Peters Township students experience life in rural China
Five Peters Township High School students had the opportunity to travel to China this summer: from left, Anthony Castellone,Wen Quan Zheng, Zach Strennen, Jeremy Reonason and Kevin Mitchell.
Zach Strennen works with a student in Gufubao.
Wen Quan Zheng
Wen Quan Zheng and Zach Strennen take a rickshaw ride.
Judy Alexander discusses the trip, while Wen Quan Zheng participates from China by smartphone.
A mural depicts friendship between the United States and China.
The Peters Township contingent paid a visit to the fabled Forbidden City, once the home of Chinese emperors.
Zach Strennen works with a student in Gufubao.
The Peters Township contingent had the opportunity to visit the Great Wall of China.
Back in Peters Township are, from left, Jeremy Reonason, Judy Alexander, Kevin Mitchell and Zach Strennen.
Hats were available for protection against the heat in Gufubao.
Zach Strennen, Jeremy Reonason and Kevin Mitchell try their hand at making dumplings.
Tai chi in China
When Judy Alexander took five Peters Township High School students for a two-week visit to China last month, she expected they would be teaching English.
She was wrong.
Instead, Alexander, the high school’s gifted coordinato, and the students, who range in age from 14 to 17, found themselves in the rural village of Gufubao, north of Beijing, the capital of the People’s Republic of China.
There, the students helped farmers take care of their crops. They would arrive at the village in the morning, break to eat lunch with the villagers and work until 5 p.m.
“They weeded fields,” said Alexander, who arranged the trip through EF Education First, an international organization that specializes in educational travel,
“The farmers don’t have farming equipment, and it is kind of like the 1800s. Everything is done by hand,” Alexander explained. “It was a ton of work.”
It also was an eye-opening experience for the Peters students to view firsthand how the villagers live and persevere with limited means and in primitive conditions.
The trip, from July 14 through 25, included three days of sightseeing in Beijing, where Zach Strennen, Kevin Mitchell, Wen Quan Zheng, Anthony Castellone and Jeremy Reonason had the opportunity to climb the Great Wall, visit Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, participate in a tea ceremony, shop and barter in a market, and practice tai chi.
Zach, the son of Jerry and Lorie Strennen of McMurray, who has been studying Chinese for five years, and Wen Quan Zheng served as unofficial interpreters for the group.
Alexander said while in Beijing, the boys would get stopped on the street to have their picture taken.
“It was kind of flattering and creepy,” Zach said.
But it was the week they spent with the people of Gufubao that really made a lasting impression on the Peters kids.
Jeremy Reonason said he was surprised how people could make do on so little.
“I wanted to experience China,” said Jeremy, 17, adding many of the residents earn around $1,000 a year. “They make the best out of their situation.”
“It gives you a new perspective, to see how they live,” said Kevin Mitchell, 14.
Wen Quan Zheng, whose father grew up in a small Chinese village, said the trip gave him the opportunity to see how his father lived as a child.
“A rural family values education and sees it as an opportunity to lift themselves out of poverty,” said Wen Quan Zheng by smarphone through We Chat. He did not return with the group but stayed behind to visit relatives.
Alexander said the boys were amazed at seeing the water walk, where twice a week Gufubao villagers would go to a nearby well and draw two buckets full of water. They would then tie the two buckets to both ends of a long stick, balance it on their backs and haul the water back to the village. “Not everyone has water, explained Zach, 15.
In their free time, Alexander and the students would visit the local school and mingle with the kids. While there, the Peters students teamed up with other American and Canadian students, who were on similar trips, for activities such as making dumplings, hiking in the nearby mountains and paintaing a mural depicting maps of the United States and China with a rainbow between the two countries, to symbolize friendship.
“Not everybody can say they interacted and were immersed in the culture,” Jeremy said.
Because they wanted to give something to the villagers and children, the Peters kids put together a 20-page booklet, in English and Mandarin, about their lives. They are planning to assemble a book about their trip and plan to give it to Peters Township Public Library.
Lorie Strennen said she was glad that Zach went on the trip, although she admitted to being nervous about the 18-hour flight to Beijing. When the group arrived at Pittsburgh International Airport, she was there with a hamper full of food from Taco Bell and Five Guys to give the travelers their fast-food fix.