Greetings From Fifth Chinese Exchange Program

Early Friday, March 23, nine students from Sharon High School started their journey on the fifth Sharon-China exchange program to the Gaoxin-Tangnan School in Xi'an, China.

This exchange program began in 2008 and has grown strong since. In the fall, 10 students from the Gaoxin-Tangnan School visited Sharon and stayed with host families for about two months.

This year's trip to China will return on May 11.

We enjoyed three days in the nation's capital, Beijing, where we visited sites such as the Great Wall and Forbidden City.

An overnight sleeper train brought us to Xi'an about a week ago, where we will stay for most of the remaining trip with caring host families.

This year's trip includes eight sophomores and one junior from Sharon High School.

They include Henry Saniuk, Liam Flaherty, Lucy Jones, Bailey Harris, Kiki Luo, Lizzy Leclaire, Haley Switlekowski, Rachel Hale and Mimi Ross. We are also joined by a teacher from the Sharon Middle School, Ruthie Miller.

After our stay in Xi'an, we will take a short flight to the grand city Shanghai, where we will remain for four days.

This immersion experience is a once in a lifetime opportunity for all of us, and we hope to gain as much language and culture as we can from our surroundings.

Already we have had an outstanding time, and you can follow our future adventures on our blog. We also want to sincerely thank Jose Libano, Mary Trahan, William Klements, Timothy Farmer, the rest of the Sharon Schools administration, and most importantly the program's coordinator, Jean Beebe, for their continued support for the program.

We will see you all again real soon! Until then, 再见!