Many Chinese schools in Arizona participated in the 2013 China Summer Camp

Many Chinese schools in Arizona participated in the 2013 China Summer Camp [News from Chinese Schools across the United States] Commissioned by the China Overseas Exchange Association and local overseas Chinese offices, Chinese...

News from Chinese Schools across the United States] Commissioned by the China Overseas Exchange Association and local overseas Chinese offices, the 2013 summer camps organized by the National Association of Chinese Schools have recently opened. The ten summer campers and leading teachers organized by the association are returning to China to report to various places. Most summer camps are held in major cities or places of interest in China.

This year, the summer camps hosted by the China Overseas Exchange Association and overseas Chinese offices in various places have stricter and more complete registration procedures and procedures, and only accept registrations from overseas organizations recommended and approved by relevant departments. The registration steps have also been changed to: obtain a quota - approval - pre-registration (online registration) - approval - complete the formal registration procedures. Such a change is conducive to the unified management of summer camps, but it increases the workload of overseas organizations responsible for registration. The National Association of Chinese Schools has taken advantage of its own advantages to issue timely notices to hundreds of member schools to coordinate and coordinate across the United States, which will help Chinese schools in various places, especially medium and small-sized Chinese schools, have greater choices and registration opportunities.

The National Association of Chinese Schools, which has been established for nearly 20 years, is the largest grassroots organization among Chinese communities in the United States. It is also the undertaking unit entrusted by the most domestic summer camp organizers. The organization of the summer camp started with striving for quotas. After separate contacts between President Shuai Zhiruo, Vice President Zheng Lianggen and Secretary-General He Zhenyu, the association finally secured many summer camp quotas and selected the following ten summer camps for group organization work; they are: Shanghai Camp, Shanghai Dance Camp, Changzhou-Diying Camp, Nanjing to Beijing Camp, Sichuan Camp, Sichuan to Beijing Camp; Liaoning to Beijing Camp; two Beijing-District Camps and the "Chinese Culture Knowledge Competition" Winners Camp. All summer camps reflect the atmosphere of the famous city where the camp is located, many students participating in the camp, good summer camp conditions, good reputation, low payment burden or free and other advantages. The "Chinese Culture Knowledge Competition" Winners Camp is specially set up by the China Overseas Exchange Association for our National Chinese School Association. Only students with outstanding results in the "Chinese Culture Competition" or "Chinese Culture Knowledge Competition" sponsored by the China Overseas Exchange Association in the past two years can participate.

Starting from late February, Zhang Xingyu, director of the association's "Large Project Department", and two directors, Jiang Jiang and Ni Lisong, began to accept pre-registrations. The registration process will basically end in early July. The registration and document collection workload this time was huge, with hundreds of emails exchanged and countless telephone consultations and communications. All the member schools that signed up were very supportive and cooperative, and designated dedicated personnel to be responsible for the registration and document collection of each school. They did a lot of detailed work and contacted the person in charge of the association in a timely manner. Especially Zusun Chinese School in Arizona. Although their school has obtained registration qualifications through other channels, in order to support and participate in the overall group work of the association, they gave up the plan of forming a separate group. Under the leadership of Principal Chen Rongji, they actively organized registration among the students of the school to participate in the summer camp organized by the association.

In the pre-registration stage for summer camps organized by the association, 203 students signed up for 10 summer camps in different regions and categories. The large number of regions and categories of summer camps is a major feature of this year. Except for some students who failed to pass the review of the summer camp organizers due to age issues and other reasons, a total of 122 students from the association participated in ten summer camps. Most of them come from the following Chinese schools: Bogen Huaxia Chinese School in New York, Huaxia New York Central School, Luocheng Chinese Language School in New York, Modern Chinese School in Arizona, Hope Chinese School in Arizona, Tucson City Zu in Arizona Sun Chinese School, Atlanta Modern Chinese School, Ohio Modern Chinese School, Cleveland Contemporary Chinese School, Ohio, Great Wall Chinese School, Pennsylvania, Guanghua Chinese School, North Carolina, Carey Chinese School, North Carolina, Chapel Hill Chinese School, North Carolina, Lollywood, North Carolina Chinese schools, Plainsboro Chinese School, New South Wales, Chinese Chinese School in Dallas, Texas, Great Wall Chinese School in Austin, Texas, Bocheng Chinese School, Maryland, New Oriental Chinese School in Maryland, Harvey Chinese School in Maryland, Chinese School in San Diego, California ﹑Huaxia Chinese School in Riverside, California, Anwar Chinese School in Michigan, Detroit Chinese School in Detroit, Michigan, New Century Chinese School in Michigan, Hope Chinese School in Virginia-HERNDON, Huaxia Chinese School in Connecticut, Lai City Chinese School in Kentucky.

Among the students participating in the camp, a small number are students who study Chinese at home, or Chinese students from Canada who have been recommended. The organization work of each school is very effective. The schools with more students are Detroit Chinese School, Anwar Chinese School in Michigan, Huaxia Chinese School in San Diego, Modern Chinese School and Hope Chinese School in Arizona, Zusun Chinese School in Tucson, Arizona, Modern Chinese School in Ohio and Chinese Language School in New York City.

The age limit for different summer camps this year is 12 to 18 years old or 14 to 18 years old. The two youngest campers, who are 10 years old, are Xie Chengqi and Chen Jiemin from Maryland New Oriental Chinese School. They received excellent results in the 2012 "First Chinese Culture Competition" and were specially approved by the China Overseas Exchange Association to participate in the camp.

Based on the recommendations from Chinese schools in various places, the association selected a total of 10 team leaders. Ms. Yi Hui, the deputy director-general of the association and has extensive experience in summer camp leadership, served as the general leader of the National Chinese Schools Association's 2013 summer camp in China. Other team leaders include Mr. Xie Dunxian, Ms. Chen Xia, Ms. Zhang Ting, Ms. Jiang Hong, Ms. Lu Ping, Ms. Xie Weihua, Ms. Deng Hong and Ms. Lu Jiang. The association held a team leader telephone conference on June 21 to clarify the team leader’s responsibilities and tasks. Currently, Teacher Lu Ping, Teacher Xie Weihua and Teacher Deng Hong are leading the team in Changzhou Summer Camp and Sichuan Summer Camp respectively. They keep in constant contact with parents by sending emails and event photos. Some parents sent an email to Teacher Lu Ping of the Alberta Modern Chinese School who is leading the team in Changzhou: "We are really lucky to have you as the team leader."

The "Large Project Department" of the association plans to publish the progress and photos of the summer camp through Facebook. Please visit the association's Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CSAUS.connect

Here, the "Large Project Department" of the association would like to thank everyone again for supporting our work. I wish all team leaders success in their work, and I wish all campers and team leaders a safe, happy and fruitful return. (Written by Zhang Xingyu, deputy secretary-general of the National Association of Chinese Schools Council, and Jiang Jiang and Ni Lisong, executive committee directors)