Today was my first day official day of volunteering since orientation day, and it was the most amazing experience! Since this was my first time volunteering for this event, unlike some of the other volunteers I realldy had no idea what to expect. When we got on the bus the first thing Megan did was pull out her adorable i-dog, and started playing Chinese music. The most surprising thing was when my buddy picked out a song from my phone and told me to play it, it was a Cantonese song! I was so blown away by her incredible ability to sing along so flawlessly in a language she has absolutely no idea how to speak. Along the way I kept hearing this one sentence in Chinese that our Chengdu friends kept saying to each other - “Jiu shi zhe yang zi lei!” And that marked the start of the mini Sichuan dialect lessons led by our Chengdu friends, for the rest of the ride they thought up the weirdest sounding phrases to teach us, lots of fun even though I had no clue what I was saying half the time!Our first stop was at the Devonian Botanical Gardens! even though they seemed to have adjusted to the time difference fairly well, the youth still couldn’t get used to the colder climate of Edmonton mornings. To get ourselves out of the cold we decided to check out the butterfly house first, as promised there were A LOT of butterflies.
As we continued though the garden, someone working at the garden showed us a sticky green bug that eats leaves of plants! One of the youth picked it up to play with, letting it crawl up and down his arm, carrying it around to try and scare the girls! When others wanted a turn to hold the bug it would crawl away from the other youth back to this boy who carried it first! He claimed proudly, “No need to try and take him away, he has fallen deeply in love with me already!”
Our outdoor adventure begins when we start our walk in the outdoor parts of the Japanese garden! The little pointy shingled buildings, little bridges, large bells take us away from Edmonton and into a land of serenity and tranquility~
Personally I’m no fan of insects, and the close proximity with them was a rather jittery experience. So my partner found herself a glass frame with all the butterflies lined up side by side, telling me “Why go and battle with them when you can take a picture of them from behind the glass!” I laughed at her, but secretly agree!
But this moment of peacefulness ended when the large bell was spotted. Everyone took turns hitting it with the thick wooden ‘mallet’, some youth even stood underneath it to let the sounds of the bell ‘fill’ them, causing their eardrums to vibrate and the adults to worry about having to deal with half deaf kids. The youth tried to get Elaine, our interpreter to stand under the bell to read some words but she was paranoid it was a trick to lead her into standing under the bell and give them an opportunity to ring her eardrums! (Can’t say I don’t agree!)
With a little time before our scheduled lunch time, our bus driver took us to a place by the St Lawrence with a very interesting view. He told us that we were to catch our own fish for lunch today, “So no catch equals no lunch!”. For a second we were slightly scared that he was serious, until we caught on and realize he was kidding. But looking at the view only takes so long, so someone started skipping stones across the river. Pretty soon all of us were on our hands and knees finding flat rocks and hold our own little competitions to see who could make our rocks jump the most!
*Look at all the smoke in the sky, it’s really unfortunate that the smoke is so terrible these last couple days, we can’t show our friends from Chengdu the blue skies and white clouds of the typical Edmonton sky!
Our next stop was at Jasmine Garden a lovely small Chinese buffet in Devon. The food was delicious, a buffet with good selection, followed by ice cream for dessert! My buddy claims Canadian chocolate ice cream is so much richer in taste than the ones available in China. As well, I was very surprised to learn that the most Sichuan people did not enjoy the taste of the classic Chinese food I was so used to eating in restaurants such as sweet and sour pork! One girl said “Sichuan people like it spicy! Not sour-ish sweet-ish!”
Following lunch, we headed down to the Kinsmen sports center. The ride from the restaurant to the center was a long one, as the bus pulled into the center loading zone 2 volunteers had already made a dash for the washroom! (Must have been those huge non-alcoholic Shirley temples from Jasmine Garden!) In Kinsmen we were given an opportunity to play various sports, some were hometown favourites of our Chengdu friends, such as ping pong, basketball, and badminton. But to make things different for them we taught the Chengdu youth our most played phys ed class game-Doctor Dodge Ball! Our team was very clever in disguising our doctor, whenever someone was ‘out’ on our side, everyone would tap them so the other side would no know who to target!
After that we headed down to Smitty’s for a Western style meal, Smitty’s was very generous in letting us choose whatever we wanted to try on the menu! My absolute favourite thing was my side of sweet potato fries, if you think French fries are good, Sweet potato fries are 10x as delicious! Mmmm! One girl at my table ordered pancakes for her dinner and the youth got to look and smell the maple syrup that came with it, one of the few things we can guarantee that is ‘made in Canada’! Our meal ended with the Smitty’s staff’s special dessert of ice cream and cake, and special cute gift bears with a small label on the foot to remind our ChengDu friends of their times here in Edmonton.
Back downtown we went, to Churchill Square, never have I seen our place so different! The big screen that was set up for the movie showing at nine, the people walking on stilts around the square, this was not just something new for the ChengDu youth for once, it was new for me as well! Though I had to leave before the movie was shown, I’m sure it was quite an experience as well. I don’t think they have outside theatres like that in ChengDu, there just isn’t that much space open for such events due to the population of China! When YMCA started playing in the square everyone made the Y’s and M’s, C’s and A’s with our arms the Cheng Du youth were surprised EVERYONE knew how to do the movements, so quickly we taught them as well, lots of laughs and dancing!
* Sorry that this is a bit late, but we hope you enjoyed it!
Hylann
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