year 10 ideals challenge week to Mai Chau. RISS - Renaissance International School Saigon. Offers from pre-school to secondary curriculum under the structure of the British system. Located in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

1. M AI CHAU 2011
Volume 1, Issue 1 14—18 March 2011
Well done and welcome back
the Amazing Year 8 team
Welcome back Year 8 students. Wasn't our IDEALS
trip amazing… it certainly lived up to its name—it
was AN AMAZING RACE. We had lots of fun times
and special moments during the week.
Inside this magazine you will find articles, written by
you—the students, recalling all the special moments
that we had during our week in Mai Chau. I am sure
that each one of you will have your own special
memory of it. Of the teachers there were so many
that we couldn't possibly pick a favourite one. Could
it have been:
Inside this issue:
The amazing team on the Amazing Race Off to Mai Chau Page 2
Treasure Hunt Page 3
 Ms Lily watching Mr Tome and Mr Tony having to sample the
delicious foods that the students had made The Bonfire Page 4
 Watching the students get more paint on themselves and the floor Painting Competition Page 5
than on the walls, shelves and school gate. Cooking Competition Page 6
 Watching the students strut their stuff down the cat walk during the
fashion show Fashion Show Page 7
 Seeing everyone digging in the mud after the raining overnight Some Fun Memories Page 8
 Snuggling under the blankets and drinking hot milo while each group Tree Planting Page 9
produced their drama productions Brocading Page 10
Animal Hunting Page 11
Whatever is your favourite, we all agreed that the students behaved
extremely well, excelled in everything that they did, tried new things— Hair Competition Page 12
whether it was an activity or foods, participated in the activities achiev- The Amazing Race Page 13
ing the IDEALS skills and made this field trip one of the best ones ever.
Drama Page 14
Our Farewell Party Page 15
Our Final Day Page 16

2. Page 2 Mai Chau 2011
We‘re off to Mai Chau
By Zachary Keffer and Tom Ho
3 awesome teachers, 33 cool kids and a very funny tour guide
were all very excited for the adventure to Mai Chau. At 3
o‘clock in the morning, before the first ray of sunlight touched
the city, all 33 students woke up very excited, expecting a trip
that will ―wow‖ them. They came to school ready for whatever
was waiting for them in Mai Chau. The teachers were very
busy counting the number of students and also sorting out all
the other information which the students needed to know
before, during and after the trip. At the airport, we all waited to
be checked in and even though we were all tired of the short
sleep that we had that night we were all very excited about the
forthcoming trip. During the flight, our group filled up most
Very excited about our adventure
part of the plane. It was very noisy with 33 excited students on
board who wanted to chat to their friends rather than try and
sleep. I don't think that the other passengers realized that they
were going to board plane a very noisy plane so early in the
morning. When we got to Hanoi we then had to collect our bags
and board the bus which was to take us to Mai Chau. It was a very
long bus journey and soon most of us were catching up on our
sleep that we had missed during the night.
When we got to Mai Chau it was nice to see the countryside and
breathe in the fresh air, especially after the long journey. We
found where we were sleeping and unpacked our bags. We then
Hanging about at the airport were called in to have some lunch to fill our empty tummies ready
for our flight for the week‘s adventure.
―The funniest thing I saw today was seeing Polly falling down
the stairs, Ms Lily shouting to be careful and about 2 minutes
later Angie fell down the stairs followed by me.‖
Katie
―The funniest thing I saw today was Mr Tome having his hands in-
side his clothes trying to keep warm as he didn't bring enough
warm clothes .‖
Ye Jin

3. Volume 1, Issue 1 Page 3
Treasure Hunt
By Hiro Cao and Thy Bui
Year 8‘s Field Trip to Mai Chau was amazing!
We first arrived at the home stay and found where we were
sleeping. After unpacking our bags and deciding who was
sleeping where we then went off to have some lunch. I think
that most of us were too tired to eat a lot of lunch. Afterwards
we got told that we were going to start our first adventure. The
TREASURE HUNT!!
Our challenge was to look for things like traditional clothes,
dolls, some snacks, watermelon, water bottles,…
Off to find some treasure!
We were split into groups. We were in Ms. Lily‘s Group. Our
groups were called the Super Six and Jasth. While we were
on our way to find the treasure items, we had a chance to
enjoy the view of the beautiful countryside and we got to
understand more about each other!
2 members of our group found 2 treasure items. It was tiring
returning back to our home stay but we had a lot of fun. We
learnt much about communication and teamwork.
―Do we have the map upside down? Can
anyone see the treasure?‖
―The funniest thing I heard
today was ―Pick up the father‖
and I was the father! ―
Jeong Seop
―The funniest thing I saw today was
Anthony falling into dirty water,
and then 2 minutes later Zach fall-
ing into the pond trying to find the
treasure.‖
Andy

