INSIDE

Features | 7

A PRAYER FOR KIDS Since the first issue of our newspaper, I have been covering numerous world issues that were related to children and teenagers either directly or indirectly. The people involved in these incidents were all fighting for their beliefs ...

Entertainment | 6

TEACHER OF THE MONTH: MS. HSUMs. Becky Hsu, or Dr. Hsu, is this year’s new English teacher, who is currently teaching two regular 12th grade English classes, one ACC 9th Grade English class, and one 8th grade writing class...

MUN ACHIEVEMENT This year, the Model United Nations Committee of Shanghai SMIC Private School set a new re-cord for their school. Not only did they break their record with the attendance of nine conferences...

Sharks Sports | 8

A GREAT END TO VARSITY SOCCER “Stay strong and remember to shout mine!” Coach Alyson Davis, the Varsity Girls’ soccer team coach, reminded the players during a group huddle on their last game of the season. SMIC...

XinLang

Editorials | 4

VOLUME XI, ISSUE VII THE SMIC PRIVATE SCHOOL, SHANGHAI MAY 2016

ScholarTHE SMIC PRIVATE SCHOOL

Sharks’Schedule

APRIL33 25 2-13 7 13 16-20 19

Senior Day

campus news | 2

REVIEW: ZOOTOPIA In 2013, Disney came up with a movie called Frozen, which became a huge hit. Frozen has made a total of $1.274 billion profit throughout the world, a huge number that no oth-er movies were able to reach...

On March 26th, 2016, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m., for the first time in its history, the SMIC Private School organized a TED event in the MHS first floor auditorium. TEDx, established by TED (Technology, Education, Design), encourages people to spontaneously organize speeches that share “ideas worth spreading”. “I actually don’t remember when I first got the idea of organizing a TEDxSMICSchool event. I guess it was something that I had always wanted to do, and doing it through my group’s Chinese Multimedia “helping others” project appeared to be, and proved itself to be, a great way to initiate a large project like this,” said Wesley Ding (10A), the leader of TEDxSMICSchool team.

Students Host First TEDxSMICSchoolAMBER ZHAOCampus News Editor

Photo Courtesy of Brisson Lam

APRIL

Report Card Distribution

2MAY

Labor Day Holiday

MAY

AP ExamsMAY

SATMAY

Spring Concert

MAY

Art FestivalMAY

Film Festival

Puzzling as the title sounds, Bâton Serpent III: Spur Track to the Left is indeed a mind blogging exhibition. Ranging from headless animal specimens to skeletons spanning the entire roof, the abstract looking items certainly gave the audience plenty to think about. YongLi Huang, the artist of this

exhibition, is known for abstract art that challenges traditional art concepts, comparing Eastern and Western cultures by setting up items that stand out to both of these cultures. As for this exhibition, Bâton Serpent III explores the fate of humanity using religious overtones, basically asking the question, “Which way will the

world turn? Right or left?” The term Bâton Serpent itself comes from the book Exodus in the Bible, where Moses turns a snake into a staff. Moses later faced a great decision, the same situation that YongLi Huang claims that the world is in right now.

Abstract Art Exhibition: Bâton SerpentBRISSON LAMENTMT Editor

Photo Courtesy of SMIC Wechat

For many years now, Model United Na-tions (MUN) has been a very important part of our school and our students’ ac-ademic life. This year, the Model United Nations Committee of Shanghai SMIC Private School set a new record for our school. Not only did they break a previous record by attending eight conferences, they now also boast 40 d e l e g a t e s . Mr. Scott Sand-ers, the director of MUN, is ex-tremely satisfied with the amazing work the Mod-el UN Program has achieved this year. “SMIC’s Model United Nations Program performed su-perbly this year. I think we’ve hon-ored, and even built on, a proud legacy that Mr. Busbee began nine years ago.” Although MUN took in a large amount of new members this year, the quali-ty of the SMIC MUN Program did not falter. Jes-sica Choi (10B), the new secre-tary of the MUN Program for next year, stated proudly, “This year’s MUN pro-gram was thor-oughly planned. Unlike last year, even new mem-bers had oppor-tunities to attend large-scale con-ferences.” Hui-jeong Jung (11B), the new vice pres-ident of MUN for next year, had a similar response: “The achieve-ments that our Program mem-bers have shown prove that we have great poten-tial, and I’m positive that they will continue to show excellence in the following years.” With the help of Mr. Sanders, the of-ficers, and veteran delegates, the new members have worked hard to improve their performance. Brian Ge (10B), a new member, said, “Mr. Sanders handles everything incredibly well, and it’s a fan-tastic activity for improving one’s public speaking and researching capabilities.” There may be a perception that MUN is not of great use unless one hopes to be-

