Uniting Nations

By James and Alexander Gunn (Grade 10, Canadian International School)

We just celebrated our annual Uniting Nations week at CIS, which is definitely a highlight of the school year. It’s a week long festival where we celebrate the different cultures represented at CIS.

This year there were many different cultural performances during the week, from Mexican dancing to African drumming. In the high school the week starts with a door decorating competition where each class decorates their classroom door to represent a different country. Judges pick the best-decorated door and the winning class gets a pizza party. This year there was a tie for first place, between a Grade 11 class and a Grade 9 class, who celebrated Poland and Slovakia.

The best part of the week is definitely the Food Festival. It is an amazing feast organised by the PTA. Parents from each country decorate a table and bring food from their home countries for students and staff to sample. There is enough food to feed an army! At the Canadian table there was smoked salmon, tarte au sucre and butter tarts, but the most popular food was probably the Nanaimo Bars.

Every year we try to sample food we have never had before. This year we tried satay from Singapore and Jamaican beef patties.

UN Week wraps up with the Parade of Nations. That’s when students from ECE to Grade 12 dress up in costumes or colours representing their home countries and parade through the gymnasium. Parents come to watch and the event was streamed live so that people could watch the parade all over the world. Our aunt and uncle in Vancouver got to watch it this year.

This year there were 81 countries represented in the Parade. Canadian students and teachers paraded in first and there was a sea of red and white. There were kids dressed as Mounties and hockey players. We wore our Canada t-shirts and funny hats and waved Canadian flags. One of our teachers from the United States even painted his bald head with the symbol of the shield of Captain America. The Parade finished off with a Japanese Taiko drum and dance performance.

It was a great week of celebrations. It reminded us that the student body at CIS is very diverse, and it gave all of us a chance to experience first hand and learn something about the cultures of other kids at CIS. 

By Mindy Wong

The headiness of sweet victory at the Singapore River Regatta on the 2nd of November has yet to wear off. We are pleased to share with you that the Canadian Dragons took gold in the 10-crew expatriate men's event. Despite the unfavourable position at the start, the men gave their all to gain ground on the other boats, and eventually came in first in the race! It was a well-deserved victory resulting from months of diligent water and land training.

In the upcoming weeks, we are having some off-season paddling seasons and will be thrilled to have new paddlers join us. 

Drop us a note at our website http://www.canadiandragons-sg.org/ or our “Canadian Dragons Singapore” Facebook page to get in touch with us.