D-S High School Students Return From Exchange Program In China

Three Dover-Sherborn High School students recently returned from their two month excursion to China. Ryan Dougherty, Lizzy Briskin, Colin Braun, left a snowy New England to travel for two weeks in the far-east and settle for five weeks with a host family to learn about the culture and philosophy of China.

Dougherty, a seventeen year-old senior at the high school took some time to talk to Dover-Sherborn Patch about his experience. 

Over the weekend he had been preparing a slideshow for banquet on April 13. He said he has always had a “special fascination with China,” and its architecture, philosophy, food, and culture.

There were two weeks of traveling in the beginning and five weeks in Hangvhou where they spent three weeks with one family and two with another.

Each of the three students stayed with their own host family, and Chris Esterbrook, a D-S Middle School spanish teacher, acted as a chaperone and stayed in an apartment next to the host school.

 “We did go to classes with our host siblings,” said Dougherty. There were classes with exchange students, not all spoke English, with the exception of another group from Georgia.

Some of the classes they took were Chinese painting, hand work, country studies, Kung Fu, aerobics, and calligraphy.

In the athletic classes, Dougherty explained they would warm up by playing badminton or table tennis then practiced the Woo Shoo form of Kung Fu.

It was, “pretty fun,” Dougherty said, “I liked it.”

Country Studies was Dougherty’s favorite class. They watched movies, listened to music, and learned to appreciate the Beijing opera and Eastern instruments.

One of the most notable experiences Dougherty had was traveling in Lijiang.

When first arriving in the old part of the Lijiang, which Dougherty described as a, “well-preserved old part of China,” he said there were waterways all around the city.

“It was really cool and really picturesque,” Dougherty said.

Dougherty said there were modern shops strangely scattered in the midst of the all the historic buildings.

Best of all, he said, there was, off in the distance, is a huge beautiful mountain, which they hiked the second day there, and then took a cable car up to Yak Meadow.

In Yak Meadow they visited a Tibetan Buddhist temple. Which was, as Dougherty described, “really, really cool.”

He said they hung out in the temple for a long time and met a monk who invited them to drink with him. He offered Tropicana orange juice.

The monk spoke no English. Fortunately, Dougherty had been taking Chinese for four years. Three years were offered through the school and his fourth is being taken as an independent study for which he wrote a proposal to the school’s administration.

He had been able to translate a bit for his fellow travellers. Then during the conversation, they heard a strange buzzing noise that no one could place among what they saw in the temple. On top of that mountain, in the midst of all the majesty and ancient architecture of the temple, modern technology interrupted their serenity and the monk answered his cell phone.

Besides “How was China?” Dougherty was asked most often, “So was there any interesting food?”

His reply was, in Beijing, the intrepid travellers encountered a street devoted to food vendors, “Colin being the adventurous one,” picked a vendor selling fried scorpions on a stick. Dougherty and Briskin, feeling less adventurous, waited until Braun finished his second scorpion on the stick until they ventured to buy their own. “I remembered it being crunchy,” he said, but not being very flavorful.

While in China, the students had their own high school emissary, Dawn. “Dawn was awesome,” said Dougherty. They spent one week traveling with her and took classes with her as well. “She was our go to person while in Hungvhua,” Dougherty said.

Upon their return March 31, as they landed, they noticed it was snowing, just as it was when they left.