Little Researchers

While jogging along the TsimShaTsui waterfront last Saturday morning, I was stopped by these three primary school students. They came from a school in SheungShui, and were doing a survey of tourists. They asked me a number of questions in Putonghua: where did you come from? which tourist attractions have you been to? ...

Of course I was not exactly a tourist, and I wonder whether my answers might have skewed their results. But that was probably beside the point - the training and the exposure was probably more important than the actual data collected. What impressed me the most was their boldness, and their fluent Putonghua. They made their questions very clear, wouldn’t take no for an answer, and were quite decisive in filling up the survey form. They said Putonghua was not their mother tongue, and they learned to speak fluent Putonghua in school.

They have an excellent attitude and I am sure they will do well. And if what they did last Saturday is representative of education in Hong Kong, I think we are moving in the right direction.