This is my first time travelling to China, so I was quite nervous at then. I heard that the environment there will be almost the same as Singapore, but I doubted that I would be able to adapt to it. I heard that the water there is not as clean as here in Singapore, so I am worried that I might get sick while staying there. My other concern is that the food in China might not be to my liking. Even with all these concerns, I still wanted to confirm my doubts of steriotypes of China. When I reached China, I found out that most of my worries are for naught. I had fun.
During my stay there, I saw that China's buildings are actually not as old as I thought that they would be. In fact, they are as or more advanced compared to that of Singapore's. Zhejiang University has 5 campus, each being twice as big as one of Singapore's largest universities. It is so big that the students there have to walk for 15minutes from their dormatry to get to their lesson venues. Zhejiang Univesity in fact has 116 years of history, and has always been committed to cultivaiting talent with excellence, advancing science and technology, serving for social development, and promoting culture, with the spirit best manifested in the university motto "Seeking the Truth and Pioneering New Trails". Research there spans 12 academic desciplines, covering philosophy, economics, law, education, literature, history, art, science, engineering, agriculture, medicine, management and etc.
I also saw that China has been trying to preserve their culture. One example is the Lei Feng Pagoda. It was constructed in 975 at the order of Qian Hongchu, the king of Wuyue kingdom to celebrate the birth of a son by his favourite cocubine, also known as Huangfei. Hence, the pagoda was called Huangfei Pagoda. It was also known as the Brick Pagoda of West Gate due to its location. The town folks also made a popular tale based on this pagoda and it is called "The Legend of the White Snake". The pagoda collapsed later on, and some of the debris was taken away by the people because they wanted to find out if the tale was true. However, some of the debris was still preserved inside the tower. This was later on rebuilt and called Lei Feng Pagoda and became a tourist attraction.
Another example of China preserving its culture is the Qinghefang Ancient Street in Hangzhou. It is 1800 meters long and has been the Ming and Qing Dynasty. This street is the only well-preserved part of the ancient city and is the best place to embody the historical and culture character of Hangzhou. This street used to have lots of shops, restaurants, teahouses and medical centers. When we visited the street, it looks ancient however, the shops had changed and they are mostly souvenirs shops as it slowly become a tourist attraction.
I feel that it would be a very difficult task for Singapore to preserve its culture because of Singapore's very limited land and its very short history. However, I still feel that the government could still try their best to preserve as much culture as possible, especially the wartimes. I choose wartimes over the other cultures is because I think that the future would be very peaceful, but the people should still be reminded of their ancesstors' fight for their future, and will still remain vigilant.
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