Chinese Chulture Camp at Downtown East

Hi,

Jason was nominated to attend the above camp and was at Downtown East for 3 days and 2 nights last week.

Frankly speaking, Chinese is not his favourite subject or liking, just like most of the students studying in English schools. Therefore, I was surprised that he was nominated and he also did not back out of it.

Surprisingly, he was looking forward to it and emerged from the camp a very enthusiatic Chinese speaking student........! Since his return he has been speaking Chinese or Mandarin to us and his friends most of the time until he is driving some of his classmates a bit mad and told him off. Jason even covers up the English subtitles when we are watching the Channel 8 shows now.

As for us, my wife & I are pleased with the outcome of the camp as we were concerned that he might not have been able to communicate with his friends in the camp. Majority are from Chinese schools and speak fluent Chinese!

Today, he went to an old folks home , as part of his school Community Improvement Programme (CIP) activity, in Marine Parade and entertain them with a Chinese song - Lau Su Ai Ta Mee. He said that he was more confident in his conversation in Chinese this afternoon.

Over dinner tonight, I told him that we are impressed with his recent interest in Chinese and I casually asked him what happened that change him. Jason told us that he only spoke to his camp team-mates when spoken as he could not expressed himself well. But he likes to socialise with them. So as a result, he realised that Chinese is important and after all, we are Chinese.

So we are speaking more Chinese and he even sms in Chinese. I also managed to install Chinese language for MS Office for his use.

Jas & I agree that while we could understand most of the Chinese phrases but we struggle to recall them when we need to speak it out.

Anyway, our Chinese is bound to improved if we continue practicing it daily......

David