Thursday, May 10, 2018
Today we had quite the eventful and eye-opening day with a talk and a visit to the Dandelion School!
We started off the day with a talk given by Sam from IPE—the Institute of Public Health—founded by Mr. Ma Jun in 2006. The focus point of the talk was how IPE wants to increase awareness in the public of the environmental conditions around them and to motivate them to be more involved and to take action against environmental violations. In other words, IPE wants to increase information transparency to hold companies responsible for violating environmental regulations and to encourage them to fix those violations to help better the environmental situation in China.
In China, pollution is much more apparent and rampant than it is in the U.S. but that does not necessarily mean that China does not have the means to improve on this issue. There are three kinds of pollution: air, water and soil. Air pollution is the most visible in China, and also is more apparent. It draws the most attention from the public and while there are many factors contributing to air pollution in China, the main source of air pollution is industrial emissions. In fact, among all three types of pollution, emissions from factories are the leading cause of pollution. This is because a lot of corporations don't know that their suppliers or even their own companies in China are cutting corners around following environmental regulations in favor of being more cost-effective.
Thus, Sam explained to us that IPE wants to hold these companies affordable by making the public, and the companies, more aware of these violations so that it can motivate these companies to make those changes. I think hearing about IPE's mission is very inspiring and encourages consumers, including myself, to be more aware about how the choices we make can affect our environment. It is so important that we are aware about the environmental footprint that we are leaving, which extends to the companies we support with our purchases. It is also important that when there is something wrong that is being done that we use our voices to try to correct that. Small little changes can have big results!
The second part of our day brought us to the Dandelion School. As the bus rolled towards the school, we saw a brightly decorated gate indicating that we had arrived. As we drove in, we saw many students outside playing basketball or soccer or even ping pong, in their blue uniform. Many of them looked excited to see us and shyly waved to us as we walked through the campus.
While we were there, we first had lunch at the school. It was the same lunch that the kids had that day and consisted of rice, potatoes prepared two ways, and eggplant. It was all really tasty, and some of us thought it was better than the food we had at Northeastern! After some of us ate, we got to play with some of the students. They were kind enough to let us join them in their activities!
Afterwards, we took a tour of the campus. We got a look inside their dormitories, visited some classrooms, the library and even got to see the students practice their instruments. We were all struck by how well they played, even though most of them had only started playing a year ago! It was also nice to learn more about the school. Dandelion School is a non-profit middle school that is dedicated to providing quality education to students of some of Beijing's migrant families. These children typically come from low-income situations whose parents came to Beijing and are migrant workers. Seeing all the amazing work being done to better the lives of these students, seeing how much all the teachers care about these students was so awe-inspiring. Like they say, it takes a village to raise a child. Even more so, the school was very welcoming, and even had a welcome written on a board displayed outside for us!
In the next part of the afternoon, we each taught two groups of three students based on a lesson plan that we had prepared prior to going on the trip. For example, I taught the students about the phases of the moon. While many were afraid to speak English at first, once we started and they began to feel more comfortable, I didn't know what they were so nervous about! Many of them could read and speak very well, and I definitely got the sense that they knew much more English than I knew Chinese!
After the classes, we got to learn some calligraphy with Zhang Laoshi. Calligraphy truly is such a beautiful art form, but we all learned that it was a lot harder than Mr. Zhang made it out to be. While his movements were very fluid and purposeful, we all had a little trouble in the beginning. However, with lots of practice, it looked like we were getting the hang of it towards the end of the brief lesson.
Lastly, we ended our afternoon at Dandelion School with a home visit at one of the student's homes with the student's homeroom teacher. She didn't live very far away so we walked over. When we got there, the home was very small, just about one room, but the mother encouraged us to sit wherever we could all find space. She was very welcoming and generous and allowed us to ask questions about her life here in Beijing.
The thing about living in Beijing is that it is very expensive and very difficult, especially with the hukou, or household registration system. The family we met did not have household registration in Beijing and were subletting their home. It means that they could never buy a home and if the daughter wanted to go to college, she could never go to a university in Beijing or take the college entrance exam in Beijing. Without Dandelion school, she wouldn't have even been able to go to school in Beijing and would have been forced to go back to where her family's household registration is in Henan, despite the fact that she was born and raised in Beijing.
The experience of getting to know this family better, I think, helped us put in perspective just how important Dandelion School is. It truly is a place of hope, fitting of its namesake. Dandelion School provides these students with opportunities they wouldn't otherwise have. I also think that this experience also helped us to be more appreciative of what we have here in the states and really gave us the opportunity to see a different side of Beijing that is completely opposite of the ultra-modern city many of us think of.
Overall, it was quite the long day, but the experiences we had were ones that will stay with us forever. I think we have learned to be more conscientious and are encouraged to think more about the issues that are prominent in China.
- Winnie N.
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