Author: Adrian Ruckhofer (CHOIR REPORTER), Singakademie Graz, Austria
Translated from German to English

Today, Sunday, it’s our last day in Shaoxing. In the early afternoon we competed in the third and last of our categories, “Musica Sacra”. We were even accompanied by a TV team and we gave a lot of interviews. It was really flattering for us, of course.

With mixed feelings, we packed our bags afterwards. On the one hand it’s sad that a wonderful time with mainly positive experiences and magnificent impressions is over now, on the other hand we’re looking forward to Austrian dishes (we’ve already been ordering some rolls and “Schnitzel” for our arrival in Vienna), to our homes and particularly to our families!

And now a big THANKS to Interkultur! Great organization, excellent management!! We’d like to thank our volunteers as well. It was friendship at first sight. You were always kind, really qualified, helpful and always on the spot. We’re going to miss you much!!!!!

For my part, I was able to extend my scant knowledge of Chinese during these 2 weeks. I hope that my dialogue partners could understand me, at least with the help of my gestures.

Because of our travel schedule we won’t take part in the second award and closing ceremony. Getting a third medal would be the greatest success. We can hardly wait for the results!?!?!

Today we went to Shanghai by train, tomorrow (Monday), we’ll be on the plane to Graz.

The readers of my texts might be indulgent to me if there had been one or two typing errors. These reports were mostly written at about midnight, sometimes even well past…

At this point I would like to thank Ms Henriette Brockmann who is working for Interkultur and who was writing always charming and encouraging answer mails and thus motivated me as a choir reporter to give my (daily) best and who translated my “works” into brilliant English (I was always proud and impressed to hear how great this sounds in English).

But, dear Henriette, the last one is yet to come! Being at home I will write one very last, final report to conclude our trip.

Finally, now the time has come to say:

GOOD BYE SHAOXING, GOOD BYE CHINA!!!!

Best regards
Adrian