shanghai campus

The St Edmund' s College Shanghai Campus is attached to the Shanghai South West Weiyu Middle School, in the Xuhui District. This High School of 1500 students is run by the local people and subsidized by the Xuhui District Government with Mr Zhuang Zhongwen as its principal.

With "Seek perfection and growth" as its motto the school highlights the development of traditional Chinese virtues. The school has chosen English and Computer Studies as its featured courses and has taken the initiative in the exchange with schools from other countries to enrich the learning envirnment. Teacher and student exchanges between Southwest Weiyu and St Edmund's in recent years have established a strong bond between the schools.

The campus boasts good sporting facilities, a modern networked computer system with internet connections, and extensive audiovisual and video-production facilities. The campus is set in a residential area adjacent to shopping centres, the covered street-market and the nearby Xujiahui commercial centre. The campus has good access by both the elevated freeway and the subway rail system, to downtown Shanghai.

This year, Matthew and myself were lucky enough to be asked to return to our sister school, Xi Nan Wei Yu Middle School, in Shanghai, China. After 5 weeks in China on last year’s tour, Matthew and I had fallen in love with the place, the people, and the culture, and could not believe we were being offered this incredible opportunity.

We farewelled our family and friends, and headed off alone to meet up with Mrs. Kinnane, who was teaching at the school at the time, and would begin the job of supervising Matthew and I for the last two months of her stay. We landed in the at the end of a blistering cold Shanghai winter, to the warm hearted welcome of the Xi Nan Wei Yu staff and students, enrolling us straight into class, fitting our uniforms, and setting us up in the school apartment. We were given a timetable, which began at 7:30 every morning, and finishing at 4pm in the afternoon, sometimes even having Saturday morning classes. Our classes were: Chinese, English, Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, PE, Art and Music. We joined Senior One, Class One, where we spent the next four and a half months living as one of their classmates.

It was a fantastic trip, and Matthew and I gained a lot from it. We learnt to refine our study skills, enhanced our Chinese language abilities, and formed some life long friendships. After living for two months with Mrs. Kinnane in the school apartment, it was time for Mrs. Kinnane to return home, and for Matthew and I to begin our 11 weeks homestay, living with four different families each. It was both good and bad to live with the students for such a long period of time, both of us dealing with homesickness and the frustration of living with each other for so long, the new freedoms that homestay offered strengthened our wills and reinforced our friendship. We were welcomed with open arms into extremely loving and friendly families, who took us in as if we were their own. Both of us now have Chinese families in Shanghai, and they refer to us as their “Aussie sons”.

After 18 weeks of living together, attending school everyday, and being bombarded with this foreign culture 24/7, the 13 other exchange students and three teachers arrived, providing Matthew and I with some relief. We were able to relax and shift back into “Aussie” mode and best of all, share the highlights of our time in Shanghai with our friends. It was a sad, cold, rainy day when we departed from Shanghai Railway station, but reflecting on the greatest points of our trip kept us from being sad for too long.

It is our hope that the exchange program set up between St. Edmund’s College and Xi Nan Wei Yu Middle School continues to grow stronger into the new millennium, offering greater, innovative opportunities for the students, families, and teachers of both schools. This was by far the greatest experience of my life, and if it weren’t for the following people, none of it would have come to be. So my special thanks go out to: Mr. Dobe, who without his innovation and perseverance none of this would have been possible, Mrs. Kinnane, for looking after Matthew and I and sharing this time with us, Mrs. Lau, for teaching me to see things differently, Mr. Houston, and his kite flying, and Mr. Costello for keeping us laughing.

Thomas