Chinese

Chinese Exchange Students

In October 2018, NHEHS had a visit from a group of students from China. The girls who came were from Beijing School No.80 and were assigned to be paired up with two NHEHS girls. My friend from China was called Jane, who I shared with my friend Lily for two weeks.

In our Chinese lessons we were given the opportunity to exchange knowledge about Chinese and English culture differences. Me and the rest of my class were truly fascinated by this. We were also very impressed with all of their English ability!

With our help, they indulged on many of our Notting Hill experiences such as our cafeteria, charity events on Fridays and extra- curricular clubs. The Chinese students were amazed at the small size of our school in comparison to their densely-populated school in China. They agreed that our lunch queue lines were definitely a lot shorter and that our dining room was more efficient than theirs

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this visit. Not only did it benefit my Chinese speaking, but I was able to learn about Chinese culture and now have new friends from around the world. It is an eyeopening experience that I would encourage anyone in Year 10 to go for.

Juliet Kose, Year 10 Getting to know Ms Zheng

It’s lovely! Everyone is friendly and helpful. I feel welcomed from all angles. .

In my final year at university, I was one of the twenty winners of the Business Enterprise competition. I was awarded with £3000 to kick-start my proposed business idea- City nails. There was a huge feature done about me for the school newspapers entitled ‘ Dare to dream, and you will achieve’ which was rather embarrassing. I was also doing acrobatics.

Probably not but I can still do a handstand.

Gosh, I don’t know. Maybe start that nail shop! Or become an acrobatic teacher and combine my acrobat skills and teaching! But I honestly can’t see myself ever getting bored of teaching Mandarin.

Ella Manoff, Year 12 Year 10 and 11 Trip to China

When 40 Notting Hill girls and five teachers left Heathrow one sunny morning in late October of 2018, we never realised that our flight would be taking us not just into the Chinese capital of Beijing, but into the very throat of a wild beast: a rooster. Yet one of the first things Jenny, our tour guide in Xian, told us is that “China is like a rooster – Beijing is in the throat, and Shanghai is on the chest.” After we landed in Beijing, we left our bags at our hotel and headed off to explore Tiananmen square and the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City is the world’s largest imperial palace and truly is a city in its own right; it comprises 980 buildings and several courtyards and according to urban legend has exactly 9,999.5 rooms, although we never found that pesky half a room when we were there… On our penultimate day in the capital, we went to Beijing High School Number 80 to participate in lessons and a Beijing opera workshop. After four action packed days in Beijing, the overnight soft sleeper train sped us to Xian. While there, we got to see the excavated pit of several thousand terracotta warriors. After catching another overnight train, the final stop in China was Shanghai – aka “the chest of the rooster”. In Shanghai we got to walk along the Bund (the embankment of the Huangpu river, which runs through Shanghai) and take a night-time river cruise. On the final night we had a delicious dinner at the very top of the Pearl TV Tower opposite the Bund. Every day of the trip was honestly incredible and on that note we’d like to thank every teacher (especially Ms Cheng) who helped make it possible.