China Service Learning Trip

May 10th: A Day Spent with TJ’s Girls!

Yesterday morning, TJ’s girls took us to the local farmer’s market. The market was filled with stands selling fresh veggies, fruit, and even live eels! Here we bought all of the ingredients needed to make Chinese dumplings. After our visit to the market, we made these delicious dumplings with the girls. Later, Dr. Chen suggested that we take the girls to do karaoke in downtown Shanghai. Our afternoon was filled with singing, dancing, and just spending time together. We had a wonderful time and the girls seemed to enjoy it as well. The time we have spent with the girls over the past week has been such a blessing. I am thankful for the opportunities we have had to get to know the girls while sharing exciting new experiences with them.
- Jocelyn

May 15th – Beijing

Today we attended a Catholic service at The Church of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. It is the oldest Catholic church in Beijing. The architecture was intricate and beautiful. The service we attended was given in English and it was a lot like Catholic services in America. In the afternoon we went shopping at a large indoor market where we bargained for clothing, jewelry and other souvenirs. The bargaining process is an interesting one; the vendors are very forceful and are not hesitant to physically pull you into their stations and offer you ridiculously high prices for their goods. You can then haggle with the vendors to bring the price down so you can walk away with a fairly cheap t-shirt, knick-knack, etc.

~ Laura

Welcome to Beijing, faithful blog followers!
After our ten hour long, overnight train from Shanghai, we found our hotel and traveled to the Forbidden City. Pictures of Mao Tse Tung hung from buildings, were printed on t-shirts and mugs, and covered pamphlets to remind us of the revolution and the new order of China. What moved us most, though, was the rich history of the dynasties that came before China as we now know it. We have continually been amazed at the length and depth of China’s history; it makes America look like only a newborn. The Forbidden City was absolutely massive, with its different gates, meeting places, slave quarters, concubine housing, and elaborate gardens. Though still only a dim picture, our understanding of the grandeur of the lives of the emperors and empresses is much clearer.
After an informative tour of the City, we went across the street to Tian’anmen Square. This is the site of a great democratic movement that took place, so this experience served to both enlighten and sober us.
Throughout this stimulating day (and every day so far), an amusingly large number of people were snapping pictures of us, and if they were really bold, they asked to pose with us. Who knew we signed up to learn celebrity culture too? Tomorrow it is off to the Great Wall! What a privilege! We are learning so much about ourselves, the idea of culture, China, the bigness of our God, and the importance of not just learning about things from a textbook, but getting the real life experience. Tata for now! – Joy

May 18
Today our day began with a visit the Shanghai Financial Center, which is the third largest building in the world. We quickly entered in at the lowest level of the building and then surged to the 97th floor; it only took 66 seconds to get there. It was impressive to review the history of infrastructures in Shanghai, which appeared during the 1990’s. The Shanghai Financial Center was build in 2005 and finished by 2008.The day was full of the elaborate Chinese restaurants, by which we were greet by all throughout the trip. Dinner was even more special because the Ming Yuan Restaurant topped all the eating centers that we had been to, and we were joined by the lovely girls from the Helena’s House of Hope. I got to eat bachoi, one of my favorite Chinese vegetables; then we said our goodbyes to our new acquaintances, accompanied by the ironic thought, that we would probably never see them again. My final thought was, “Its okay, the girls will be forever in my prayers.” The night ended with a final meeting that addressed cross-cultural diversi between the U.S. and China and preparation for our journey back to United States.

Some of the girls members of the group danced with at the school.

Learning a dance from some of the girls at the school.

One of the bedrooms

The students' cafeteria.

