Chinese Students Wrap Up East Hanover Visit

This week East Hanover Central School hosted some special visitors—a cadre of students from Qzingdoa Province in China.

A total of 40 students, plus 10 instructors, spent three days at the school as part of an immersion program. Their visit included a trip to Harvard University before coming to East Hanover to spend time in the classroom with their American peers.

Dr. Joseph Ricca, the superintendent of the East Hanover Township School District, arranged for the students to come to the school. "They really want to experence a regular school day inasmuch as they can," Ricca said. The students spent most of their three days participating in general activities with their American counterparts.

Melissa V. Falcone, principal at East Hanover Central, paired up each of the Chinese students with a student from her school, selected by herself and a committee of faculty and staff members. "We chose students with different strengths," Falcone said, and made sure to include at least one student from every classroom in the fourth and fifth grades.

Each student from China was chosen for the trip based on their English skills, their academic record and their behavior, Falcone said.

"It’s a great opportunity for the district. The chance to interact with our student counterparts from around the world is really a great opportunity for our children, for our faculty and staff members," Ricca said.

After watching a scene from East Hanover Central's school play, "Cupid's Bow," the students from Qzingdoa Wendzng School put on a variety show of their own. The show included a skit about Chinese New Year, poetry recitation and a song from the Beijing Opera.

One student, Xu Ming Qz, invited an East Hanover Central student to challenge him with a Rubik's Cube. The Central student mixed up the cube, and Xu solved it in only a few minutes.

The show concluded with a Chinese dance which Central School students joined in on, and an exchange of gifts between the American and the Chinese students.

Other activities during the week included a dance for the visitors and the ambassadors, a debate on the topic of whether children should have the right to vote, an ice cream party and a mural project of a panda bear with a Chinese flag and a cougar, Central School's mascot, with an American flag.

"The kids from China gave our kids some really fantastic artefacts—hand-painted scrolls in Chinese that said 'Thank You' and 'Good Luck, which we're going to hang in the school," Ricca said. "Then they actually gave us a check for $5,000."

The funds will go towards Central School's  student activity fund. "We thought that was really just so nice and unexpected," Ricca said.

From East Hanover the students will go to New York City and will end their trip to America in Washington, DC.

"It really was just an amazing experience for everybody, the adults as well as the kids. It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing," Ricca said.