We started off the day going to the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC), an American environmental NGO in China to interview a panel of experts in various fields of environmental protection and sustainability. Each individual were highly knowledgeable in their fields such as environmental law and sustainable practices of companies. From these experts, we learned a lot of valuable information about the problems that China has in regards to environmental pollution and waste, where the problems lie, and what the foreign NGO is doing to try and fix these problems for the future. One of the biggest problems that the company is facing is the lack of people working on the issues, even though China has one of the highest amount of pollution problems with heavy amounts of media coverage, there are only 20 employees in China working for NRDC on these problems, and the amount of international NGOs that are focused on environmental problems add up to less than 1000 people. At the end of the panel, nearly every student had a question that they really wanted to ask the experts, but due to time restraints, we had to leave some questions unanswered.
Our next stop was the Galaxy SOHO China<http://galaxysoho.sohochina.com/en> building complex, a futuristic mall/office building, in one of the most expensive real estate areas in Beijing. We were given a tour around the building, and had the chance to have of view of the penthouse even though there are still a lot of improvements that must be done before the building will be fully operational. Looking down from the top floor, we can see a Hutong located within a hundred feet of this gigantic building. From the perspective of various students, they believe that this is a condescending notion, that the Chinese government and the wealthy Chinese investors will sacrifice its history, the Hutong that symbolize that past of Beijing in order to become more modernized. The cost of our advancement to be on par with the Western civilization was to kick Chinese citizens out of the buildings that have been the dwelling of our ancestors so that the Galaxy and other buildings serving similar purpose can be built in the future.
Finally, we would go to our final stop for the day, the Dandelion School. The Dandelion School is a non-profit school that offers education for middle school- aged migrant children who would otherwise not be able to attend school due to stringent laws passed by the Chinese government decades ago. Our duty for the day was to teach a class a topic that was uniquely American while teaching them some English terms along the way. The topic that my group had agreed upon was beloved Disney characters through the ages, and some of the key terms that these students learned were prince, fairy, and magic. After our presentation, another group took the stage and presented the topic regarding after school activities that were common among American students such as football, band, and basketball, with basketball getting a huge reaction from various students in the classroom. After the presentations, we followed one of the students to their home that was near the school. The student who our group followed was a 12-year-old girl named Jenny who is aspiring to become a English teacher in the future. Her mother was waiting for us when we arrived at their house, and she was very eager to share with us her experiences regarding a wide variety of topics such as the difficulties she had faced adapting to Beijing and her daily activities. From this interview, students gained much more knowledge about what it was like to be a migrant worker in Beijing, and this was very important because for the past few days, the dialogue has been focused on the influential parts, past and present, of this city so by settling down and looking at the daily lives of normal people living in this city is an eye opening and thought provoking experience.
We finished this day quite early, and now the group is back at the hotel preparing for the long day tomorrow and deciding how to spend the free time today. I still have to pack my entire luggage for a 5:30 check out tomorrow.
- Kevin H.
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