Caldwell Fellow Kristin Cunningham with a resident of Home Sweet Home.
Jim Arnold '74 leading our group on an excursion in Shanghai.
Our group being welcomed at Home Sweet Home. Jim Arnold '74 is at the far right.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Photos from China
Caldwell Fellow Kristin Cunningham with a resident of Home Sweet Home.
Jim Arnold '74 leading our group on an excursion in Shanghai.
Our group being welcomed at Home Sweet Home. Jim Arnold '74 is at the far right.
If it weren’t for chicken feet in the convenience store
A few days before I left Raleigh, a friend sent a message suggesting that we have a meal “before I head off for my diet of chicken feet.” When I went this evening to buy batteries at the convenience store down the street, there among the assortment of beverages and snacks, right next to the bags of peanuts and cashews were snack portions of chicken feet. I drew the culinary-adventure line there and opted for an evening fix of chocolate. I write this with all due respect to any fans of snacking on chicken feet who are reading this post . . . but aside from the novelty, it seems a fitting snapshot for the mix of old and new China, which meet in Shanghai. In this city, the new is winning. Shanghai: the most modern city in an every modernizing China.
Faces on the street include a high proportion of Europeans and Americans who have moved here to be part of the phenomenal economic growth, opportunity and excitement of this evolving place with 10 percent economic growth in the past year. It is a high-paced, skyscraper skylined, glitzy shopping centered, multicultural cuisined, artsy city. In numerous moments I have looked around thinking, “This could be New York.” As much as I love New York, this is still wonderfully and uniquely Shanghai. Along with chicken feet in the convenience store, countless turns also remind me that this is still China. The scaffolding we walk under for the every prevalent building improvements is made of bamboo. Parks are filled with early morning tai chi groups and older Chinese who waltz to classical music for their daily exercise. Street vendors sell grilled, skewered squid. Aside from the occasional (and often amusing English translations) signs with Chinese characters are everywhere, unintelligible to my alphabet oriented brain.
Our host, Jim Arnold ’74, says when he first came to Shanghai 20 years ago the only transportation was bicycles. The streets of Shanghai still feature many bicycles but now they are joined by motorcycles and cars, taxicabs, buses and trucks. For the life of me, I can’t figure how a culture so prideful of order and adherence to rules dismisses all rules when it comes to traffic. Maybe it is having surmounted the numerous obstacles necessary to drive (a lottery for license plates, the considerable testing to be a licensed driver along with the requisite bribe of the testing official, and the expense and availability of an automobile) that gives drivers an I’m Not To Be Stopped mentality, but pedestrian right of way is a nonexistent concept here. Stoplights are somewhat optional. Four- or-two wheeled, the same nonchalance of road rules applies. You are as likely to be taken out by a bicycle as a car. Street crossing is an exercise in nimbleness, faith, and adrenaline.
This need for nimbleness doesn’t daunt the high fashion of Shanghai’s hip twenty and thirty-somethings. High heels dominate the feet of the young women negotiating the crosswalks of Shanghai.
Faces on the street include a high proportion of Europeans and Americans who have moved here to be part of the phenomenal economic growth, opportunity and excitement of this evolving place with 10 percent economic growth in the past year. It is a high-paced, skyscraper skylined, glitzy shopping centered, multicultural cuisined, artsy city. In numerous moments I have looked around thinking, “This could be New York.” As much as I love New York, this is still wonderfully and uniquely Shanghai. Along with chicken feet in the convenience store, countless turns also remind me that this is still China. The scaffolding we walk under for the every prevalent building improvements is made of bamboo. Parks are filled with early morning tai chi groups and older Chinese who waltz to classical music for their daily exercise. Street vendors sell grilled, skewered squid. Aside from the occasional (and often amusing English translations) signs with Chinese characters are everywhere, unintelligible to my alphabet oriented brain.
Our host, Jim Arnold ’74, says when he first came to Shanghai 20 years ago the only transportation was bicycles. The streets of Shanghai still feature many bicycles but now they are joined by motorcycles and cars, taxicabs, buses and trucks. For the life of me, I can’t figure how a culture so prideful of order and adherence to rules dismisses all rules when it comes to traffic. Maybe it is having surmounted the numerous obstacles necessary to drive (a lottery for license plates, the considerable testing to be a licensed driver along with the requisite bribe of the testing official, and the expense and availability of an automobile) that gives drivers an I’m Not To Be Stopped mentality, but pedestrian right of way is a nonexistent concept here. Stoplights are somewhat optional. Four- or-two wheeled, the same nonchalance of road rules applies. You are as likely to be taken out by a bicycle as a car. Street crossing is an exercise in nimbleness, faith, and adrenaline.
