A student exchange programme is helping forge ties between the unlikeliest of partners, Hong Kong and Iceland. Two students share their experiences on pristine snowfields and in a high-rise Legoland
SNOW-CLAD ICELAND IS a country of epic sagas, volcanoes, dark winters and long summer nights.
The sparsely populated northern European country couldn't be more different from the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong. Yet it proved to be a valuable learning ground for the first local student to go there on an educational exchange scheme.
Belle Yiu, now 19, learnt about overseas exchanges from a friend who had been to New Zealand. Then she heard about scholarships for those visiting countries that had not hosted Hong Kong students on the scheme before.
As the first student to participate in an exchange to Iceland organised by the international non-profit organisation AFS Intercultural Exchanges, she benefited from a full scholarship - worth $63,000 - because of her outstanding performance and financial situation. Forty per cent of Hong Kong AFS students receive a scholarship or financial aid, funded from corporate sponsors, to help them extend their horizons overseas. There currently 134 on exchange out of Hong Kong, in countries ranging from Argentina to Austria.
AFS arranged an orientation camp for students heading overseas with returnees from previous exchanges giving advice. Belle learnt about her host family - three daughters aged 12, 19 and 20, regional bank manager dad and economist mum - quite a change from her family of mother and 12-year-old brother Tommy. The Form Five graduate didn't know much Icelandic before she arrived in the island nation where winter nights last nearly 24 hours and summer days nearly as long. She couldn't even find a Cantonese-Icelandic dictionary, but the lack of information about the country made her curious.
