Rosie Bridge School (RBS) welcomes students to take part in the RBS Student Exchange Program. This program offers one to two months exchange at local high schools in English speaking countries, where students can live with host families upon request. By living with a native host family, RBS students will have a good understanding of the way of life and culture of the new country. Each student has a local coordinator (协调员) who provides support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

REQUIREMENTS ◐High School student aged between 15 to 18. ◐2 years’ high school level or the same level of foreign language. ◐Good academic level. ◐Adapt to new environments easily and quickly. ◐Successful score in a personal interview. “We had a great and awesome time under this program. We got to know beautiful people from different cultures. Thanks to RBS.”

HOW TO APPLY? ◐Online application is now open for Semester Ⅱ (July-August) 2021 session. The application deadline is 30 March, 2021. ◐Complete the application form online at http://rbs.exchange.com. ◐Students who successfully apply will be notified by email within one month after the submission of the application. PROGRAM INCLUDE ◐Selection of Host Family and School. ◐Local Coordinator in the area of your placement. ◐Homestay, three or more meals a day, seven days a week. ◐Study in a Public High School in another country: ◐Translation of all School Transcripts. ◐A welcome party to meet new friends.

“Military-style” travel has become the latest fashion among Chinese college students, who spend as little much money as possible to travel to as many places as they can during the weekend, hardly taking a break or even sleeping. To save money, they usually catch a normal-speed train on a Friday night, arrive at the destination city on Saturday morning, travel around in the city, sleep at a 24-hour restaurant for a few hours on Saturday, then repeat the same busy schedule on Sunday before returning to their university in time for classes on Monday morning. These young travelers pay less attention to in-depth experiences and more focused on checking off popular tourist destinations on our schedule.

Hu Die, a student at Inner Mongolia University of Technology, is one such traveler. She put together a 10-day holiday during the recent May Day holiday period and traveled to six cities. On April 26, she took a high-speed train to Beijing and then from Beijing to Tai’an, Shandong Province, to climb Mount Tai. To save money, she spent 4 hours climbing up to the mountaintop rather than using a cable car. After watching the sunrise from it on April 27, she visited Dai Temple at the foot of the mountain. She then went to Jinan in the afternoon, visited Daming Lake and Quancheng Square in the evening, and on the morning of April 28 went to Baotu Spring and Heibu Spring. She traveled to Zibo to enjoy the famous barbecue in the city, went to Yantai and Weihai before May 4th, when she arrived in Luoyang, Henan Province. There, she visited the Longmen Grottoes and then returned to her school on May 5. Most people can hardly imagine how she traveled extensively in only 10 days. “We do not think we are doing something ‘crazy’ or ‘amazing’. We are young and energetic enough to experience such a tight travel schedule,” she said. “Moreover, when you travel with your friends, you are happy, you do not feel tired.”

Videos of them taking such trips have been posted on social media platforms, such as TikTok, Red, with much praise for their energetic spirit and high ability to achieve their plans. Others, however, question whether such a busy schedule is healthy.

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Last winter, the city of Harbin made an effort to show warmth and creativity to the tourists from all over the world. Recently, Chinese have described the city as a generous big brother who is doing everything possible to entertain visitors coming from afar with its special beauty and creative ideas.

Harbin has been a major tourist attraction (旅游景点) in winter and it won more attention last winter. It ranked fifth among the most popular cities for the 2024 New Year holiday, following Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Chengdu. Among the top 10 cities, Harbin is the only one located in northeast China.

Harbin Ice & Snow World, built in 1999, is a park that has been a star of the city’s winter tourism (旅游业). Thousands of tourists wear down jackets (羽绒服), hats and gloves to dance to the music in the park even if the temperature was as low as -20℃. People from the south of China can always catch other people’s eyes when dancing. Local people call them “southern small potatoes” because of their height. In this winter, the park has built nearly 1,000 ice and snow sculptures (雕塑) and provided different activities to entertain tourists.

The huge ice slide (滑梯) is the most popular project. In order to meet the rising require of tourists, the number of slides has increased from eight to fourteen. One of the largest slides is about 521 meters.

During three-day New Year holiday, Harbin received over 3 million tourists, creating 5.9 billion yuan, according to the latest data from the Harbin municipal bureau of culture (文化局), radio, television and tourism. Both numbers reached historic highs. Since Harbin’s tourism gets a high level, the 2025 Asian Winter Games will be held in the city.