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Hostel hosts smiles
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Li Dan
DURING the Spring Festival break, the International Youth Hostel in Happy Valley overflowed with groups of young visitors.
Over 200 little reporters from the Guangzhou Modern Primary Students' Weekly spent an unforgettable four-day winter camp there, visiting the mangrove preserve and Konka Group, a local electronics manufacturer.
Shown around the beautiful mangrove woods by local environmental protection experts, the eager journalists jotted down their feelings and they posed questions. "Of the several hundred thousand mangrove woods in the world, only five are located in Chinese cities," a girl wrote seriously in her notebook. "We have the third largest territory in the world, but why is the area of mangrove we possess a mere one ten thousandth of the world's total?"
Students learned that mangrove woods not only resist the erosion of wind and sea waves but also provide an ideal habitat for birds. Hearing that Shenzhen was planning to establish a mangrove exhibition hall, these kids instantly suggested a donation-collecting box be placed at the youth hostel.
On the Spring Festival Eve, three university students from Finland arrived at the hostel after a five-month learning project in Beijing. They cheered at the lanterns and colourful ribbons decorating the hostel and shared peanuts and candies with the working staff. "It's a pleasure to spend the Chinese new year in China," they said, "and SZ is an amazing place, bubbling with energy and fun."
The youth hostel gave them each a small red envelope of lucky money to wish them good fortune as they waved goodbye and in return the students pasted Finnish coins to the visitors' board as a keepsake.
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