China's Development

     This year, I attended a summer camp while I was in China. At camp, besides learning about Chinese culture, the biggest thing I took away from camp was the immense speed of Chinese innovation. In big cities like Shanghai or Beijing, that innovation can be seen anywhere. However, there is still a lot of progress happening in smaller cities. In camp, we went to two small cities, Jiaxing and Pinghu. In both of these cities, there is a lot of growth and innovation.

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     In Pinghu, we visited the city museum. Inside, there were many modern exhibits, like using lights to light up a model of the city and giant screens. The exhibits discussed Pinghu's new buildings and the districts of land. Our favorite exhibits were the video games. There were bike racing, car driving and flying a helicopter. Each of the games were different, but they all showed off Pinghu's progress and innovation, whether it be by flying a helicopter to see the skyscrapers, riding a bike down the newly built sidewalks by the sea, or the technological advances in the gaming systems. Many of the campers didn't know that there were such advanced systems, because they hadn't seen them anywhere else. They were very surprised, saying that the system was very unique. The museum building was also very modern. Some students said it looked like a sports arena, while others said it looked like a spiderweb, but they all agreed that it was very modern and creative.

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     The growth and innovation of Jiaxing is also very fast. Inside the city, take a look in any direction and there will be unfinished skyscrapers being built, as well as completed towers. These buildings show that Jiaxing is growing very fast. In the Meihua Zhu attraction site, where we stayed, there was a Festival of Lights. There were many types of lights, in the shapes of buildings, animals, and mountains. There was one event that everyone loved, at a lake's shore. A pipe sprayed the water out of the lake, creating a “water wall”. Behind it a machine projected lights onto the water, projecting different images like dancing people, little stars, and cars driving down a street. The campers liked it too much, and they snuck out at night to see it. This attraction was very interesting to them because they had never seen this at home, so they were taking the chance to see it in China.

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     At summer camp, I learned a lot of new knowledge and saw a lot of culture, but the thing I saw the most was the innovation and growth in China. China has made a lot of progress and is very efficient, so we should all learn from it.