SHREWSBURY, Massachusetts  - In an exciting opportunity, 10 sophomore students from Shrewsbury High School are traveling to Beijing this week, during school vacation.  This particular group of 10th graders have been taking Chinese together as a foreign language program since it was first piloted 6 years ago at Sherwood Middle school.  Their Chinese teacher, Xin Xin, has been their teacher since 5th grade, with the exception of their 8th grade year.  Only 10 of the students are traveling to China this week and are staying with host families there where they will practice their Chinese language skills daily with their host families, attend Beijing High School in the morning and visit many sites in the Beijing area, including but not limited to Tiananmen Square & Forbidden City, Great Wall & Ming Tombs, Bell & Drum Tower & Hutong Tour, Temple of Heaven, Capital Museum,  Laoshe Teahouse, Acrobatic Show, Hutong Tour (visit a Chinese family; cook & eat Chinese food in their house)

Xin Xin was phenomenal in corresponding all the details and planning to the parents and orchestrating the selection of host families, flight arrangements and tourism itineraries for the week.  Most of the students have already emailed their families to express what an incredible experience this is.  Jon Pouliot mentioned that his host family took him to a restaurant his first night there that served Shang Hai food that was really good and chatted about how they recently saw the Eagles in concert!  Kayla Mulcahy says this about Beijing: Beijing is SO Big and there are so many people! Also there is no speed limit and the driving is very aggressive. It’s really scary! Glad I am not learning to drive over here. The buildings are beautiful. Everything is lit up and the architecture is really amazing. I’m glad you guys taught me how to eat with chopsticks when i was little!

The students left Boston on Thursday morning, April 14th and they arrived in Beijing around 6am (Beijing time 6pm) on Friday 4/15.  They will be returning to Shrewsbury late Saturday night, April 15th.