Stopping in San Francisco, Memphis and Charlotte, Hu Rong spent 14 hours on a plane to get to Rowan County from where she teaches at a middle school in China.
Rong has shown children at Knollwood Elementary School how to make flowers with tissue paper and pipe cleaners. They’ve learned how to write characters and count to 10 in her native tongue.
“She’s been a real hit here,” said Knollwood teacher Sherri Argabright, who has taught English in China.
Rong is one of six Chinese teachers visiting schools in Rowan and Cabarrus counties this and last week. Part of a foreign exchange program, the guests are teaching children here about cultural differences between the United States and the People’s Republic of China.
But the teachers also are learning themselves.
Rong teaches sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade English in the city of Luzhou, a city of 4 million people in the Sichuan province of China.
There students rise at 6:20 a.m. to read English and Chinese to do homework, Rong told second-graders last week at Knollwood. They typically have a breakfast of eggs and noodles, then walk or ride a public bus to school for four morning classes.
At noon they go home for lunch — typically a meal of vegetables, pork, fish or chicken over rice. They return to school at 2:30 for three afternoon classes. Finally, they leave again at 5:30 for supper.
“Studying and education are very important in China,” Rong said.
Long hours aren’t the only difference between Chinese and American schools.
Rong’s class has 72 students. The concrete walls are blank. Copying machines are scarce, so most of the time in classes children hear lectures.
Last week, Rong showed children pictures of her own 13-year-old daughter, Du Yun, who goes by “Rosa” here.
“In China, families have only one child — no brothers and sisters,” she said. “That’s the law.”
Here Rong goes by “Irene,” a name once given to her by an English teacher at a university in China. Friday, Rong and the other teachers left in a church van for a weekend trip to Washington, D.C.
The Chinese teachers are staying with teachers here who visited China last year. This July, one of them, Carolyn Frye, will leave with her husband to teach in China for a year. Frye, who lives in Kannapolis, is a teacher in Cabarrus County.
This week, the Chinese teachers will also visit Landis Elementary School, China Grove Middle School and South Rowan High School.
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