Introducing Mystery Class #4
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| Our School: Welcome to Think International School! | ||
We are a small international school in Hong Kong, specifically in the Kowloon District of Hong Kong. Our school campus includes primary and kindergarten classes, and we have 3 other kindergartens around Hong Kong. In our school there are 111 students and we are the only Grade 6 class.
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Our school has three floors and a small playground, as well as a music room, a library, an office, a computer room and a small roof top area. Our school is so small that we all know each other well and get to do exciting projects, like organizing a pancake breakfast, making a school video, and taking a trip to Hong Kong Disney Land!
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| Our City: Hong Kong | ||
The size/area of Hong Kong is about 1,100 km2 , which is about 6 times the size of Washington D.C. However, for such a relatively small area, it has an enormous population of around 7 million, making it one of the most densely populated areas of the world. Although the people and business of Hong Kong are concentrated into a handful of main islands, there are also more than 200 smaller islands that are part of Hong Kong too.
Our specific district of Hong Kong is called Kowloon. That name translates to "9 Dragons", which actually is referring not to dragons, but instead to the 9 peaks around the city. How many peaks do you see in the photo? |
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| Our Country | ||
From about 1841 to 1997, Hong Kong was part of the United Kingdom. During that time, Hong Kong became a leading commercial, banking and business center of the world. In 1997, Hong Kong was transferred to the People's Republic of China, and since that time it is considered a Special Administrative Region of China. It was tranferred with the idea that Hong Kong would generally continue to operate autonomously from China, even though it is now part of China. This idea is called the "one country, two systems" formula.
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| Environment and Climate | ||
Hong Kong's climate is subtropical, but some of the year is temperate. In summer, temperatures can reach 35 degrees C with high humidity and frequent thunderstorms. Winter is not really cold, with temperatures from 9 degrees C to 15 degrees C, but our homes and schools have no heating here so it feels cold! Hong Kong's air is quite polluted because of all the traffic and businesses. On average, visibility is only 8km here...compared to Paris which has 25km!
Hong Kong is famous for its skyscrapers. Most people live in apartment blocks of up to 60 floors. But many people don't realize that only around 30% of land in Hong Kong is built on, which means that we have much of the remaining land for many parks, nature reserves, beaches, peaks and harbours. |
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| A Child's Life in Hong Kong | ||
Hong Kong children work very hard in school, and also in their spare time! After school and on the weekends many children have extra tutoring where we learn more about math, science or languages. Also at the weekend we may have clubs or lessons such as swim coaching, dance classes, piano lessons, taekwondo or French classes. In our free time we love to play computer games, watch television and draw. Our families also like to go out to eat.
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| Food in Hong Kong | ||
Chinese food is nutritious and tasty. For breakfast we mostly have soy-bean milk, steamed buns and congee (like a rice porridge). Lunch and dinner are usually rice or noodles with meat and steamed or stir-fried vegetables. We like to go out to eat dim sum, a traditional food in Hong Kong.
Dim sum consists of small, individual portions of food served in steamer baskets, and includes different types of steamed dumplings and buns. There are restaurants from all around the world in Hong Kong. Most of our class likes sushi, seafood and pizza.
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| Durian Alert | ||
Do you remember the mystery fruit from week eight, the one that is banned from some public places?
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| Language | ||
In Hong Kong, the official languages that we speak are English and Cantonese. We also learn Mandarin (which is the official language of our country, the Peoples Republic of China), but we speak Cantonese the most. Many people also learn another language, like Japanese, and we also learn French at our school. "Sun Lin Fai Lok" means "Happy New Year" in Cantonese. |
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| Festivals | ||
The most important festival in our culture is Chinese New Year. We celebrate it in late January or into February, depending on the moon. We visit our relatives, eat many family dinners, watch lion and dragon dances and fireworks, and children get gifts of red pockets with money in them.
Each new year represents a different animal. The animals are: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. This year it will be the year of the rabbit.
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| Remember the Rap Stars? | ||
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| Think International School: A World Within a City | ||
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| We hope you enjoyed learning about Hong Kong! | ||
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