2008/12/25

A lunch in French restaurant











































On 21st December, all our classmates and students from Grade 12 went to a French restaurant nearby Qing Liang mountain for lunch. At first, Cherry from Grade 12 planned to go to an Indian restaurant because of the special flavor and the common prices, but my classmate---Hugo, the boy from France, he said his mother had a French restaurant and invited us to go to his restaurant. Finally , we all agreed to go to Hugo’s restaurant.
On that Sunday, the weather was bad and it was very cold. We decided to meet at NFLS school gate at 11 o’clock in the morning and went to restaurant by bus together. However, because of many problems, we set off at 11:20. Someone went to restaurant directly and someone were late. As a result, all of us had to wait for them. That gave us a lesson, maybe we had better to book the names to the monitor if you wanted to go by yourself, then others do not have to wait for an extra time.
After that, we went to the bus station and 30 minutes later, we arrived the restaurant. I was surprised that the kind of the buildings were old-Chinese style instead of the French style. Maybe Hugo’s mother preferred the Chinese style and enjoyed it, but maybe another reason was to try to attract Chinese guests. Unfortunately, the sitting plan was terrible and all the people were in a mess because some friends did not want to be separated. That showed the team spirit of us, if someone did not mind being separated, then the problem could be solved easily.
In the room which I stayed in, the air condition did not work at all and I thought I would become a snowman. We waited and waited by taking photos around the restaurant. 30 minutes later, the first dish arrived eventually, it was salad. The vegetables with sauce on the dish that tasted good and it changed my mind, because I remembered when I flew to America and ate lunch on the plane, the sauce in the salad was terrible and it nearly made me nausea. The second dish was pumpkin soup with bread. This dish was OK, but the bread became soft in the soup was a little disgusting. The third one was the main dish---chicken, duck and beef, with some potatoes. I like this dish best, the roast chicken tasted delicious. Because of the knife and fork, when I ate the chicken wing, there was a small problem. I was worried if I need to eat it by my hands. At last I used my hands or I could not eat this delicious chicken any more! The final dish was an apple pie, it tasted sweet.
Through out this experience, we used a lot of time to wait. When we finished eating, it was 2 o’clock! However, maybe French people would like to chat and drink wine instead of waiting, but Chinese do not like to wait for so much time, it was the difference between Chinese and French culture. Anyway, I think I like the French food, although it is quite different from Chinese food such as rice or noodles, and other meat and vegetables, also the whole process is quick. The restaurant is a little remote, so not many people came to eat at the time when we went to. The service was no problem. I recommend other people to eat there but remember they had better go to there not in winter and with a book.







2008/12/21

The Taming of the Shrew











Just before a few weeks before the performance---The Taming of the Shrew, the director Ms. Mistchrich---my English teacher had encouraged us to watch this famous drama written by Shakespeare and my classmate Richard played a role in it. Then I became curious of this performance and bought a ticket. I had heard the Grade 12 student Cherry would play the lead actress and the Grade 11 student Fan would play the lead actor. Cherry is my basketball teammate and she plays very well. Fan is a boy in Kung Fu club and he is very strong . I was looking forward to watching how they acted in the drama.
The Taming of the Shrew would be acted on December19,2008 at 7 o’clock in the evening in the NFLS big hall on the third floor above the cafeteria. After school, I went to have dinner quickly with my classmates---Zoe and Karen, then we rushed to the hall to wait for. Until 6:50p.m. my classmate Nick was the volunteer to check the ticket, so we gave the tickets to Nick directly and entered the hall. There was a big curtain hanged on the stage, before the curtain, there was a chair and four cupboards stand on the two sides of the stage. I recognized the cupboards immediately because a few weeks before, Ms. Mistchrich had asked for volunteers to paint the cupboards and I attended. At this time, I took a photo of myself with the stage.
The Taming of the Shrew is a story about a shrew and a strong man. The shrew Kate was very grumpy and no man dared to marry her. The strong man Petruchio decided to marry her and happened something funny between them. I found something interesting through the show. First was the drunk man Sly , the actor Charles was very funny, his acting was really like a drunk man with stupid body languages. Then was the scene of the shrew Kate appeared first, she was chasing his younger sister Bianca to beat her. Cherry was a wonderful actress that she shouted and chasing to show Kate’s grumpy. All the audience were laughing because of Cherry’s acting. After that was the scene of the meeting between Petruchio and Kate. Petruchio wanted to flatter Kate but he failed. However, he decided to marry her. Kate became crazy and started to scream. It was so terrible that all the audience wanted to become deafness, but we all admired Cherry for her excellent acting skills. After that, Lucentio and Bianca were another couple and they had a honey love, they pretended to kiss and used big acting movements that made all the audience shout all the time and could not stop laughing. Sometimes I also found it was exciting. The scene of the night Kate and Petruchio were preparing to sleep. I was excited to see how they played. Petruchio was fallen from the bed two times and then he waked Kate up for three times. Petruchio won at last because Kate decided to sleep in the kitchen.
Actors or actresses were both very important to control their feeling and faces. I learned it from Fan’s acting. In the scene of the meeting in Lucentio’s house, Petruchio was angry that Kate obeyed his orders and he started to shout. When he was excited to shout, he said a word sounded like a sentence in Chinese and some watchers began to laugh until all the audience began laughing. I thought Fan would laugh., but he did not and he beared to show his poker face. I imagined if Fan laughed that all the performance would fail, so in some way, Fan saved the performance.
In general, I like the performance very much. It gave me the true feeling of drama and the unbelievable acting skills.