4. Page 4 Mai Chau 2011
The Bonfire
By Angie Le and Song Eun Lee
On the first day of IDEALS week we participated in a bonfire activity. We
were really glad there was a bonfire because Mai Chau was extremely cold
compared to Ho Chi Minh City. There were a lot of activities and games to
get us warmed up, and it was fun.
We first had to split ourselves up into 6 groups. These included
Fantastic 5 : Angie (leader), Jason, Nhiem, David and Zach
G6: Viet Anh (leader) Katie, Polly, Anthony, Yira
and Jin Sol (8LH)
The Jasth : Tom (leader), Hiro, Sharon, Angel and Jun Ho
What letter is this?
The Epic : Andy (leader), Huy, Quan, Nana, Tom Lim and Jung
Bin
Super 6 : Ye Jin (leader), Jeany, Dan, Thy, Hoang Anh and Khoi
Power Ranger: Seong Hwan (leader), Su Ung, JinSol (8CG), Song Eun and Jeong Seop
The first activity we had to do was to make a big circle around the bonfire
and start singing different songs to warm up our throats and our bodies.
We sang a lot of songs in 3 different languages, English, Vietnamese and
Korean. After the singing we then had to get into groups of three, and each
person volunteered to be either the ―mummy‖, ―daddy‖ or the ―baby‖. We
then had to take it in turns to carry the a character. It was so funny trying
to see the ―baby‖ trying to lift the ―mummy‖ and the ―daddy‖. The next
activity meant that we had to use our bodies to make different letters of
the alphabet. It was quite hard to do, but with our team members working
together, we did it. The best activity during the evening was when 6
students went up and to have stickers
stuck on to their bodies. Then another
group of 6 students, from each of the
Trying to lift the ―Daddy‖ teams, came up and were blindfold.
The rest of the groups had to
communicate with the person
blindfolded to tell them where the stickers were, on their team mates.
The winners were the first team who managed to take off all the
stickers from their partners. It was extremely fun to watch.
―I know there is a sticker
here somewhere.‖
At the end of the bonfire we got to eat sweet potatoes and potatoes. It
was delicious, the out side was burnt and over-cooked but inside was sweet and hot. A lot of people choose
to eat the sweet potatoes rather than fresh potatoes because there was so much flavor in them.

5. Volume 1, Issue 1 Page 5
Painting Competition
By Dan Vo and Katie Le
The second day was a wet and cold day. We went straight to the
‗Chieng Chau‘ Secondary School after having a breakfast with
bread and hot cocoa. After arriving there, we met the Head of the
School and were given out the instructions: We were divided into 3
groups. One group was chosen to paint the classroom walls, the
second group would paint the bookshelves and the third group
would paint the school gate. My group was given the classroom to
paint. Each of us got a mop and buckets of yellow paint. We started
to paint the wall in yellow. It
was a hard work at times and
it took us more than 2 hours to Sharon hard at work
finished one classroom, painting a wall
even with Mr. Tome, Mr. Tony and Ms. Lily‘s help. It didn't help be-
cause we managed to get most of the paint on the floor rather than the
walls. Every time we got paint on the brushes the paint would slide
down the paint brushes and onto our hands and then onto the floor. At
the beginning we got more paint on ourselves than on the wall. At the
end I think that we had done a great job in my opinion. All of us
Mr Tome helped us to got paint all over our clothes but we had had an extremely fun time
clean up afterwards together. Mai Chau Rocks!

