Friday, December 7, 2007

Chinese Seal Carving

Our school attachment to Li Cheng Er Zhong was very fruitful as the school kindly arranged many activities for us. Chai Chee-ians practically learnt new things everyday; Chinese lessons, Maths lessons, History lessons and also activities like Chinese knots, Chinese Drums, Seal Carving, Pottery, Dancing, Chinese musical instruments and Martial Arts. In this post, I am going to focus on Seal Carving. On the left, you'll see Chai Chee-ians looking at the introduction to seal carving in a powerpoint.

We were each given a set of seal, a carving knife, sand paper, white paper and red inkpad. The teacher then showed us all our surnames on powerpoint written in ancient Chinese.
For e.g. the word would be carved like this on the seal. When we saw our surnames written in ancient Chinese on the powerpoint, we felt very challenged. Nevertheless, Chai Chee-ians took the task very seriously and all of them displayed tremendous resilience in the process of carving their surnames on the seal.

We took about 2 hours or more to carve one surname. It required great focus as any lack of focus would result in the carving knife slipping away, disfiguring the seal. Besides the curly strokes, we also found it difficult to carve on the small area on the seal with the knife. We also had to carve very hard at the seal using great strength to ensure that every stroke was clear and defined, otherwise the print would appear to be blur. One really needed to be very patient too, as each stroke had to be done slowly and carefully. This is Nigel Chua's Chinese surname in ancient character 'Cai'. What do you think of his workmanship?


Actually, in China, especially at Qufu, the hometown of Confucius, there are many roadside stalls which offer seals with your full name at only 8 RMB (about S$1.60). However, many of the Chai Chee-ians saw a place which sells Chinese seals for the first time at the Confucius temple. They made their seals at 30 RMB, only to realise that there are many other stalls 5 minutes away which sell at only 10 RMB. The seal carving masters at the stalls also could carve our full name in three characters in about 3 minutes. (Imagine we took more than 2 hours to carve just one character. And after that, our hands were very exhausted.)

posted by Mrs Tan @ Friday, December 07, 2007 0 Comments

Li Cheng Er Zhong surroundings Part II



Li Cheng Er Zhong has star awards too. They have a special notice board called 星之园，which displays the photos of the model students who have excelled in one way or another. Some examples of awards include: 卫生之星 （Cleanliness Award)， 守纪之星(Most Disciplined Award), 学习之星（Learning Award), 进步之星 (Improvement Award) and 级部之星（Level Award).


The school also has an automobile lab for students to learn driving, similar to the 'Daytona' you see at arcades. There are real gears, real handbrakes, real brakes and real steering wheels.



The school has quite a number of hostels as it is a boarding school. Almost all its students have to stay at the hostels and they can return home once in every two weeks. Coincidentally, all the names of the hostels begin with the word 'Shang 尚', which is the same as Chai Chee Sec's Chinese name 尚志。Chai Chee-ians were all very impressed with the school's enormous size and its facilities that they jokingly suggested that we should move Chai Chee to Jinan, as our name also begins with the word ‘尚’and should thus, blend in well with Li Cheng Er Zhong's surroundings. On the right is an example of one of the hostels called Shang Qin Lou 尚勤楼，which reminds the students that they have to strive hard for success in life.

The last of the facilities that I am going to feature is the sports facilities.

The sports facilities there is a luxury for the students. There are a number of basketball courts, an underground table-tennis court, a really wide running track that you see in the picture on the right, and what the boys envy the most is the soccer field. There is also a physical fitness corner which include monkey bars, weight lifting stations, balancing stations, and the swings, which Danah had a good time at.


posted by Mrs Tan @ Friday, December 07, 2007 0 Comments

Saturday, December 1, 2007

The school surroundings of Li Cheng Er Zhong (Part I)


This stone sculpture should be the most significant landmark of the school as you'll see it the moment you enter the school gate.





The calligraphy on this wall was written by Mao Ze Dong.




The school canteen shown on the right is one that every Chai Chee-ian would dream for. The multi-storey school canteen is an entire building on its own and every storey is exclusive to one level (i.e.; Sec One, Sec Two)





Students get around the school on bicycles during recess time. Can you imagine how huge the school compound is?





Can the roads of the school be any wider than this?








These two picturesque views were taken in the school garden, which would take approximately ten minutes to tour if you walk at a leisurely pace.

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posted by Mrs Tan @ Saturday, December 01, 2007 0 Comments