Day 1
I am very glad that I can have the Commue group activity with Gen and Grace. Our target of the Commue group was to know each other more and improve the culture communication during the activities. According to Gen's suggestion we decided to spend a day on Gen's farm and she will be in charge at that time. We thought we will be more closer if we can live together for one day because we would have the whole time with each other.
At 10 o'clock in the morning we got on the train and went to the Stonegate Station. We brought some stuff later on a crafts shop after lunch and they would be the materials we work on this afternoon. we have bought some white T-shirts , clay and pens for the activities.
We took a tour in Gen's house at first because we thought it was more easier to know a person if we look his living environment firstly.
In the afternoon we drew the T-shirts for our partners in order to show what we looked like in other's eyes. It was really an interesting idea because it brought fun to us. We were trying to use drawing to present people's personalities. For example, I discovered Grace was a little bit lazy so I drew a big sofa with computer and phone for her because I thought that must be her dream. Using metaphor to show the meaning is a basic skill we should have I supposed.
T-shirt Painting
Later we played with clay in order to use them to show our understanding of each other. I realized Gen was really like driving so I pinched a small car for her. It was really useful to have these kind of activity because it could give us more chances to communicate. Communication always made us to know each other better and that is the point of our course we studying. It was a big harvest today.
Day 2 Morning
Grace didn't have many good ideas of the activity in the time she would be in charge. Because our topic was culture communication between eastern and western so I advised her to let gen know about our daily life in my hometown. Because of the distance, many people from western countries were not very clear with our life in eastern countries so that always causes misunderstandings. It is good to let us know the daily life of each other's in this activity. Finally we decided to let Gen experience one day life of Chinese high school students.
In the morning we got up at 6:40am. Many western people couldn't believe we have to get up early like that every single day because we will have class from 7:30am as usual. Then we have the morning exercise what Gen never heard about it. It was a kind of gymnastics inspired by Chinese Kung Fu which we need to practice every working day in the morning. We were glad that Gen was interested in the activities we planned for her. As a British, she has a strong comprehension of the new things she met. I thought it was a good way to know our life in China by experiencing them by herself.
After breakfast we have a reading session which we always have when we in the senior high school. We put down our phone and just focused on what we read. It just had 30 minutes but I felt very because I didn't have a chance to immerse in reading for a long time. Because of the development of the Internet, our reading time reduced seriously. But it is still very important for us to get knowledge. The reading session has influenced us the significance of reading and we have to keep reading every day. We also had a art class in order to improve the skill of sketch by Grace's teaching.
Day 2 Afternoon
Around 2pm we backed London again and I was in charge this afternoon. To let Gen know the real culture of China, I would like to cook a traditional Chinese dinner for her because our food culture is well-known in the world nowadays. In case of maladjustment of new things I mixed up some western elements in my dishes. It was a good chance to chat about different cultures during the meal because we like talking when we are eating, this is a tradition of our culture by the way.
During the experiences in these days I found that Gen was lacking on basic knowledge of Asia so I would like to teach her about some basic things like history and geography about Asian countries. It's very important to know these things because the connection will be more closer between east and west along with the developments of traffics and communications. Gen was quite interested in what I taught to her and she learned it very fast. Additionally she learned some simple Chinese from me. Although the language was really difficult for her to understand she has studied them very hard. We are very happy that more and more foreigners are willing to learn eastern cultures nowadays and we believe that will improve the cooperation and communication of the whole world.