come a politician. One may also think that the things MUN members achieve will not come in handy in the future. However, that is not at all the case. MUN also teaches stu-dents life skills such as staying organized, working with a team, and presenting your ideas in front of people. Brian commented, “You get to learn how to talk politics and

act formal, how to negotiate with other stu-dents, how to tie a tie, how to forget how to tie a tie, and how to manage your schedule so that you don’t drown in process paper rough drafts and scrapped resolutions and whatnot. All in all, it’s a brilliant experi-ence.” Furthermore, by attending confer-ences and traveling to different cities, the delegates gain social skills by communicat-ing with students from all over the world. Unfortunately, many of this year’s officers are graduating and moving on. “None of

this year’s success would have been possi-ble without the selfless, dedicated leader-ship of President Geenie Choy (12A), Vice President Jane Park (12a), and Secretaries Kate Lee (11C), HJ Jeong, and Vivien Su (11A). In my opinion, our five officers embody what makes this school great and they serve as a model for other academ-

ic Programs’ lead-ership,” replied Mr. Sanders with pride. Next year, even with the new officers, MUN will still strive for excellence as they did this year. “Kate, Jessica Choi (10B), and Wesley Ding......These three delegates represent the future of the SMIC Pri-vate School’s MUN Program.” Kate, the newly elected pres-ident, is extremely honored to receive this position and hopes to expand SMIC MUN. She said, “As president I recognize MUN as a growing community both inside and out-side SMIC...We are aiming to become the prestigious and notable school full of diligent delegates.” The new officers are all eager to improve SMIC MUN and bring it to its fullest potential. Vivien, the new secretary-gen-eral, expressed with great excitement, “I’m extremely ex-cited for our pro-gram next year. It will be SMIC’s third time hosting an in-ter-school MUN conference, and we have already begun planning. We hope to see our conference expand and bring pride to SMIC.” Kate commented, “In the upcoming year, I aim to make SMIC MUN travel outside

of China and attend in larger conferences.” Jessica Choi, the new MUN secretary, also expressed her eager-ness, saying, “It is my honor to be part of the officers next year, and I am truly looking forward to the upcoming SMICMUN III.” SMIC Model UN Program finished strong this year with the setting of nu-merous new records. With the new of-ficers and delegates, the Model UN Program looks forward to next year.

CAMPUS NEWSMay 2016

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SMIC MUN ‘15-16 Boasts a Record Setting Year Jane XiaStaff Reporter

SMIC MUN Logo adapted from UN logo by Vivien Su and Kate Lee

Infographic by Jane Xia

According to Wesley, The TEDxSMICSchool team is comprised of the executive team and the staff team. The staff team includes not only stu-dents from SMIC, but even a student from Con-cordia, all of whom set up the stage and welcomed people during the event. Meanwhile, the executive team, comprised of five students and two advi-sors, successfully recruited several sponsors and invited seven speakers: TY Chiu (SMIC CEO), Tony Chan (Coolpeds CEO), Raphael Lee (10A), Li Wei-Chun (Professional Dancer), Jesse Zhang (10A), Leonard Fok (COMAC Employee), and Ricky Ng-Adams (Hackerspace Founder Open col-

laboration). All the seven speeches were restricted to about 18 minutes and pertained to the theme “Heart of the World”. “Through our event and speakers, we wanted to plant the seed for change in our attendees. We wanted to tell our audience that they must not wait, but, rather, take the initi-ative to spark a change,” Wesley further stated. The limited 100 tickets were sold out in 20 minutes. The content of all speeches was based on person-al values, and were very thought-provoking. Tina Tsou (12B), who attended the event, said, “Our students and teachers worked really hard [and it paid] off. And I learned new perspectives from the

speakers.” During the event, many students vol-unteered to manage the reception area and to take photos for the event. After the event, many peo-ple stayed and communicated with the speakers. Next year, the TEDxSMICschool team hopes to “attract more attendees from the middle school student body.” Wesley expressed his expectations saying, “We would also like to make the event longer. Another plan is to have some activities in between talks rather than just a break. There are many ideas that we have, and I am very optimistic that our event will significantly improve next year.” See you next year, at TEDxSMICschool!

