From there we move on to Xidi and Hongcun ancient villages. Both villages were really beautiful which has been preserve. We can see how people lived there and how was their house like. I also remebered seeing the school which people used to go to but now has been preserved. Then we went into a building, it waWhat seems like just a word was a piece of art with deep meaning behind it as explained by out tour guide. If we look closer to the word one half was a human and the other was a fighting monekey, meaning if we are not filial we are just like the monkey. It really reminded me how beautiful chinese caharcters are. We went to ou third hotel and ended the night.

Day 4
27th May, Wednesday
It was day Huang Shan, today was all about Huang Shan. We started with ascent from the  
cable car, it was very misty and we could not see much througout the trip ,but it was cold and I prefer colder temperatures as it was very comfortable. We learnt about the different plants there and after a while we had to go down. We ended the day by going to the last hotel of our trip.

Day 5
28th May, Thursday
I was really excited for today as we could finally see our buddys. First was a visit to Meiling and we saw  how they produces their refrigerators. We were surpised that they told us many other companies buy refridgerators from Meiling and put their name on it. I thought that Meiling was a small brand and have not heard of it in Singapore before, but we realised that well known brands like Panasonic buys from meiling and what we are use to seeing are actually from meiling. Next we went to Shou Chun Middle School, they welcomed us warmly and after that we went to see performances by them, we also saw how patriotic they are through theier performances. We alos performed for them. Then we went to classes with them, it was really stressful as everything was in chinese and it was diffucult understanding, espcially chinese lesson it was really tough.