Loading...
ARTICLE BY ASIA - One of the students from Jiaxing No. 1 High School who represented China in the World Congress
‘China wow wow!’ Next second I find myself screaming and running with my teammates under the huge rainbow parachute that covered almost the whole stage, holding by people from twelve different countries. ‘People who like blue’! Someone shouted. Upon hearing this, I leaped up again and quickly ran to the other side of the parachute and grabbed an edge, this time with Brazilian and Indian standing beside me. Every time my shoulder partners changed and in this way, we quickly learned each other. This was how my first night in Plymouth spent in ARROW activities which was exciting, surprising and a bit of heart pondering.
The week went almost in a blink of eyes. Yet memory would record every precious moment that I spent there. To me ARROW is more like a family consist of different colored people holding hand in hand. Together we shared our own cultural background, spread the seeds of love and showed respect to each other.
There is a moment I remember, he looked me in my eyes and clapped his hands, as if sending a message to me, and then I turned round and caught a pair of green eye and quickly clapped my hands. The air was teemed with hand-claps and laughter, and in this way, we quickly established our trust.
The main topic of our ARROW program this year is conflict, and this is reflected and explained through vivid dramas. In Palestine, people are living in the shadow of gun shots and endless bomb attacks, not knowing whether their houses are going to blow up in the next second, and lovers are separated from each other by the interminable wall between Palestine and Israel. In the drama, both lovers woke up in the morning finding them apart, heart broken, they called each other’s name again and again, and tried desperately to climb over the cruel high wall, yet failed every time. While in India, most of the girls are strangled and forced by their parents to marry a stranger whom they do not love. Apart from this tragic marriage, they have fathers who abandon themselves to alcohol and beat their daughters at night with gauche red hands. For Indian girls, life means endless bullying and housework. They tried hard to hope, and open the door to a brighter future, but most of them are not able to escape their fate. Not only that, educated girls in India are despised by others, and thought as evil sometimes. Compare to them, I feel that I am very luck to born in the Southeast part of China, where people live harmoniously with each other; where there are so many loving people and friends, and I should cherish every chance and continuously develop myself, and create a better world for me and others.
One thing that surprised me is that my nature changed, and I feel that I am more out-going and willing to share my own opinion than ever before. I no longer fear of talking with people whom I have never met before. For the first time, I embraced the stage and stepped on it bravely and passionately, and danced the Brazilian dance with their steps, and sang the song from South Africa by their language. It was also nice to see people playing our game ‘the Eagle and chicken’. Running wildly on the stage, Beatrice (from Malaysia), the hem, ‘infuriated’ the Brazilian Eagle and made him cry in such a funny way, for he couldn’t catch a chick.
If someone asks me what the most hilarious part of ARROW program is, it would undoubtedly be the Carnival on the last day. ARROW People here and there dressed in colorful clothes, holding the Angel Baby made out of foam and papers and the purple, the green, the red, the yellow monsters with stubborn and fierce heads and sharp teeth stick with mucus. Followed by is our music group, singing the song stitched by ourselves ‘Baby angle, save me, angle; Baby angle, save me, angle… I’ll be waiting I’ll be waiting shooting arrows…’ We matched along the street of Plymouth with a hundred children, uttering our wishes for unity, love and world peace. The Carnival was successful and ended with a drama hosted by a funny Palestinian guy, which won so much acclaim and bravo from the public.
Looking out of the plane window, the sea birds, the churches, the sandy beaches and the ocean beneath me squeezed and slowly turned into a small point and befogged by the clouds. The sun is still shinning and the sky is calm and peaceful like a sleeping baby. ‘Plymouth, I am leaving you, don’t worry, I will not take a cloud from you, but all those lovely moment, moment of our laughter tinged with melody.’
By Asia (Back row far right)