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.

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.