“One More Mountain to Climb…Student Field Trips

We have an enthusiastic, young teacher on our wing who has been responsible for organizing many of the student activities at our school. Norma does the student council and thus many of the socials (we’d call them dances except nobody dances). So Norma felt that she should organize a field trip for the students as seems to be common in most of the international schools. The result was a three-day trip to a ‘ranch’ north of Beijing near Simitai where we first went to the Great Wall. The first was for the Grade 9’s & 10’s and 2 weeks later, the same trip for the 7’s & 8’s.

I felt I should go with the 9‘s & 10’s and so I signed up. The actual trip was fun, but quite strenuous – basically we hiked several hours each day with the second day being a scramble up a mountain to a remote guard post on the Wall and the third day being a climb up the Simitai Great Wall. The accommodations were pretty basic – a youth hostel/hotel. We did have separate rooms – doubles for the students – and private bathrooms. The bathrooms were another story; Chinese plumbing is pretty haphazard at best. These featured open showers next to the flush – no shower cabinet! The toilet seats seemed to be made of styrofoam and collapsed into the flush when you sat down. Still – at least you could do this in private. The kids of course had great fun; they had a campfire and a singsong – hard to think of songs we all knew – we sang “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”! I came home exhausted but still strong enough to taxi off for an urgently needed foot massage. That was all the rest I got because Saturday it was up early to supervise a sports trip and Sunday of course was golf.

Anyway, I was quite happy not to be going on the second trip until the word got around how strenuous it was. Our staff is ‘experienced’ and so two supervisors dropped out of the second trip and I was persuaded to be a replacement. So I decided to take it easier on the second trip and opted out of the mountain climbing, but when we got to Simitai (which is also a mountain), the power was out and the cable cars were not operating. So it was walk or stay home. One of the young teachers challenged the students to a race to the top. Never able to resist a challenge, I joined in and made it to the wall second! There were still 10 towers to climb on the wall, but after a while I stopped racing and ‘let’ several students pass me. It was a hot day (mid-30’s) and the perspiration was just pouring off us. About 20 of us made it all the way to the top. We went up and down in about 3 hours including an exhilarating zip line ride down the last half. I can now claim 5 visits to the Wall!

The funniest thing that happened on this trip was a prank I played on the girls. There is a ‘valley girl’ element in the group and it is quite fashionable here for women to go to the spa. So I signed about 15 girls up on the first day to go to the ‘wonderful spa’ in our hotel for manicure, pedicure and oil massages. Of course, at our rustic hotel there were no such services and when I marched then all out to the rusty fountain in the courtyard of our hotel, they refused to believe that this was the spa. I couldn’t stop laughing and they were so mad at me! Now all I have to do is say, “Spa” and they get fussed all over again.

Six lost days at the end of the term put most of my technology classes in a shambles, but it was worth it for the school spirit (and will probably look good in the ads). I will get the classes finished somehow. I’ve also been helping out with the school yearbook – mostly contributing pictures I took this year – and also working on a year end video and slideshow. So I expect we will be busy right up to the end of the school year. The next big milestone is the huge Canada Day party here at the school. The whole Canadian community in Beijing will be here. It will be a real showcase for the school and they have been prettying up the place non-stop. There has been a lot of money spent on the ground especially.