CAMPUS NEWSMay 2016

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TEDx SMICSchool Continued from Front PageAmber ZhaoCampus News Editor

WASC Visits SMIC to Decide on AccreditationAmber ZhaoCampus News Editor

On April 18th (to the 21st), three years after the first visit from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) on April 2003, SMIC finally re-ceived its second visit. According to its official web-site, WASC is a “world-renowned accrediting associ-ation and one of the six regional accrediting agencies in the United States, [and] works closely with the Of-fice of Overseas Schools under the U.S. Department of State”. Its motto: “We Are Student-Centered”.We had the chance to talk to Mr. Henry Canfield, who was on the WASC steering committee three years ago, about the process and how it’s going.“We’ve had seniors go to really amazing colleges al-ready. But, one of the things that being accredited means is that those colleges sort of know who we are. They don’t have to ask so many questions, or in-vestigate so much. They know what our program is, what our standards are (if we meet WASC Accred-itation standards). So, it’s a pretty high-level stand-ard bearing accreditation,” Mr. Canfield explained.Students were asked to greet the team with warm smiles and kind responses when they saw people from WASC wandering around the school. “There was a guy coming to our English class [and took pictures]. He was nice. When we looked up, he said ‘hi’ and ‘sorry’,” said Rose Min (12B), comment-ing on her encounter with the WASC committees.“We’ve [had] WASC-candidate status for about three years, so it’s been a long, long process.” Mr. Canfield further described the preparations that

the school has done for the accreditation. “One of the big things that the Admin team [has done the] last couple of months is put together the big self study—almost 300 pages—basically documenta-tion about what everyone has been doing. They [had] to put it all together to give it to WASC, so they [WASC] know what to look for, what to ask about, and to see how much progress we’ve made.” “The self study we did is based on three years of in-put from staff, parents/guardians, and students. It involves our whole school community,” Dr. Kelley Ridings expanded on the “big self study report”. The responses from students varied dramatical-ly from grade to grade. “It is good for the school, but it has nothing to do with me. It only benefits next year’s applicants,” said several anonymous seniors. “I think last year, we sort of got some rec-ognition from the organization. But still, com-pared to SAS and Concordia, our school is still not really well-known by colleges and universi-ties,” Angela Ou (11C) pointed out. However, several sophomores responded optimistically that they believe this may help them apply for colleges.“The progress that the school has made these last two years is pretty amazing, honestly. New things, facilities, and the ways the school func-tions has improved immeasurably, I think,” Mr. Canfield concluded positively. “This is a huge moment for our school of true historical sig-nificance for who we are.” Dr. Ridings stated.

Photo Courtesy of Yearbook Team

Photo Courtesy of Amber Zhao

Tony Chan, CEO of Coolpeds, speaksTEDx team proud of their work

EDITORIALMay 2016

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OPINION/ARTSMay 2016

XinLang Scholar 5

TheXinLang Scholar

Printed Monthly, except Feb, July, August. Printed by QiuZhi Print, Shanghai

Created by the Journalism Class at the SMIC Private School, 169 QingTong Rd., Pudong New Area,

