Student Profile: Christina Pun

Results are in, Christina is the new Dance Champ!

Christina Pun is our newest celebrity here at Stephens International School. She won first place in a city-wide dance competition a couple weeks ago, along with a whole bunch of prizes. Christina is silly and fun, but in a quieter way than her cohorts Unisha and Aaditi. She is tenacious out on the football field, a defender not to be taken lightly. She is a thirsty learner; always curious and always asking questions. Here is an interview with Kathmandu’s very first School Dance Champ winner:

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Christina: My name is Christina Pun I am from grade 4. I am ten years old, my father is out of this country in Dubai. He is a police officer. My mother is a beautician and my grandmother is a housewife. My grandfather is a worker in market.

Me: That’s right! Your family owns a big market, what is it called?

Christina: Kalimati.

Christina showing her goofy deviousness from her
younger, watch-throwing days.

Me: Kalimati. Do you ever go there and help out?

Christina:  Yes I go I help to give vegetables to people.  I like it.

And I have my small sister, she likes to play with me and different toys in my home, and my grandmother. She watches TV with my grandmother, etc.

Me: What is your favorite thing about Kathmandu?

Christina: My favorite things about Kathmandu…Patan durbar square…Sanga.

Me: Sanga, what is that?

Christina: Sanga... There is big fun park with a big slide and a place to swim from slide and there are different types of things to play with. In Sanga there is big Hindu god called Shiva Baghwan. When we went to Dulikhel we saw Sanga and a big statue with the snake.

Aaditi with a fresh tikka and Christina

Me: What is your religion?

Christina: Hindu

Me: So that is different from Chettri?

Christina: What is “Chechree”?

Me: I guess it is different. Um, Bizen and Unisha both told me they were Chettri…

Christina: OH! “Chet—ree!” [laughs] No, I am Magar. Like Guard Brother.

Me: Is your religion important to you? What’s your favorite holiday?

Christina: Yes. My favorite holiday is Dashain vacation and Holi. For Holi we play with some guns putting water. We play with plastic and water, we throw at people.

Me: Oh, water guns and water balloons?! Sounds like a lot fun! If you could change 2 things about this school what would you change?

Christina: I would change…dirty toilets. And I will change, I will make the play house bigger.

Me: You won the first ever School Dance Champ! When did you start to dance?

Christina: When I was small, in Lower KG class. Dancing…my mother, father, grandmother used to teach me dance so I could dance in future. They used to dance with me. When I used to dance in small I used to fall down, my mother used to say, “When you fall down you will be better, you must dance, you must use expression…”

Me: What is your favorite part of the day?

Christina: In school, my favorite part of the day is when we watch movies. At home, watching TV with my sister. Her name is Nikfun.

Christina holding her sister, Nikfun Pun

Me: Tell me one memory you have from when you were a little kid.

Christina: I used to cry, I used to hit my parents, punch them, I used to throw my mother’s watch in garden and I used to hide and she used to say “Why you did like that?” I used to pee in my pants.

Me: Ok, ok. Do you still have a garden?

Christina: Yes, we grow saag, and radish. And then we sell some at market. My mother, it is called “gundruk,” it is a food, a green spicy food, and she sells at the market.

Me: Teach my friends and family two things about Nepal. It doesn’t have to be a fact you learn in school, it can be something you see when you walk down the street.

Christina: The future of Nepal was beautiful, but now it became dirty, polluted because people used to throw garbages in road, they used to spit in road, they used to make factory all over.

Christina is sad about the pollution outside her school in Kathmandu

In Kathmandu there are beautiful places also like Sanga, Patan Durbar square, and we have many, many Hindu gods to celebrate. We celebrate Holi… and we put tikka… 

Also we will marry people different kinds... We marry different than Massachusetts because they wear sari in Nepal, they put red tikka in their hair. They will do make-up, they will put their hair like some beautiful girl. In Massachusetts they will wear a frock, they will throw a flower when they marry, so it is very different than Nepal.

Me: What do you want to do when you grow up?

Christina: I want to become two things, from that two I want to do one thing. I want to become dancer, and a nurse.

Me: Anything you want to say before you go back to study class?

Christina: Um… I will come to Massachusetts and learn something more about Massachusetts.

Homemade Christmas stockings