6. Page 6 Mai Chau 2011
Cooking Competition
By Jung Bin Huh and Thinh Doan
On Tuesday afternoon, the students got to experience
what it was like to cook some authentic Vietnamese
dishes. Jung Bin and Thinh report on their
experiences.
Thinh and I were in the same team with Tom Lim,
Quan, Andy (our team leader) and Huy.
I was very excited about the cooking competition
because I liked cooking but didn‘t have much Thinh expertly cooking the food
experience of cooking. Thinh was also excited about
the cooking competition because this was the first time she had made food by herself Firstly we had to
pick a tam leader and the group chose Andy. A few minutes later, a woman chef taught each of the group
leaders how to cook some Vietnamese food. I was a bit worried because our team leader was a boy who
didn‘t know how to cook. I bet Thinh felt the same
way just like me.
As I expected, Andy couldn‘t remember the recipe
very well so he had to ask the other teams for some
help. We then began making food.
Andy divided the team into half; Andy, Tom Lim,
Thinh and I rolled the Banh Cuon and Quan and Huy
fried the Cha Ca.
Jung Bin preparing to cook
Hilariously, I heard that someone in Angie‘s group
dropped a bit of meat on the ground. A puppy, who
had smelt the meat, came over to eat the food that had been dropped which then frightened Thy, who
went off screaming.
We then made some decorations on our ‗productions‘. Eventually, we won the prize for the ‗Greatest
Food Looking‘. However, the ‗Most Tasteful Dishes‘ went to the Fantastic 5 which was Angie‘s group.

7. Volume 1, Issue 1 Page 7
Fashion Show
By Tom Lim and Jeong Seop Lee
On our second evening of our Mai Chau trip, we
entered into a fashion show, where we dressed up in
traditional Vietnamese clothes. We were divided into 6
groups and Jeong Seop who was in Power Ranger
group volunteered to dress up in the fashion show.
There were 12 volunteers from the 6 groups. Jeong
Seop modeled with his partner Jin Sol who was very
attractive girl. They all wore Mai Chau traditional
clothes and they showed off their beautiful clothes by
walking up and down the pretend cat walk doing lots
of different poses. After they performed each of the
The 12 fashion show models
judges had to give a mark and comment on their
performance. At the end of the evening Jeong Seop
and Jin Sol was picked as the loveliest partners from
the 12 volunteers. There were lots of great models and
another one which got really good comments were
Yi Ra and Anthony‘s performance. When they got to
the end of the walk way they made a heart signal with
their arms. It looked very romantic. Everyone did their
best and we all had a great time.
Yi Ra and Anthony on the catwalk
―The funniest thing I saw today was Khoi wearing the teacher‘s
clothes that were too big for him as all his clothes were wet or dirty.‖
Hoang Anh
―The funniest thing I
heard today Jeong
Seop proposing to
Jung Bin‖
Yi Ra

8. Page 8 Mai Chau 2011
Some fun memories

9. Volume 1, Issue 1 Page 9
Tree Planting
By Sharon Ly and Jeany Vu
During the activities that was been occurred on the field trip, there
was an activity called ―Planting Trees For The Local School.‖
When we got to the school, it had been raining overnight so the
ground was very muddy. We had to split ourselves in to our
groups and then each group had to plant 20 tree saplings each.
Digging up the ground was hard work since the dirt was all wet
and muddy due to the weather but we also have a lot of fun. We
all got tired and covered in mud but we were glad to do some
thing that was worth it and useful for the school. During the
digging process we all had to search for spaces to plant the trees
The Epic – ready to go digging and we almost ran out of space. At the end of the morning, in to-
tal, we planted more than 120 tree saplings and that made us very
glad and proud of ourselves. At the end all of our shoes and clothes were all wet and muddy. The local
school invited us inside to rest and be entertained by the students and teachers who had put on a dancing
show for us to watch. We then returned the entertainment by singing to them. We chose the song called
‗Just the way you are‘. Even though we didn't really have time to practice the singing was quite good
because almost all of us remembered the songs lyrics and we sang it out loudly. After the singing, we
went to the principal‘s meeting room for some food and drink. The Principal gave us a gift of a picture of
Mai Chau and its surrounding areas to say thank you for our help.
The funniest thing I saw today
was Huy doing hula hoops in
front of the girls in the local
school.
Hiro
―The funniest thing I saw today
was seeing my shoes stuck with
lots of dirt which made me taller
and heavier.‖
Jason