This need for nimbleness doesn’t daunt the high fashion of Shanghai’s hip twenty and thirty-somethings. High heels dominate the feet of the young women negotiating the crosswalks of Shanghai.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Home Sweet Home
Service to the greater good is a core value of the Caldwell Fellows program. The servant-leadership model has long been its philosophy of leadership. Our alumni host, Jim Arnold ’74 is true to this ideal. Not only is his planning, teaching and leadership for our group an act of considerable service, his schedule for us includes working with him at the organization, where he is a weekly volunteer. Home Sweet Home provides a home to physically handicapped and homeless adult men and women. Founded by a most amazing leader, Norani Abu Bakar, HSH two years ago with literally nothing. Today it provides a home and meaningful work to 14 residents with plans for two new locations and an ever-widening engagement with the community. HSH trains its residents as skilled seamstresses and embroiders to create the shopping bags, bed, dining and specialty items sold to support the home.
Residents are referred to as brothers and sisters and share the care of helping one another meet the challenges created by physical handicap. It’s hard to tell who is staff and who is a resident of HSH, the spirit of community is so very tangible. At HSH our students saw not only a highly effective model of social entrepreneurship and visionary leadership but had yet another experience in how shared work and food is a bridge that transcends language, culture, and differing abilities. We tended the garden together and worked with HSH residents to sort donated clothes for the larger community (and having great fun trying on many of the items, particularly hats). In addition, the folks of HSH patiently guided our hoard of unskilled folks in the fine art of making Chinese dumplings and wrapping sticky rice. The food we prepared together was a closing feast to a most fulfilling day.
As is our practice on these trips, an hour at the end of each day is devoted to group reflection. Tonight’s reflection on the day at HSH was a rich experience in why service-learning is such a powerful avenue for education and human development. More on that to come. Later you will learn about the refection model we are following for this trip and I will share some of the writing they produce as we move through these coming weeks.
Home Sweet Home's Sign
The China Fellows sorting second-hard closed with the
Residents are referred to as brothers and sisters and share the care of helping one another meet the challenges created by physical handicap. It’s hard to tell who is staff and who is a resident of HSH, the spirit of community is so very tangible. At HSH our students saw not only a highly effective model of social entrepreneurship and visionary leadership but had yet another experience in how shared work and food is a bridge that transcends language, culture, and differing abilities. We tended the garden together and worked with HSH residents to sort donated clothes for the larger community (and having great fun trying on many of the items, particularly hats). In addition, the folks of HSH patiently guided our hoard of unskilled folks in the fine art of making Chinese dumplings and wrapping sticky rice. The food we prepared together was a closing feast to a most fulfilling day.
As is our practice on these trips, an hour at the end of each day is devoted to group reflection. Tonight’s reflection on the day at HSH was a rich experience in why service-learning is such a powerful avenue for education and human development. More on that to come. Later you will learn about the refection model we are following for this trip and I will share some of the writing they produce as we move through these coming weeks.
Home Sweet Home's Sign
The China Fellows sorting second-hard closed with the brothers and sisters of Home Sweet Home.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Why China?
The historic 40-year mission of the Caldwell Fellows to develop leaders has been stretched in recent years to meet the needs of a changing world. Along with NC State, the program has expanded its vision to include the development of global leaders. Cultural immersion and service trips have become one of the Fellows’ avenues for meeting this mission. The destination and theme for each trip (three summer and two spring break trips so far) have been initiated and planned by a team of students. This year’s trip had a new impetus for its destination: one of our alumni. Jim Arnold ’74 has been a businessman in East Asia for over 20 years. Shanghai has been his home for the past 12. Jim is retired from business and is now co-director of the China Leaders for Manufacturing Program, an MBA/Engineering dual degree program between Jiaotang University and MIT. Jim has maintained strong connections to NC State and to the Fellows program and initiated the vision for a Caldwell trip to China.
Our first week of the trip is in Shanghai and Jim has planned an agenda of seminars, service work with local charity where he is a weekly volunteer, tours to different parts of the city, and dinner with local NC State alumni.
Here are some of the things we’ll be doing:
Our first week of the trip is in Shanghai and Jim has planned an agenda of seminars, service work with local charity where he is a weekly volunteer, tours to different parts of the city, and dinner with local NC State alumni.
Here are some of the things we’ll be doing:
- A walking Tour to Confucian Temple and Yuan Gardens.
- A visit to Home Sweet Home, the charity Jim volunteers with, to work with residents in the garden and in a clothes warehouse.
- A tour of Taikang Lu.
- A visit to the communist party museum.
- A dinner with Shanghai area NCSU alumni: Malone’s American Café.
- A panel discussion with Shanghai ares business leaders.