Shanghai, China, 201203

WENDY PARK, Co-Editor in Chiefwendyseyeon@hotmail.com

133-1168-7125SALLY PARK, Co-Editor in Chief

sallysjpark@outlook.kr186-1697-1733

JEFF BOLDT, Faculty Advisorjeff_boldt@smicschool.com

AMBER ZHAO, ENTMT Editorhappyamber2013@163.comBRISSON LAM YAT SUM,

Campus News Editorbrisson.lam@hotmail.com

KATIE HOANG, Features Editorlovebeingkatie@yahoo.com

MICHAEL CHEN, Sports Editorchenmuen@sina.com

LANNIE DENG, Staff Reporterlannie-deng@hotmail.com

IRENE CHAN, Staff Reporterblinkxs@outlook.com

JANE XIA, Staff Reporterjane_200049@hotmail.comKEN KIM, Staff Reporter

mestink@naver.com

WENDY PARKCo-Editor in Chief

ENTERTAINMENTMay 2016

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Photo courtesy of wegotthisdiscovered.com

Zootopia is Set to Break All of Frozen’s RecordsKen KimStaff Reporter

Exhibition Story Con-tinued from Page One

In 2013, Disney came up with a movie called Frozen, which became a huge hit. Frozen has made a total of $1.274 billion profit throughout the world, a huge number that no other movies were able to reach. However, numerous people predict-ed that the movie released on March 4th of 2016, would finally break the record. Zootopia did just that. And a month after its release, it had already made $812.1 million in worldwide profits, while Frozen recorded just $693.4 million. So, what is so great that all these people are crazy about?

The movie Zootopia features a story of a bunny named Judy Hopps, who wishes to become a po-lice officer. Throughout the film, with a fox named Nick Wilde, she tries to save Zootopia by solving a mystery that’s happening in the city. Judy gets con-tinuously discriminated against throughout her life, due to the fact that her family plants carrots, but she doesn’t care. This theme of breaking the status quo is probably the reason why people worldwide are so fervent to watch it, teaching them that they can live outside the box and contribute to society in

their own ways. At least that is how some students in SMIC feel. As Vivien Su (11B) said, “I think it might be one of my favorites. It is funny, and it teaches a relevant lesson for our world today. I think it is something both kids and adults should watch.” The movie Zootopia is both hilarious and filled with satire, and is currently a big hit. People across the globe are still eager to watch it, and it will be interesting to see whether this movie will be able to break the box office records set by Frozen.

Brisson LamENTMT Editor

Throughout the entire exhibition, the items for display all serve the audience food for thought, putting them into contemplation over the abstract figures. Giant footprints in cement, empty milk boxes scat-tered on the ground, and models of puppets controlling a puppet con-trolling a puppet would most likely make anyone scratch their heads and leave them with questions. For example, there is a full size train carriage in which one end is suspended in the air, with its front wheels on its tracks and headless animal specimens everywhere. The

track in front of the train leads to two directions. This art piece could be understood as representing the uncertainty of the future, or even the choices we are all faced with. But at the same time, headless an-imals are leading the train, further raising the uncertainness of the path. This exhibition will be available to the public in the Shanghai Con-temporary Art Museum (in Puxi) until June 19th. The admission fee is only 20 RMB; those who like to ponder abstract art are strong-ly recommended to go and see it.

Infographic by Brisson Lam

Photo courtesy of Brisson LamReligious figure

FEATURESMay 2016

XinLang Scholar7

MICHAEL CHENFeatures Editor

ENV Club Goes to Inner MongoliaLANNIE DENGStaff Reporter

During the Tomb Sweeping holiday, nine Environ-mental Club members and their chaperone, Dr. Pete Griffin, traveled to Inner Mongolia for the Million Tree Project (MTP). The members included: Victo-ria Liu (10B), Jonathan Li (11A), Xuxiang Chen (11A), Jesse Zhang (10B), Irene Chan (10B), Lan-nie Deng (10B), Yaya Yu (10C), Joy Chang (9C), and Brisson Lam (12B). The MTP was started by the Roots & Shoots Company which aims to both raise awareness of deforestation and plant a million trees in Inner Mongolia. Though the goal of a million trees was reached in 2015, the project is now aiming at planting a second million. This year, SMIC’s En-vironmental Club broke its past fundraising records and successfully raised money for 3002 trees (75,050 RMB) with the help of our Elementary School. Bris-son, the club’s president, said, “I was absolutely sur-prised that we were able to fundraise over 3000 trees and manage to bring ten people to the planting trip. At the start of the year, I set my goal to 2000 trees and I doubted if we could even achieve that.” He fur-

