Food festival, sports day and acrobatics

你好Culross小学!

To start off this fully packed month, 天津外国语大学 organised a food festival for all the foreign students.

Every different nationality was given a stall and asked to make traditional food from our countries (传统的食物). We were then given the opportunity to showcase and sell our food to other students, staff and visitors. We made tablet, stovies and potato scones and all our food was sold out by the end!

The stalls, music and performances made the day very exciting and enjoyable.

We also dressed up in traditional clothing (传统的衣服) - I wore a bow tie and hat!

After a week of classes, myself and four other Scots were invited to a Red Cross event (国际红十字会). It was a privilege to be invited as many honourable guests made speeches including Tianjin’s torch bearer from the 2012 Beijing Olympics (北京奥林匹克).

The event lasted nearly two hours during which an expert team demonstrated a ‘car crash’ scenario.

It was very reassuring to see a charitable first aid organisation, similar to one in Scotland, in China.

Another memorable day was Sports Day (体育日)! It was definitely memorable because we had to meet our leaders at 5.30am but the whole day made it worth the early rise. We had to travel to Binhai Foreign University (滨海外国大学) which took about two hours on a bus. Typical of China, there was a spectacular opening ceremony - which some of the Scots took part in. It was exciting for it to finally be happening as we had to practice our part many times to make sure it was perfect.

After the silence soared the stadium and China’s National anthem was played - the sports began. Only one Scot participated in the event and came third, 加油!

Now the weather is reaching scorching temperatures of 30 degrees and above, all the Scots and our friends go to a nearby place called Minyuan Stadium (民园), also called The Coliseum (it looks like an old Roman coliseum). There are shops surrounding and in the middle is a small football pitch and also a curved sitting area.

At the coliseum we sit and chat (聊天) and just enjoy the sun (阳). We often play football (踢足球) and as soon as the ball is out we seemed to be instantly surrounded by children (孩子) who want to play with us.

As we go every week, we regularly meet the same children and amazingly I have got to known a father and son very well. I’ve been invited to their home for a luxurious meal!

Finally to end this fabulous month, the university organised an excursion to the acrobatics (杂技). Again this involved a very early 6am meet, however we had a long four hour bus journey to sleep as we had to travel to a different province, Hebei (河北).

There were many different sections to the day which led up to the big event. Everything was well presented and extremely entertaining.

What do you think of all the events of this month? What would be your favourite?

谢谢大家，柯丹!