10. Page 10 Mai Chau 2011
Brocading
By Jun Ho Choi and Huy Truong
On Wednesday evening 2 local women came into our base
camp. They were bought in to come and show us how the
local people made money from tourists by brocading.
Brocading is a form of sewing. The women had prepared for
us to make some book marks from sewing a piece of material.
We split into our groups that we had been working with all
week. The leader of the group had to go to the front and learn
how to sew. They then had to come back to their groups and
show the rest of the students what they had to make.
Each group were given some needles, material and thread. It
―How do you sew a heart shape again?‖ was really hard to make. The women had told us to sew the
shape of a heart onto the material. We tried our best. A few
people had managed to sew a really beautifully designed heart whereas for other students, it was really
hard as we kept pricking our fingers with the needles.
Even though brocade was really hard for me, it was al-
so amusing and a lot of fun! It also gave some lessons
in life because for me it was like solving a problem
and we always need to solve problems in our life.
Sewing needs a lot of concentration
―Ouc
h too‖
h‖
uc
―O

11. Volume 1, Issue 1 Page 11
Animal Hunting
By NhiemTran, David Nguyen and Quan Phan
Hello we are the Fantastic 5, On Thursday our tour guide told us
that we were going animal hunting. Mr Tome was very scared.
But before we could go hunting they gave each group a paper
animal and some face paints. We had to paint our faces so that we
looked like the animal we were hunting. There were six animals in
total, gorilla, tiger, lion, rhino, hippo and crocodile. We had fun
painting each other‘s faces.
We then had to
into the forest to
look for the Andy ready to go hunting
different animals.
If we found the animal for our team then we would win 1
point, but if we found another animal for another team
then that meant that we had stopped the other team from
winning any points. This race was fun because even
though it was raining and all the animals were hidden in
very hard places, everybody was very excited. The race
was very long and tiring but everyone tried their best to
Polly found an elephant finish the race. At the end, the group Epic won the game
by finding 3 tigers. The Fantastic 5 came second place.
Nhiem and Andy were the most excited ones from the groups. They found lots of animal for their teams.
This was the best time during the trip. The landscape was excellent. This race was fun because they were
paper animals and not the real ones. Epic found lots of animals but a lot of them were rhinos and as their
animal they were looking for was a tiger, that meant that the other groups lost lot of point. It was the same
for the Fantastic 5 who found 6 elephants when they were suppose to be finding King Kong.. The race
ended and everybody enjoyed it very much.

12. Page 12 Mai Chau 2011
―The funniest thing I saw
today was Jason with his hair
greased down with hair gel.‖
Zach
Hair Competition
By Viet Anh Lien and Jason Thai
On the IDEALS week to Mai Chau, a hair
competition was organized for the six groups to
show their talents on hairdressing. Each group
choose a model for them to do some
―decorations‖ on the hair. Each team got some
hair gel and a comb to fix and design the mod-
el‘s hair style. There were 6 models that repre-
sented each group. Most groups wanted to cre-
ate a rambutant head. Angie group were the
only group who attempted the ―Chairman style
hair‖. Jason was the victim of the ―professional
hair designer‖: Ms Lily used the idea of her
sister‘s hair style to recreate this ―masterpiece‖.
To create the hair the group used ¾ of the hair
gel bottle on Jason‘s head. The models then
had to go on the stage and model their hair
styles. Jason was expecting to get the lowest, A hair raisingly fun competition
but it turned out that he got the highest score of
all. The judges were the three teachers that went with us on the trip. They were Ms. Lily, Mr.Tome and
Mr. Tony. Every group tried their best to have the ―best hair‖ for their team so they could win and also
gain some points for their team. We tried to make many weird and funny styles to gain more points. The
group ―G6‖ has the lowest mark. We had a lot of fun then and not one that we can easily forget.

13. Volume 1, Issue 1 Page 13
The Amazing Race
By Anthony Truong and Andy Hau
During this school field trip, we gained a lot of experiences throughout the week. Our school has provided
us a wonderful and amazing field trip.
On the last day of the field trip, we had the Amazing Race activities. However, due to amount of rainfall
we had over the week, our teachers and tour guides decided to change the race to an Indoor Amazing
Race.
During our first activity, we got into groups of 5 or 6. We had to collect a coded message for each team.
We had to figure out what the code was and followed the instructions. In the message that we had done, it
said we should name our group and make a poster for the name of the group.
After half an hour, we had 6 colourful posters from each of the groups. Then, each group had to present
and describe the poster to their classmates and teachers. Everyone in the group had to participate in this
activity.
We then had other tasks to do such as:
 Hair Competition
 Drama
 Charades
 Guess the famous person
Each of the activities required teamwork and good communication between each person. Even though the
day was ruined by the weather, we still all had a really good time and have never laughed so much before.
―The funniest thing I saw today was watching Mr
Tome cleaning up the dishes at dinner time because
Mr Tony said that if anyone was not walking in a
straight line along the road would have to clear the
tables. Mr Tome didn't hear him and stepped out on
to the road and then got told off by Mr Tony.‖
Khoi