ther stated, “I really thank everyone who helped us in achieving this goal—especially my club members who put in so much effort in making this possible.” Together with other schools, and a few Roots & Shoots representatives, the Environmental Club spent the first and last day traveling from Shenyang to Eastern Inner Mongolia and then back. During their time in Inner Mongolia, the members planted pine trees under cold winds in Bianjie village, vis-ited the desert, and pruned old trees in Liujiazi from previous years. Jesse Zhang, one of the students who went on the trip, commented on his experience: “I really enjoyed being a part of this [project] and helping our planet. [The trip] was short but we did learn about how troubling a desert can be for the peo-ple and what will happen if we don’t take action.” The Environmental Club takes part in the Mil-lion Tree Project every year and starts fundraising from around December to March. Make sure to help out next year if you see members raising money!

Photos Courtesy of Roots and Shoots and Victoria LiuEnvironmental Club Members in

Hanna MacArthur Honored with Monthly Student Award

At the entrance of MHS building, Hanna MacAr-thur’s (7C) picture is posted on the bulletin board. She is our new honorable stellar student of the month. Twelve year old Hanna MacArthur was born in Alabama, United States, and started studying at SMIC since 1st grade. It’s noteworthy that she first studied in the Chinese Track for three years be-fore moving to the English Track. It wasn’t be-cause her English was bad but because this was one way of improving her Chinese language skills. According to Mrs. Vistacion Dimaandal, Han-na’s Life Science teacher, she is definitely the type you want to work with in a group project, or the type teachers really enjoy having as a student. “[Her grade] is above average—high Bs—and she’s good at articulating herself in class, [she’s] very active in group works, and her classmates all love her.”

From various sources, she appears to be outgoing and is confident at expressing ideas. Hanna herself also expressed her enjoyment in coordinating tasks in group projects, as she said, “In little things, like group project, I like to organize. Usually, I’m the one who tells people what each person is going to do, and I usually organize the information and the roles”. Hanna is not only notable in classrooms and with academics, she’s also devoted to athletics. It may be unknown to many that Ms. MacArthur is very good at gymnastics, which she has been working on for seven years now. “At the beginning, I just liked doing front-rolls, and my parents enrolled me into one of the gymnastics classes. First I wasn’t very serious, but then I got really interested in it… and I decided that I wanted to take this as a seri-ous sport,” Hanna said. Besides gymnastics, Han-na is also interested in basketball and track. She currently plays on the JV Girls Basketball team. When asked about her visions for the future, Hanna answered with little hesitation that she likes marine biology very much. She traces her interests back to her experience of diving along the Australian coast, where she saw scores of amazing marine creatures. Overall, Hanna is an amiable and generally outgo-ing person with passions and goals. There’s no doubt that she is a well-deserving the student of the month.

Ms. Becky Hsu, or Dr. Hsu, is a first year English teacher here at SMIC, and is current-ly teaching two regular 12th grade English classes, one ACC 9th grade English class, and one 8th grade writing class. “Light-heart-ed”, “funny”, and “spirited”, are just some of the words that may pop up in your mind when you first meet her. In fact, students who know her almost unanimously say pos-itive things about her. “[She’s] easy-go-ing—more like a friend of yours instead of a teacher, and you can talk to her about things outside the class,” said Rose Min (12B) who’s in Ms. Hsu’s 12th grade class. Cin-dy Chang (12A), another student from the same class, gave her impression on Ms. Hsu: “[I feel that] she speaks in a confident way.” In class, she tends to pose questions and let the students discuss in groups; in some cases, she gives acting assignments as ma-jor projects. The class atmosphere is loose, similar to what you might find in college. However, outside the classroom, we don’t know much about our amiable English teach-er. One proof is, believe it or not, that she was quite surprised to hear that many students re-garded her as nice. “I had no idea. I thought I was really successful at being tough and mean! It must be my smile. Or my extremely belli-cose self,” Ms. Hsu admitted in her interview. To give a bit of background, Ms Hsu is a Chi-nese American, whose both parents are native Chinese speakers, though Ms. Hsu confessed that her Chinese proficiency is at the “conver-sational” level. She obtained both a Bachelor of Arts and a PhD in English at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB). Her prior job was at University of Michigan-Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute, teaching liter-ature, English reading and writing, and techni-cal communication. The campus is located in the Min Hang district (distant suburban Shang-hai), and was one of her reasons to relocate to SMIC. According to her, she also chose SMIC to “teach literature” to “smart kids…which you don’t always find very often,” Ms. Hsu later added. Personally, Ms. Hsu has a few life goals to accomplish, which includes “writ-ing a book” and “retiring somewhere where there will be no immediate water shortage.” In the end, Ms. Hsu wanted to say to her students: “Be serious, and sweet!” Sweet and serious, that’s exactly who she is.

