A rural school in China has gone viral after a video of students on an excursion cooking their own lunches appeared on social media. Unlike most mainland schools where students bring packed lunches to excursions, the school in southwestern China asked students to cook their own. — SCMP
Students at a rural school in southwestern China have become the envy of millions of mainland Chinese Internet users after bringing kitchenware and food ingredients on an outing to cook meals for themselves.
Last week, hundreds of primary and secondary school students from Huayan Nine-year School in Anyue county, Sichuan, joined an annual spring outing event, Jimu News reported.
Unlike most mainland schools which ask students to bring snacks and packed lunches for excursions, the Sichuan school asked students to cook their lunches out in the open, a viral video showed.
In the clip, young students are seen walking in lines out of the school gate, some with bamboo baskets on their backs carrying cooking utensils, vegetables and firewood while others taking folding tables.
After arriving at a large open field, they dug holes for fire pits and began cooking.
One student’s father, surnamed Chen, said his child brought vegetables, snacks and several cups of milk tea for the outing.
“My child is very excited about this event. It can improve the kids’ life skills, and I support the activity,” he said.
An unnamed teacher from the school said they organised the field cooking event for all the students except those in the early primary years who were too young.
“The pupils of primary one to three are still too young, so they will bring fruits and snacks instead of cooking by themselves,” said the teacher.
Senior students were divided into small teams. In each team, students discuss the tasks for each member. Teachers also require students to learn at least one dish at home to cook in the field.
“We will compare and assess each team’s dishes, so all students join the cooking activity enthusiastically,” the teacher said.
He stressed that the school had taken precautions with the cooking fires to ensure the students’ safety.
“How jealous I feel! I’ve never experienced such a great activity at school,” one person said on Weibo.
“The scene of young students cooking in the wild is reminiscent of childhood for us who were born in the 1980s and 1990s. I think field cooking was the happiest moment of our school days,” another person observed.
A third person said: “I hope our kids can experience this type of outing. Although they would possibly have diarrhoea problems from eating uncooked noodles, it is a unique and memorable experience.”
But some people expressed concerns.
“The school should allocate enough teachers to look after so many students to avoid anyone going missing and to prevent them from starting uncontrolled fires,” said one person.
Students in mainland China are increasingly being exposed to culinary training since the country’s Ministry of Education issued a new curriculum for primary and secondary students last year to acquire life skills such as cooking to learn to be more independent. – South China Morning Post