Across the World in 24 Hours
If it weren’t for the sense that you are having an empathy experience with one of those poor chickens in a crate, stacked between other crates of chickens, all being hauled from A to B. . . the fact that you can wedge into an airline seat and after 14 hours plus 2 plus another 3, have yourself transported from Raleigh, NC to Shanghai, China. . . well, it’s quite amazing.
I departed Raleigh at 10:15 am on Sunday morning and arrived Monday night in Shanghai. I lost a day but traveled in constant daylight. My traveling companion, Quint, and I met Kris in Tokyo and the three of us arrived together in Shanghai. Since Quint and I arrived without luggage, there was plenty of room in the taxi and the three of us shared a cab for the 45 minute ride through a cool and misty evening into what felt like a scene in a futuristic thriller: our entry in the metropolis of Shanghai.
The taxi driver dropped us at a little alley at the end of which we could see the sign for our accommodation for the coming week in Shanghai: Baolong Homelike Hotel. Having traveled on student budgets for many a trip, I am quite used to what economy can look like. And this is why we travel: to find the surprises that shatter stereotypes and expectations. Imagine my surprise and deep delight to find that Baolong Homelike Hotel is a little oasis of Asian beauty and simplicity. At the end of that alley, we turned into a small bamboo-lined walkway into the cozy space of this little haven. Tucked away between high rises, this little four story guest house with winding corridors could be the poster site for great feng shui. Spot lighting through the lobby and hallways illumine the discrete, ‘just enough’ adornments of pottery and traditional blue painted china. A rock garden transforms the corner where two hallways meet.
Perhaps it is a Chinese parenting technique for raising well-behaved children that the beds are so very firm here; no child would ever think of bouncing on one. One simply cannot work up a bounce on these mattresses. . . but one can get one blissful night of sleep. (I do profess to love a firm sleeping surface so it suits me quite well). Being horizontal after 24 hours was pure heaven and this little hotel, tucked into its little alley, is a haven of quiet. (Hmm. . . I do suspect this could change when tomorrow evening our group of 24 will all have arrived to inhabit Baolong Homelike Hotel). I will grant you that my younger traveling companions would happily trade all this tranquility for a more social setting. That is coming; our next stop will be two weeks at a university dormitory.
A delicious night’s sleep later, our group of now four: Quint, Kris and I were met last night by Andrew, converged over the breakfast buffet that comes with a night’s lodging at Baolong. And no, it’s not my usual yogurt and fruit breakfast here. . .
It is now Tuesday late morning and I have found my way around the block from Baolong Homelike Hotel to Park Center, a mega plaza of upscale western shops, to a Starbucks (yes, of course they are here) because the word was that here I could get internet access. I do have a pretty good cup of coffee sitting here (and it is appreciated in my jet lagged state) but alas, the rumor of access here was a false lead. Thanks to my nifty ‘netbook’ I am writing anyway and will eventually find a way to post these entries. Internet cafes seem not to exist in our part of town. Keeping in touch may be more of a challenge than I had expected. . .
Tuesday evening 10:00 pm
Early afternoon was reunion time today as our little traveling teams arrived (some who set out a week ago and have been adventuring their way to this location). The final four should be here within the hour. With the majority of us here, we set out for the Shanghai Museum for the afternoon and then took advantage of perfect (!) weather to loll about in People’s Park and then find our way to “Yang’ sfry dumpling” (that is exactly how it is written on the sign). Featured recently in the New York Times’ “36 hours in Shanghai,” Yang’s is dumpling heaven. Testimony to this is the line of locals who line the street to place their order at one window and then move to the next to pick up take-away boxes of four gracious-sized Chinese dumplings (which you can also observe being made as you wait for your order.) Way off the beaten path for most tourists, our group of obvious not-locals sitting on the street consuming boxes of dumplings provided amusement of our fellow native dumpling eaters.
2:00 am Wednesday morning
It’s time to get some sleep. . . but our last group member has yet to appear at the hotel; it is 2:00 am and he should have arrived at least three hours ago. The fellow traveler he was to meet at the airport was told his plane had landed but he didn’t arrive at their meeting place to share a cab to the hotel and no call came from him until an hour ago. So where has Jason been for the last three hours?? In quarantine on his airplane. That’s right. The Chinese are taking great precaution against H1N1 and all flights landing in China are currently being boarded by teams in (as one of our group says) ‘spaceman suits’ to read the temperatures of all passengers, which they do by having you close your eyes while shooting a beam at your forehead . (I’m sure there’s a better medical explanation out there for this procedure but I lack the lingo and was amused anyway with feeling that I was in one of the memory erasing scenes from ‘Men in Black’ (a movie worth renting for those who don’t know what I’m talking about.)
Jason’s cab should arrive any minute. I’ll hear his saga and get him checked in. His arrival makes us complete. We are now all in China: twenty-four NC State Caldwell and China Fellows and five weeks of adventure ahead.
