Cathay Pacific brought learners from around the globe together to experience each others’ cultures, writes Grace Black
Weddings under the stars with music, fancy costumes and delectable titbits. This was the scene in the Rustenburg Nature Reserve, in the Magaliesberg, recently when students from around the world performed mock traditional weddings.
Students from countries like New Zealand, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, Turkey and South Africa converged on the reserve for the 8th annual Cathay Pacific International Wilderness Experience.
The experience allows students from around the world to interact with one another and learn about different cultures as well as the environment. For many, the highlight of the trip was the mock weddings.
The Turkish delegation performed their traditional wedding, with a bride dressed in traditional white silk and serving “guests” plates of sweet, Turkish delight. The group from Singapore had to condense the traditional 12 day festivities and 11 formal ceremonies into a few minutes.
The bridal couple from Indonesia threw beetlenut leaves at each other and stepped on eggs for luck. Students from Vietnam performed with much giggling and laughter a traditional act where an apple is tied to a piece of string and the prospective bridal couple, now blindfolded, have to eat the apple.
South African students performed a traditional Zulu wedding, while the Japanese contingent dressed up in spectacular wedding costumes and performed their ceremony to traditional Japanese music.
The objective of the annual wilderness programme is to educate students on not only the importance of the environment and man’s impact on nature, but also to foster an understanding of different cultures.
“I loved the weddings. I learned so much, not only about my friends’ cultures but my own as well. This experience has given me a sense of pride and taught me to appreciate how unique my culture is. This entire experience has shown me that there is unity in diversity,” said Adriana Nordin Manan (17) from Kuala Lumpur.
Apart from the wedding ceremonies, the programme included nature walks, sleep-outs in the veld, ecology studies and wildlife orientation.
Here the students got to learn more about nature by studying plants and reptiles, doing water analyses, and even scratching around in animal dung. The entire programme is aimed at having fun, and students even got to mess around in a giant mud pool. Tertius van Zyl, marketing manager for Cathay Pacific’s Africa region, said the programme was born out of a “environmental responsibility and commitment to the people we fly”.
In the eight years the programme has been running, Cathay Pacific has sponsored over 350 children to attend the camp.
“I have learned so much about myself, but mostly I gained so much from other cultures,” said Turkish student Deniz Oran (16).
– The Teacher/M&G Media, Johannesburg, October 2001.