Teacher of the Month: M

s. Becky H

su

Teacher of the Month: Ms. Becky HsuMICHAEL CHENFeatures Editor

Photo Courtesy of Michael Chen

Student of the Month: Hanna MacArthur

Photo Courtesy of Michael Chen

SHARK SPORTSMay 2016

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Katie Hoang Sports Editor

A Great End to Varsity Soccer

“Stay strong and remember to shout mine!” Coach Alyson Davies, the Varsity Girls’ soc-cer team coach, reminded the players during a group huddle on their last game of the season. The Lady Sharks ended their soccer season on April 13th at our SMIC field with the sun shining brightly on everyone. This tournament includ-ed schools like SAS Pudong (PD), SAS Puxi, Suzhou, and the German school. The girls had three games in total that day: German, Suzhou, and SAS PD. The first game started out slowly but the team gradually picked up the pace. “In terms of individual players, they have done re-ally well in that game, it is just that the luck did not fall on our side when the opportunity was there,” said Coach Ieuan Tallany, the co-coach of the team. Though the score for the first game was 5-1, the coaches believed that they really should have ended at 3-2. “Our levels were pret-ty similar; it is just that they were luckier on their passes and that led to their goals,” comment-ed Hui Jeong Jung (11B), one of the players. The second game started out a lot better than the first. The whole team was on a roll, mostly play-ing on the opponent’s side of the field. Our play-ers had a lot of near shots, only barely missing the

goal. The final score was 3-2, with Suzhou as the winning team. For the last game, not only chance was on our side, but the skills were also in fa-vor of our team. We beat SAS Pudong by a score of 2-0. “We played pretty well this game and we were happy with the score. I would say our communication is what caused our success,” said Tweety Lin (10C), a player for the Lady Sharks. As the tournament came to an end, this season went along with it. It was a memorable season, especially for seniors Sophie Lee (12B), Geen-ie Choy (12A), and Irene Hsuing (12A). “We scored the most goals this season than any other in the last four years and I think that is evidence of our team’s improvement,” said co-captain Geenie. This improvement was also echoed by the coaches. “There were players at the begin-ning of the season with a little weakness, but they really turned it around and became real-ly good players, players we can depend on,” Coach Davies reflected. The girls stayed till 5:30 every day for five weeks working very hard for every game, fighting their way through the entire season to improve, and did exactly that.

Irene Chan Staff Reporter

Middle School Basketball Season in Full Swing

After the spectacular badminton, track, and soc-cer season in quarter 3, the last quarter welcomes the final season of the year: MS Basketball. Being the last sport of the year, there is much anticipa-tion for the teams, and they have all been training hard in preparation to dominate the CISSA floor. The first games of the season took place on April 19th. Both D1 and D2 boys played exceptional-ly well and won their games. The girls also con-tinue to train for their upcoming games. “I once

read this quote from somewhere I can quite re-member. It says ‘somewhere behind the athlete you’ve become, the hours of practice, the coach-es who push you, and the fans who cheer for you, is the little girl who fell in love with the sport and never looked back. Play for her.’ I see the joy and passion in our MS basketball girls at every practice and every game. And it’s really good to be part of that,” offered Coach Joanna Tung.

“My hopes and goals for this season are for the kids to have fun while they build their skills and character ... if they focus on building winning habits, they’ll have an opportunity to win for a longer time in the future and develop into well

rounded adults.”

- Brian Bates, Athletics Coordinator

Inforgraphic created by Katie Hoang

Photo courtesy of Katie Hoang

Schedule Courtesy of Coach Bates