14. Page 14 Mai Chau 2011
―The funniest thing I
heard today Jeong Seop
proposing to Jung Bin‖
Yi Ra
―The funniest thing I saw
today was Zach acting
when he had to pretend to
be Ms Lily.‖
Seong Hwan
Drama
By Khoi Pham and Hoang Anh Nguyen
Hoang Anh and I were in the Super Six. One of the
activities we did in Mai Chau was to produce a short
drama based on the activities that we had done that
week. It was very funny and we could make up some
of our own events. Hoang Anh and Dan were the
funniest because they danced and acted in a very
funny way. They were acting out the fashion show
that we had the day before. Song Eun kept hopping
on one foot pretending to be Ms Lily.
As it had to be a short play we rushed through ours.
It was also cold that day so it was hard to act in the
play. The narrator kept speeding up the story so the Our impressive acting skills
actors had to act out the scene very quickly which
made it funnier. The other groups were also
fantastic. The funniest group was the Fantastic 5. In one scene Jason was checking his bag for everything
that he had lost. Whilst checking the bag he said: ―Where is my diary, where is my comic, where is my
PSP, and my clothes, I forgot everything!‖ ―Oh! This is not my bag.‖ Everybody fell about laughing. We
learnt a lot of things from the drama and how we can improve on our acting skills.

15. Volume 1, Issue 1 Page 15
Farewell Party
By Polly Huynh and Angel Ly
Hello our names are Polly and Angel. We are going to tell you
about our fun field trip to Mai Chau. On the last night we
were there, the home stay had put on a farewell party for us. It
was really god fun. We had 4 people who had a birthday in
March and they were: Thy, Hiro, Thinh and Seong Hwan The
tour guides had bought them a cake to help them celebrate.
Before the party we all sang ―Happy birthday‖ to them and
they all cut the cake, so that we could eat it afterwards.
The food at the party was
so good. Everybody
loved the spaghetti. As
soon as it came out of the
―Happy Birthday everybody‖ kitchen everybody had
their bowls ready in their
hands to take it. Khoi managed to get the biggest bowl and that was
his second helpings.
After the lovely dinner Polly and I had to clean up the tables but then
a puppy dog ran past the tables and scared Polly, which made her
jump up and then land on the cake. Everyone laughed. It was such
good fun on our last night. After dinner the homestay had arranged
for us to watch some traditional dancing. We then got to have a got
at it too, but I don't think that we were as good as they were, we
needed more time to practice. We were sorry that we had to come
home. Oh dear Polly sat on the cake
―The funniest thing I saw today
was Polly sitting on the cake
trying to get away from the pup-
py.‖
Thinh
―The funniest thing I saw today
one of the ladies bought a big
bowl of noodles out of the kitch-
en and then it was all gone in 6
seconds.‖
Jung Bin

16. Page 16 Mai Chau 2011
Our Final Day
By Jin Sol Jang and Yi Ra Lee
At 6:30am, all the girls woke up as usual, with Ms. Lily
telling us to get out of bed. We washed our face with
cold water and went down for breakfast. After finishing
the last breakfast in Mai Chau, we went up to tidy the
room before we got back on the bus to take us to the
airport. We packed our bags and our luggage. We all
went down to the dining room to meet up with everyone
else. Mr. Tony announced that it would be colder in
Ha Noi because it rained overnight. While we were
waiting for the bus we took pictures of each other, the
home stay and the clouds on the mountains, which were
very beautiful. The bus came and we rode on it. After 4
hours on the bus, we arrived at airport. Finally, we flew Beautiful Mai Chau where we stayed
on the airplane, fly back to Ho Chi Minh City, where our
parents were waiting for us. We all loved this trip, even
though it was freezing cold and we found it hard to wake
up, we still enjoyed all the events. We will never forget
this trip.
By Jin Sol Kim and Ye JinYu
Now we are going back to home. The weather was fine with a few clouds
in the sky. We had a lot of fun in Mai Chau. Even though we didn‘t do
kayaking, we all still enjoyed our trip. We had breakfast at seven thirty
and packed our luggage. We said bye~ to our tour guides. It was bit sad
to say good bye and to be going back to home because the view of Mai Chau was so beautiful and the
atmosphere was brilliant.