Lauren, Katrina and Ariel rest outside of the Shanghai History Museum
I departed Raleigh at 10:15 am on Sunday morning and arrived Monday night in Shanghai. I lost a day but traveled in constant daylight. My traveling companion, Quint, and I met Kris in Tokyo and the three of us arrived together in Shanghai. Since Quint and I arrived without luggage, there was plenty of room in the taxi and the three of us shared a cab for the 45 minute ride through a cool and misty evening into what felt like a scene in a futuristic thriller: our entry in the metropolis of Shanghai.
The taxi driver dropped us at a little alley at the end of which we could see the sign for our accommodation for the coming week in Shanghai: Baolong Homelike Hotel. Having traveled on student budgets for many a trip, I am quite used to what economy can look like. And this is why we travel: to find the surprises that shatter stereotypes and expectations. Imagine my surprise and deep delight to find that Baolong Homelike Hotel is a little oasis of Asian beauty and simplicity. At the end of that alley, we turned into a small bamboo-lined walkway into the cozy space of this little haven. Tucked away between high rises, this little four story guest house with winding corridors could be the poster site for great feng shui. Spot lighting through the lobby and hallways illumine the discrete, ‘just enough’ adornments of pottery and traditional blue painted china. A rock garden transforms the corner where two hallways meet.
Perhaps it is a Chinese parenting technique for raising well-behaved children that the beds are so very firm here; no child would ever think of bouncing on one. One simply cannot work up a bounce on these mattresses. . . but one can get one blissful night of sleep. (I do profess to love a firm sleeping surface so it suits me quite well). Being horizontal after 24 hours was pure heaven and this little hotel, tucked into its little alley, is a haven of quiet. (Hmm. . . I do suspect this could change when tomorrow evening our group of 24 will all have arrived to inhabit Baolong Homelike Hotel). I will grant you that my younger traveling companions would happily trade all this tranquility for a more social setting. That is coming; our next stop will be two weeks at a university dormitory.
A delicious night’s sleep later, our group of now four: Quint, Kris and I were met last night by Andrew, converged over the breakfast buffet that comes with a night’s lodging at Baolong. And no, it’s not my usual yogurt and fruit breakfast here. . .
It is now Tuesday late morning and I have found my way around the block from Baolong Homelike Hotel to Park Center, a mega plaza of upscale western shops, to a Starbucks (yes, of course they are here) because the word was that here I could get internet access. I do have a pretty good cup of coffee sitting here (and it is appreciated in my jet lagged state) but alas, the rumor of access here was a false lead. Thanks to my nifty ‘netbook’ I am writing anyway and will eventually find a way to post these entries. Internet cafes seem not to exist in our part of town. Keeping in touch may be more of a challenge than I had expected. . .
Tuesday evening 10:00 pm
Early afternoon was reunion time today as our little traveling teams arrived (some who set out a week ago and have been adventuring their way to this location). The final four should be here within the hour. With the majority of us here, we set out for the Shanghai Museum for the afternoon and then took advantage of perfect (!) weather to loll about in People’s Park and then find our way to “Yang’ sfry dumpling” (that is exactly how it is written on the sign). Featured recently in the New York Times’ “36 hours in Shanghai,” Yang’s is dumpling heaven. Testimony to this is the line of locals who line the street to place their order at one window and then move to the next to pick up take-away boxes of four gracious-sized Chinese dumplings (which you can also observe being made as you wait for your order.) Way off the beaten path for most tourists, our group of obvious not-locals sitting on the street consuming boxes of dumplings provided amusement of our fellow native dumpling eaters.
2:00 am Wednesday morning
It’s time to get some sleep. . . but our last group member has yet to appear at the hotel; it is 2:00 am and he should have arrived at least three hours ago. The fellow traveler he was to meet at the airport was told his plane had landed but he didn’t arrive at their meeting place to share a cab to the hotel and no call came from him until an hour ago. So where has Jason been for the last three hours?? In quarantine on his airplane. That’s right. The Chinese are taking great precaution against H1N1 and all flights landing in China are currently being boarded by teams in (as one of our group says) ‘spaceman suits’ to read the temperatures of all passengers, which they do by having you close your eyes while shooting a beam at your forehead . (I’m sure there’s a better medical explanation out there for this procedure but I lack the lingo and was amused anyway with feeling that I was in one of the memory erasing scenes from ‘Men in Black’ (a movie worth renting for those who don’t know what I’m talking about.)
Jason’s cab should arrive any minute. I’ll hear his saga and get him checked in. His arrival makes us complete. We are now all in China: twenty-four NC State Caldwell and China Fellows and five weeks of adventure ahead.
Lauren, Katrina and Ariel rest outside of the Shanghai History Museum
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