DECATUR - Feasting on bottomless plates of Beijing duck in a five-star hotel in the Chinese capital. Climbing to the Great Wall of China. Singing songs in English and Swahili with an outstanding young Chinese choir.

Those are a few of the highlights of the Millikin University Choir's recent 11-day tour of China.

"It was amazing," said Melody Hamrick, 20, a senior majoring in vocal music education. "I think it changed a lot of the perspective I had in life."

One of 60 singers who performed for enthusiastic audiences in six concerts, Hamrick said group members were treated like royalty while they were allowed to take part in meaningful one-on-one encounters with the Chinese people.

Hamrick and others said they were impressed with the friendliness and warmth of the Chinese people.

"It's so central to their character to be kind, gentle people," Hamrick said.

As she was growing up, Hamrick looked at the Chinese as communists, people who controlled our economy and should be feared. But when she actually met many residents of the world's most populous nation, she found them to be kind and gentle, with a rich and fascinating culture.

"What's important is that they're people, too," Hamrick said, "and because of that, we have a connection, and we have something in common that is great."

Choir President Christopher Weisenborn, who boarded the bus for the first leg of the China trip just 10 hours after his graduation ceremony, said he was impressed by how the Chinese rolled out the red carpet at every turn.

"They were very welcoming," Weisenborn said, adding that there were huge posters or banners at every performing venue. "At our hotel in Beijing, there was a huge banner saying, 'Welcome Millikin University Choir from Illinois, USA.' "

Weisenborn said one of his most-interesting experiences was visiting Tiananmen Square, the large Beijing plaza known largely as a symbol of communist oppression because of the massacre of thousands of students in 1989.

"We saw the big portrait of Mao (Zedong), the gate into the Forbidden City," Weisenborn said. "The tour guide said, 'You're not allowed to ask about the massacre. If you ask a tour guide or official, they will not answer you.' "

Several choir members said they thought the most memorable experience of the tour was when the female singers from Millikin and a prize-winning Chinese choral group sang and danced together onstage. After a concert at which both groups performed in Shenzhen, a southeastern city of 12 million people, the Millikin ladies and the Chinese singers, ages 12 to 16 years old, intermingled.

"One of them asked about American music and began singing 'High School Musical,' " said Morgan Holmes, a Millikin senior. The Chinese singers knew the lyrics well, and some of the Americans who also knew them joined in. "Suddenly, we were all singing and dancing and jumping around onstage."

Later, the groups sang the African song "Siya Humba" (English title: "Walking in the Light of God"), a standard of U.S. school choirs.

"Most of us knew all the words to that," Hamrick said. "Their music was so in tune and so in unison with us. It was cool to see how much love and passion they have for music."

Holmes said that when they sang and danced together, all barriers between the young women from opposite sides of the world dissolved.

"It was a very clean picture of how music breaks down walls," Holmes said.

Brad Holmes, Millikin choir director and Morgan Holmes's father, said he was impressed by the enthusiastic way the Chinese audiences responded to the American singers.

"We were treated like rock stars," Brad Holmes said, adding that many songs were followed by thunderous applause, cheering and screaming.

The Chinese also expressed their approval and amazement when the American students dedicated a song at each concert to the Chinese earthquake victims and followed that up by donating money to help them. At one venue, the hosts insisted that the students demonstrate their giving by placing their donations in a box onstage, one at a time. As the singers deposited bills, audience members applauded, gasping if the bills were larger denominations.

"They needed to see someone else cared," Holmes said.

Another highlight for many of the singers was seeing the new Olympic stadium, less than three months before the games begin this summer.

"We saw so many important things," said Lexie Batsios, 22, an aspiring opera singer. "We saw one of the wonders of the world. We saw where the Olympics are going to be. We went to factories and marketplaces. We learned history."

Hamrick also enjoyed learning about the history of China, especially from the knowledgeable tour guides. She plans to teach after graduating and pass on the lessons to her students.

"There's a place in my heart (for the Chinese people) that will never be replaced," Hamrick said. "People are what is important, not the things you heard about them."

Huey Freeman can be reached at hfreeman@herald-review.com or 421-6985.