Several days ago, I heard that Changzhou was elected with a gold medal of The International Award for Livable Communities 2012 in category E (city with over 400,000 populations). http://www.livcomawards.com/2012-awards/winners.htm
Although (ironically) I have little idea about the award and this organization that gives it out, all my friends from my middle school and high school in Changzhou are very excited and keep sharing the news on my Chinese social media site. Their delight words remind me of my wonderful life with them in Changzhou.
This is my high school, Changzhou senior middle high school of Jiangsu Province. It is the best high school in Changzhou and certainly the toughest one. The building at the bottom right of the picture was my dorm hall. Six floors without elevator and my dorm room was on the highest floor. Imagine my life with going up and down stairs ten times a day—going to breakfast, to my classroom (fifth floor of another building), going down to morning exercises, back to classroom, lunch, back to classroom, dinner, to dorm, to classroom for study hall, and late night returning dorm to sleep. Well you can also imagine how much skinner I was than now. Life here was tough but colorful. Despite the fact that we had eight classes from 7:30 am to 5:15 pm and study hall from 6 pm to 10 pm every day, I was very engaged in activities.
A Poetry Reading Contest.
Two of my best works: A dress using solely paper and foam, from Fashion Design Contest.
A Modern Railway Model, from Architectural Model Contest.
Changzhou is famous by its Dinosaur Theme Park. It has 1:1 size dinosaur models as you can see from the picture, and numerous fun facilities to play!
(I have never been on this one, though)
I have been to the park more than ten times (If you live in Orlando you probably will to the Disney World every year) and it has most of my remarkable memories when growing up. The first time I went there when I was only five with my parents. The park only had few facilities and people stand in very long lines to wait for their turn.
We were the last ones that day to get a boat for this kayak like trail. The path before the huge slide was like a prehistoric rainforest with many weird species and dinosaurs howling, kind of scary to me. That night I had my first and the only sleepwalking in my life. I dreamed being trapped in the kayak boat and trying to climb in a cave to escape, but I couldn’t get into it. When I woke up, I realized I was sitting on top the dresser and trying to crawl into my big round mirror. Hahah.
When I was a little older, I went there with my friends or even my entire class—elementary school, middle school, and high school. It was always the happiest day of my school year and my best memory with my friends.
When people are saying that they miss their hometown, sometimes they really mean they miss their life when little or young with parents or friends. Although my family moved to Beijing two years ago, when people ask me where you live in China, I will still say Changzhou, because it was the city where I grew up and gave me most of my memory in China. Now it’s turning into an even bigger city, with reconstructions that I could not recognize. And now my best friends all went to colleges in other cities and we barely have a chance to go to the dinosaur park again. However, my school and the park will always be there, as symbols of Changzhou, and I will always tell about them proudly and nostalgically.