United Nations Day

Ruth and Grace attend Access International Academy Ningbo. It is a small international school with about one-hundred thirty students from twenty-six different countries. Americans are the minority. Ruth is the only American in her class (eleven students) and Grace has one other American (ten students). Most of the students are from Korea and Japan (about 60%), next Europeans and Indians and then South Americans and last, but not least, Americans. Interesting, most of the teachers are from America and Canada.

The kids here are amazing. Most of them speak at least three languages. For example, one boy in Ruth's class has a German father and Chinese mother. One day after school we were playing on the playground. He was talking with me in perfect English, his dad walks up and he speaks to him in fluent German, then my driver spoke with him in Chinese. This is not unusual and is quite the norm. We are the backwards ones only speaking English. One of Ruth's good friends is half Italian and half Japanese. She speaks Japanese with her mom, Italian with her dad and English at school. However, most of the Asian families hire tutors and also have their children go to school on Saturday. Ruth's friend goes to another private school on Saturday so she can keep up on her Japanese. The Koreans are hard core education and are consistently asking the teachers for more homework, hire tutors, and have their children skipping grades. It is an interesting educational environment.

One of the neat events that the school holds is UN Day. It is a day celebrating the nationalities of all of its students. They have a parade of nations with each country dressing up in their native dress. (Yes, I cried when the students sang and I saw them all dressed up.) We had a very lively discussion on what should American/Canadians wear. Our girls were quite passionate about the fact they are from three countries – America, Canada, and Germany. I told them we would only do America and Canada since that is where their parents are from. So, they opted to wear 4^th of July t-shirts we got at Wal-Mart this past summer. In order to marital harmony they had U.S.A. painted on one cheek and a Canadian maple leaf on the other. Ruth represented America and Grace walked with Canada. They have already figured out that next year they will switch. (We couldn't find our Canada Roots shirt for Grace since everything was still in boxes!) The people from the other countries wanted our costume to be cowboys and Indians - maybe next year.

After the parade the students go on a world tour. Each class chose a country to study in depth and then the other students go around and see their projects and what they learned. They give them passports to get stamped as they travel around. For lunch the PTA organized food from all our different countries. There was so much food, a lot of which I had never seen before so I can't even describe what it was. We did have imported cheese and salami from France, Gummi Bears and warm potato salad from Germany, salmon sushi from Japan, delicious Korean noodles, Brazilian meat, Taiwanese tea, and chili and hot dogs from the good ol' U.S.A.

It was so funny because I brought Twizlers licorice in our shipment and I thought I would share them for UN Day at school. Well, I had them sitting out and no one would take them. I kept asking the kids if they wanted some Twizlers. They all politiely declined except my girls. It took me awhile to clue in that most of the students had no idea what in the world I was offering them. So, I starting asking if they wanted some American candy. A few started taking it. Well, word on the playground spread quickly; the kids told their friends and they kept coming back for some more of the American candy.

After I was out, an Asian boy about eight years old asked me while showing me with his hands the length of a Twizlers,

"Excuse me, do you have any more of those long, skinny, red things?"

"You want some more licorice?" I asked.

"No," he replied. "I want some more of the long, skinny, red things."

I felt so bad I didn't have any more to give him. Most of the kids had never had licorice before and it is not something you can find in this part of the world. Add it to the list of things to buy when I go back to America.