Belvedere hosts China

Back in the 1960s they used to say the optimistic Irish schools were teaching Russian and the pessimists Chinese – so Belvedere’s Fr Schrenk taught Russian. Things have changed, though, and cultural contact with China is growing apace. On Sunday 18 January the Chinese ambassador, Mr Liu Biwei, will visit Belvedere College to meet seventeen Chinese students from Wah Yan College. These two Jesuit colleges are participating in a student exchange programme. The second leg of the exchange will see eighteen Belvedere students visit Hong Kong and China later this year. They will teach English to primary school pupils in the Chinese countryside.