Day 3: IPE and Dandelion

Thursday, May 10, 2018

Today I started off the day waking up at 7:30am to go get baozi for breakfast. While I'm definitely not a morning person, jet lag and the thought of fresh baozi had me jumping out of bed the instant my alarm went off. At the baozi restaurant, I tried to order my favorite dishes from yesterday's breakfast. However, despite memorizing my order while waiting in line, when I got to the register, my order didn't sound quite right and instead of receiving the delicious soy milk drink that I got yesterday, I ended up with an unsweetened soy milk soup (which was tasty but not what I was expecting). 

Following breakfast, we headed off to the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE). IPE is a non-profit environmental organization that strives to spread awareness about environmental problems through collecting data and transferring findings to a user-friendly website and app. These resources allow consumers to become more conscious about companies and suppliers, as well as promotes environmental transparency. One part of the lecture that truly resonated with me was that products/services that you might assume to be environmentally friendly aren't necessarily due to their supply chain process. For instance, OFO, a bike sharing company that promotes an affordable and sustainable way of transpiration, is not as "sustainable" as it claims. While the product itself is environmentally friendly, we learned during today's lecture that the way the bike is produced is not.

After the lecture, we had a little bit of free time where a few of us were able to get sim cards and phone plans. Then, we were off on a 45-minute bus ride to the Dandelion school. A school for migrant children, Dandelion serves as a school and home for children who come from an inconsistent, less fortunate background. Due to China's household registration system, or Hukou, migrant children are unable to attend Beijing public school or receive any benefits that residents with Beijing Hukou receive. Upon getting off the highway, it become obvious that we were entering a very different part of Beijing. Rather than being surrounded by historic sites, apartment complexes or business buildings, we instead saw some farms and low-rise buildings (some of which were partially demolished, as if an earthquake had hit only certain buildings). It became obvious once the bus got close to the Dandelion school gate; the gate was beautifully painted and the pillars outside were decorated in vibrant mosaic tiles. We later learned that the teachers and students worked together on all the art project that went into transforming and decorating the school. We were generously welcomed by Dandelion teachers and were treated to a lunch by the school's cafeteria.

After lunch, a Dandelion teacher gave us a tour of the campus. Previously a factory for light switches, the factory has now been transformed with the hard work of the students and teachers. Almost every wall is covered in beautiful paintings designed by the students and every building is furnished from donations. While the current campus is simple yet beautiful, the school is planning to move to a much larger building just across the street. This will allow the school to increase its capacity and provide more housing for students. During our tour, we had the opportunity to see a boy's dormitory. Each room housed about 10-12 boys and while the living conditions were extremely simple and crowded, we were told (and later saw) that the dormitory living conditions are actually more comfortable than most students' situations at home.

Following the tour, we made our way to the English classrooms where we met with the 9th grade students we would be teaching our lesson plans to. The students were shy, yet excited to see us as evident through their big-eyed stares and quick whispers to one another. From there, each Northeastern student was responsible for teaching our lesson plans to two classes. For each class we taught three students for 45 minutes. For my six students I brought them to outdoor tables near the basketball courts. While excited to be outside, I was pleasantly surprised by how focused and determined to learn they were. For my lesson plan, I selected an article about maple syrup. Following taking turns reading the article, we practiced ten vocab words that were used in the article that I deemed applicable. Next, my students worked together to answer open response questions that could be answered using the article. Then I had the students play a flashcard and hangman game using the vocab words which they thoroughly enjoyed. Finally, I allowed the students to sample the maple syrup that I brought from home. The students really enjoyed the maple syrup, but honestly, who doesn't like maple syrup? It's so sweet!

After our lessons, we said goodbye to the kids and made our way to another classroom where we got the opportunity to learn calligraphy from one of the Dandelion teachers. The teacher taught us how to properly hold the paint brush and demonstrated how to properly write 永 which requires every brush stroke to write. While most of our characters were quite unsymmetrical, learning calligraphy was a really cool experience and Dong Laoshi said that the way we do calligraphy is reflective of our personality. In that case, I am quite unbalanced and messy but patient!

Next, we had two students show us their homes. From the street and from inside the store, the store appears to just be a small fruit and vegetables store, however, if you look closely you can see that there is a family of 4 living inside the store. Raised on shelfs and hidden from view, are planks of wood where the family sleeps. While the family clearly didn't have much, we were welcomed graciously into their home and were offered tomatoes and cucumbers to snack on. From the family, we learned that they were originally from Hubei province but moved to Beijing so that their son could go to school and have a better chance of getting into high school and college. After the home visit, we headed back to our hotel. Exhausted from our long day (and probably jet lag), a few others and I got jiaozi and baozi for dinner before heading back to the hotel.

Leanne D.