This blog post will be a back and forth between the BHS students here in China and Mr. Norwood’s first grade class at Lawrence school. Mr Norwood’s class is currently studying China. He connected with us so that his students can ask the BHS students about life here in China. The first grade class will write their questions as comments to this post for the BHS students to respond to.
bhschex2016 
Oops, we by accident deleted your comment but we got a chance to read it first. We would be glad to help you in your studies! We went to four cities; Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Xi’an where we currently live and attend school. School goes from 7:15 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and students must attend class on Saturday. After the first three periods, students go outside to run laps around the school with their classmates. Each class must be synchronized with each other. We wear uniforms to school that are blue and white. They are more like tracksuits. Lunch here consists of various sorts of rice and noodles. We have an hour to eat, but many students leave before that time to go study or sleep. There’s also a school store here for students to get snacks in between classes.
Our first outing in Xi’an was to the city wall where we got a tour lead by a Chinese teacher here. We went during the Lantern Festival, so there were many beautiful lanterns hung up. We also went to the Bell Tower, Drum Tower and Muslim street. At the two towers we watched drum performances. The Muslim street was my (Kat) favorite part of the outing. There was a lot of food carts trying to sell you food. It was extremely crowded, but very fun to explore.
We are looking forward to answering your questions in the future.
-Kat and Rachel, CHEX 2016, two amazing girls
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Dear High School Students:
Thank you so much for your note. Mr. Norwood asked us to think about school in China and this is what we noticed…
Here are two questions we thought of:
Is it hard at your school or is it easy? Can you explain, please?
– Xavi
Does this high school have dorms?
– Amos
Here are some things we noticed:
It sounds like school at Hogwarts. You have different classes and after classes sometimes you get together with your housemates.
– Elise
We kind of have school uniforms because we have Lawrence Loyalty clothes and people wear them a lot but the difference is we don’t have something to wear every day.
– Martha
It sounds like college because you actually sleep at the school.
– Max L.
We don’t have noodles and rice always for lunch. We usually have different things.
– Damaris
We don’t have an hour to eat. We have less time. (We have 25 minutes.)
– Maddy
We don’t have a school store for snacks. We have to bring our snacks from home.
– Liam
We never run laps around the school. One time, though, we got to chase Mr. Norwood on the track. We have recess and free time for exercise. We also have P.E.
– Tessa
We don’t have school for such a long time or on Saturdays. School starts at 8:00 a.m. and it ends at 2:30 p.m. That is six and one half hours.
– Thaddeus and Luke
Thank you so much for answering our questions and reading our thoughts.
Sincerely,
The Students of 1N
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Dear, 1N
Xavi-Here at the Gao-Xin school the students are very hard working and put under a lot of pressure to get good grades. In each class there are about 60 students, so it is very crowded. The classes here are very hard, so the students need to stay focused. It may sound very scary but they always have fun with their friends. The teachers like to make jokes sometimes to keep students interested.
Amos-Some of the students do live in the high school dorms, but many of them seem to not like it that much because they have to live with five other students in one room, and eat school food all the time. The school food is not always the best. But the cool thing is that the school market has a lot of things that the students can use in their dorms, like soap, toothbrushes, lotion, shampoo etc.
Elise- Its not really like Hogwarts, but it would be cool if it was. Here the students aren’t divided into houses but they tend to stay with their grade and be friends with their classmates in their grade. But during class breaks after every class students love going to visit their friends in the other classes, but they need to be quick because they only have five minutes.
Martha- Here you need to where the uniforms everyday or else you get in trouble and the school guards will not let you enter the gate, then you will be late.
Thanks for your questions and comments
We look forward to more from you
-Watson and Taijai, CHEX 2016, two cool guys
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Dear Watson and Taijai and Kat and Rachel,
Thank you cool guys for your response. I also want to thank the amazing girls for their earlier response.
Mr. Norwood
Dear Everyone,
Our student teacher, Mr. Hamamoto showed us a great video for the terracotta warriors last week and we just read your post about your visit to see them. We have a lot of questions and we hope you can answer some of them.
How many years did it take the people to make the terracotta warriors? How long did it take to make just one?
– Leila, Maia, and Max L.
How many warriors are there? We read that there are more than 8,000 but is there an exact number?
– Ksenia and Isaac
How did they make sure all of the faces were different? Does anyone know whose faces they are?
– Aubrey, Elise, Maddy, and Mr. Norwood
Who made the warriors?
– Arisa
Why did the emperor need so much protection in the next world?
– Teddy
Why are some warriors missing their heads?
– Aya
How did they make the warriors? Are they hollow?
– Satsuki and Amos
Where is the emperor hidden? Where is his tomb?
– Max C.
Are the statues where they were first found or have they been moved?
– Mr. Hamamoto
We know that you will not be able to answer all of these questions. Mr. Norwood really wanted to show, though, how many wonderful questions we thought of. Just try to answer the ones you can, please.
Our best,
1N
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Dear 1N,
Laila, Maia, and Max L. – It took 36 years for them to build the Terracotta warriors. They build them at a pace that made an average of about 2 soldiers every day.
Ksenia and Isaac – It has 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses.
Aubrey, Elise, Maddy, and Mr. Norwood – The sculptors made the warriors by looking at the bodies of real soldiers, and no soldiers look the same. So they all look different.
Arisa – 28 different artists made the soldiers. The emperor then killed them after to ensure that no one else could have the same tomb.
Teddy – He did this because he wanted to be prepared and protected incase there was a war in the afterlife.
Aya – Some of them were made without heads because the artists did not finish all of them in time. The emperor died and his enemy was coming to invade the tomb, so the guards closed the doors to ensure the safety of the tomb before it was finished. Others don’t have heads/have broken heads because of thousands of years underground.
Satsuki and Amos – Yes, they are hollow so they would not explode when they were fired. They created heads, arms, legs, and torsos separately out of clay, and then assembled them into one body.
Max C. – The emperor’s mausoleum is 25 kilometers away from the warriors. His mausoleum has still not been opened in order to keep the objects in the tomb from oxidizing.
Mr. Hamamoto – They are where they were first found. They are too fragile to be moved. They built buildings on top of them in order to further investigate the warriors and open the warriors up to tourism.
GREAT QUESTIONS!!!!!!
Enjoy,
Sam and Gabby
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Dear High School Students,
Thank you for sending us notes and answering our questions. It was very kind of you! We learned a lot, much more than we would have learned if you did not help us. We enjoyed ourselves, too. I hope to meet all of you some day and hear even more in person about your adventure to China.
Sincerely,
The Incredibly Awesome Students of 1N (We’re too humble to say more wonderful things about ourselves.)
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