2008/12/14

A Christmas Service




On 14th of December, I went to Mochou Lu Church with my classmates and teachers from 2:00 to 4:00 in the afternoon. Christmas is coming and I know Christmas is a big festival in the west just like the Spring Festival in China. When I was young and I am not know Christmas’s meaning very well, in my impression Christmas is just a snow day and all the family members get together to contribute presents and make wishes. Children like to hang the stocking and the story of Santa Claus. I will study in western countries three years later, so I want to learn something about the Christmas and Catholicism then I choose this Christmas Service .
From the beginning, I was very excited because I have not been to a church yet and it was the first time. Entered the gate, I saw a big hall with many rows of chairs and a stage. On the right of the stage, there is a beautiful Christmas tree with shining lights on it. People got more and more in the church until the church was full of people. I was surprised because I thought maybe it would not be enough people to attend this service, but of course I underestimated it. Then the service began with a song named ‘O Come, O Come Emmanuel’, afterwards including prayers, lessons, solos, dramas and dancing. Among them, I found I liked the Christmas songs very much, they were soft and slow, or happy and quick. Whatever they were, they all made me moved. I heard the true love between people and their pure hearts from Christmas, their trust in God and be generous, kind to other people. The drama described the birth process of Jesus Christ that made people understood easily. The dancing is the African style, some people from Africa danced with music, it was interesting. However, I felt the lessons and speeches a little boring, they all spoke English that I only could understand a little.
However, I understood a lot from this experience. I know the story of birth of Jesus, learn more Christmas songs and their religion of God. People who believe in Catholicism are taught to be kind to all the people who believes in Catholicism or not, they are taught to pray for the needs of the whole world, for the people who are happy or not, lucky or not. In general, it was a lesson to teach us to be generous and kind, they are the basic things in our deep souls.


2008/12/08

Guest Artist

On last Monday after school, all Grade 10 students had a chance to listen to a Chinese gardening expect---Zhao Bing’s speech about Chinese gardening.‘Garden’ is from some old languages which means walls and happy places. When the times of ancient China, India or Europe, gardening was very important to people’s lives. The Chinese for gardens means walls, water, land and trees which explains the parts of the gardens very well. At that time, all the gardens in ancient China were divided into four kinds, they were loyal gardens, private gardens, temple gardens and attractive views gardens. Among them, the most famous one in China is the private gardens.The walls around the gardens are magic because although it is noisy and busy outside of the walls, when you enter the garden and inside of the wall, you will not feel busy any more, just full of calming and relaxing with the beautiful view. The white walls sometimes make people feel bored, so people like to put some calligraphy or Chinese paintings on them.The stones and water are always combined together in the gardens. The hills made of stones are high and magnificent, and also the stones must be organized carefully to form the hills, or the hills do not look like the real ones, but the water around them are plain and wide, they give people the wonderful feeling. The stones are from Tai Lake, they are famous because of the strange shapes. If the water area in the garden is too wide, people can also build the bridge above it and connect the two buildings. The bridges sometimes could add more interests. Some gardeners like to make a hole in the hill to form a room and put a table and some chairs made of stones in it. In the summer, people could keep cool in this hole freely.The plants in the gardens will also decorate the views by colorful leaves and flowers. If there is a very old tree or some rare kinds of the plants, they will make the garden more attractive.Then the buildings in the gardens are the most famous things to look at for the tourists. They are all Chinese style and have a long history. When you walk in different gardens, you will feel the different dynasties in them truly.
If you are careful enough, you will notice the ground of the gardens, the ground’s surface is full of small round stones and gardeners use the colors of them to make many different pictures on the ground.
In general, the whole position of a garden should not have too average overall arrangement, or visitors will also feel no wonderful views. Chinese people like to have the feeling of being suddenly enlightened, that’s maybe why people like the culture of the Chinese Su Zhou gardening.