It was a magical night they will never forget.

It began when students of the Practical Skills Training Centre for Rural Women performed a well-rehearsed song-and-dance routine at a formal welcome reception for 20 American high school students from China Institute. The mood was reserved, proper and official that is, until someone struck a match.

Once a bonfire was blazing in the centre of the schoolyard, both US and Chinese students instantly shed all semblance of primness. Suddenly they began swinging each other around, laughing hysterically and frantically dancing to blaring techno and hip-hop music.

"This is so much fun!" one student howled above the bilingual hullabaloo.

Joseph Corda, resident director of China Institute, never imagined the cultural encounter would spontaneously erupt into such a full-blown cross-cultural hoopla. "Nobody could ever plan that amount of energy," he said.

Women in ethnic minority attire danced to the hip-hop beats of the Black Eyed Peas by the firelight, while others joined hands to form a large circle and sprinted around the flames at full-speed.

"It was as simple as going around a fire," said Christine Santiago, 15, of New York. "It wasn't that spectacular, but we made it so."

The trip to the rural women's school was one of many excursions the China Institute students made during their six-week stay. "Very few programmes are bringing high school students to China," said Nancy Jervis, vice-president of the institute. "When you're young, these kinds of experiences can influence you forever."

"I'm experiencing so many things, it's broadening my perspective," said Anzia Mayer, 16, of Alexandria, Virginia. "I realize now that there's just so much out there."

By now, Mayer and her classmates have explored Tian'anmen, The Forbidden City and Qianmen, snacked on Beijing Duck and camped overnight in a tower of the Great Wall.

But for sophomore Christina Valbuena of New York, it was the people not the places that mattered the most. Corda believed that while the programme focused on language immersion, cultural immersion was also important.

"The linguistic and the social can be separate on certain levels, but they're deeply connected," Corda said. "It's important to develop relationships with people of another culture in another part of the world."

Klay Enos of New York said the experience with the students at the rural women's school reminded him that people are actually more alike than different.

"It was interesting to see how the girls from the cultural minorities are just like everyone else, but have their own traditions," he said.

(China Daily 09/01/2006 page14)