Today is our third day in Beijing! This city is cool because it has many more historic spots we have visited with traditional Chinese architecture than in Shanghai. Today we visited Light and Love School in a rural part of Beijingabout an hour away from our hotel. It was like an orphanage but not only orphans live there. Students are also allowed to live there or go to school there if their family is poor and unable to take care of them, or if their family refuses to take care of them. There are over 100 students ages 7-17 who live and go to school at Light and Love School with 16 teacher/staff volunteers. It was a lot bigger than I expected. There were 4 or 5 long buildings that were divided into individual rooms that were used for living space and classrooms. The buildings themselves are very old and pretty run down. But what was inside them surprised me. People had donated instruments so the children could learn to play. There was even an art room and dance studio! The young girls there love to dance and they are really good! They taught us some dances and it was a lot of fun. Needless to say we weren’t as good as them. However, Logan, from our group, even taught them the dances to “Beat It” and “Thriller” by Michael Jackson; they liked that. J It was really awesome to see that these kids were still happy and had found something they loved. The kids were just so talented. I think it is a great organization because kids can get an education here that they would not have gotten at other orphanages. Terry and Jessie told us that most children, girls especially, are not pushed to do anything when they live in an orphanage all their life, so when they have to leave at age 18, they don’t have the motivation to try to succeed because no one has taught them. One 13 year old girl at the Light and Love School named Lilly was the complete opposite of what they described. She spoke great English and she told us she wanted to go to a school comparable to Harvard and Yale in the U.S. and that she wanted to work in finance. She was so bright and I was so excited to see that she still had so many dreams, confidence and a drive to succeed. I think that the environment and the resources that this school provides has made all the difference. It was a great experience to be able to witness what is happening in the outskirts of Beijing, China firsthand.

-Kelsey-

The group on the Great Wall

Today we visited the Great Wall. It was really cool to see it. We rode the cable cars to the top. The ride up was cool because you could see all around and you could see the different parts of the wall. I was amazed by how big the wall really is. I also was surprised by how steep it was. We had to climb lots of uneven steps and big slopes. It was a little scary coming down, but definitely worth it. The view while standing on the Great Wall was absolutely amazing! It was awesome to see how beautiful it was and how it stretched for miles and miles. We rode the cable cars back down to the bottom. After we bought some souvenirs and cheesy “I Climbed the Great Wall” t-shirts, we got back in the bus and headed to the city. When we got back to the city, we visited a park. It was really pretty. Inside the park was a small temple that the emperor built for himself to worship in. Tonight we went to dinner at a place where they have hot pots to cook your food in. It was really cool. It was similar to fondue, but you cook you food in water heated by coals. It was really good and a fun experience. Today was a long day, but a fun day and now I can officially say I’ve visited one of the wonders of the world J

~Amanda

Wednesday May 11

Today we went to Concordia International School in Pudong. This school had students enrolled from all over the world. The students came from places like Australia, Canada, the United States, and more. The school taught students from preschool through twelfth grade and provided classes with a diverse range that will give the students a well rounded education. The building was beautiful and would surpass a lot of the preschools, elementary, middle, and high schools in the US. The faculty there were all so friendly and their passion and love for what they did was evident. The couple that invited us, who we met at Thanksgiving church on Sunday, were great hosts and made us feel more than welcome at Concordia! As I type we are at TJ’s waiting for Dr. Chen and some of our group to come back from exchanging money to work with the girls to perform skits! We will have to work together, despite our language barrier, to play out a story and perform in front of everyone. When we are done we will see if they can guess what is being performed. Before dinner time we will head to the train station and at about 9:15 tonight and will be on our way to Beijing! It will be an experience that I have never been apart of before and I am so excited! Today has been good so far and I expect it to continue! Only 8 days to go! It has gone by so fast, and I look forward to what is to come! Goodbye for now!

Sincerely,
Molly

Today we had the opportunity to visit Shanghai University and meet with some of the students. All of the students were English majors and could easily communicate with us. It was very enlightening to finally be able to engage in full communication with some of the people here without the help of a translator. I thoroughly enjoyed that each member of our group had the chance to be paired with a student and could learn a lot about each other’s culture and see our differences and similarities. You can learn much about a different culture by simply picking up a book, but you gain much more insight by actually discussing it with someone who is a part of the culture. It was nice that we were able to ask one another questions that you would not find answers to in a library book. It is interesting to hear what people’s impressions are about the American culture. I was happy that we were able to answer their questions and exchange personal information with one another. I hope that we will keep in touch and although long distance, keep a lasting friendship with these students.

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Sunday:
Visiting local church.

And “resting”:

…and our great co-leader found fun way to use “mini-shovel” in the restaurant:)

JT’s kids took us visit some interesting neighbors on Sat.