TUESDAY 8TH MAY 2012 ­ BST +7HRS ­ Fengdu No 1 Primary School ­ What a Delight!

Although the sky remained overcast the heavy storm and high winds overnight had helped to clear the mist.  The first challenge today was to climb the 100 steps from the river up to the waiting buses – remember the river is at its lowest point I the year some 30 metres below tis peak in September.

The call at Fengdu had been hastily arranged to make up for the day that we lost by embarking the Viking Emerald at Sandouping rather than Wuhan.  The original itinerary included a visit to a school near Wuhan that Viking supports.  Like many I had assumed that education in China was free but not so, parents must pay even ay nursery level.  This morning we were to be given and opportunity to visit Fengdu No1 Primary School and to get a unique insight into China today with a visit to a Fengdu Market.

Fengdu is another of the many cities that have been constructed on the banks of the Yangtze to accommodate some of the 1.3m people displaced by the rising waters behind the Three Gorges Dam.  The city is located on the north bank of the Yangtze in the municipality of Chongqing and has a long history stretching back over 100,000 years.  During the Zhou Dynasty (1000 -256 BC) Fengdu was the capital of the mysterious Ba Kingdom (Thought to be responsible for the hanging coffins).  For more information on the Ba People see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ba_people

Later Fengdu became the cultural centre for Confucianism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucianism), Taoism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taoism ) and many folk customs.

We crossed an impressive suspension bridge – one of many on the Yangtze – form the south to the north bank and the damage caused by the storm over night quickly became evident with trees uprooted.  The trip through the city in the relative early morning offered one of the best insights so far into Chinese daily life.  Life seems to be lived very much on the streets with families clustered around enjoying their breakfasts in front of their shops or homes.  The picture shows a typical way of Mothers carrying their babies in wicker baskets on their backs.

We first visited a park to watch the elders who gather daily to sing, dance and practice Tai Chi – you see this everywhere in China.  After singing a couple of traditional Chinese songs audience participation was encouraged with a rendition of ‘Jingle Bells’ followed by some gentle dancing with colourful scarves - all very friendly and performed with great gusto and enthusiasm.

It was then on to the school and what a delight this proved to be although it came as a bit of surprise that we had to pass through a security check to enter the school.  Evidently all schools have their own security team smartly uniformed in white shirts and red berets. I’m not quite sure why the Chinese feel they need this level of security but it gives food for thought for some of our own schools.

Chinese children are extremely cute and photogenic and we found them in the playground working up an appetite for lunch.  Lots of curious but smiling faces and again encouraged by their teachers one ex-teacher from the USA led the children in singing and the actions for ‘Hockey Pokey”.  They might not have understood the words but followed the actions with laughs and smiles – great to see.  All too soon it was time to leave so withlots of waves we left the children to their lunch and went in search of the local market.