Thursday, July 2, 2009

Last Day of Camp

Today was the last day of the Chinese Language/Culture Camp Zoe has been attending for the past 3 weeks. We were entertained with songs and dances and skits and a parade of Chinese costumes (the middle school/high school class got to show off Tang Dynasty, etc., royal costumes).


I was surprised at how much everyone learned in just three weeks. Our friend, L., who had not had ANY Chinese language instruction before camp knew all seven of the songs the group sang, can introduce herself, say her age and date of birth and Zodiac sign, describe the members of her family, give her nationality, say what foods she likes to eat, name body parts. . . . Pretty impressive! (L. is not pictured in the photo above, though. Her feelings got hurt because she was not in the group of top students who were awarded a certificate. It's a very Chinese thing, giving these awards without thinking about the kids who are left out. I really felt bad for her, and she wasn't consoled by all of our compliments of her hard work and bravery. It didn't help that Zoe and Syd got certificates. Sigh. Maya took L.'s place in the photo; she insisted on wearing her Chinese dress, and also dressed her American Girl doll in HER Chinese dress!)

Zoe gained a lot of confidence, and had a great time. Here she is telling me about her "All About Me" poster, which each child had to make.

An interesting point about Zoe's poster -- she wrote "I'm not an American, I am Chinese." Hmmmm.

I hope the federal funding continues for next year!

3 comments:

Lisa said...

That clip you put on was my favorite song they performed - both of our girls seemed to enjoy the song and were smiling through the whole thing!

a Tonggu Momma said...

The Tongginator was too young this year to attend... I hope they continue funding for this.

malinda said...

It was my favorite, too, Lisa, and for exactly the same reason!