Malone Service Learning - China

Greetings from Dr. Welling, Dr. Entwistle, Ben, Cameron, Emily, Jessica, Karen, Kristen, Marcus, Michelle, Taylor, and Sam. In just over a month, we will be headed to Hong Kong and China!  You will be able to follow our journey on this website.  This site was previously used by the 2011 China Team, so you can scroll down to see some of their posts from last year.  In the meantime, thank you for your interest, your prayers, and your support.  We will try to post an itinerary sometime in the near future. Peace be with you!

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...

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 end...

[caption id="attachment_132" align="alignnone" width="427" caption="Some of the girls members of the group danced with at the school."] [/caption] [caption id="attachment_133" align="alignnone" width="442" caption="Learning a dance from some of the girls at the school."] [/caption] [caption id="attachment_134" align="alignnone" width="429" caption="One of the bedrooms"] [/caption] [caption id="attachment_135" align="alignnone" width="428" caption="The students' cafeteria."] [/caption] 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 allow...

[caption id="attachment_127" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="The group on the Great Wall"] [/caption] 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 b...