The Best Way to Travel

I find myself contemplating a business venture where I would run a travel agency pairing up folks who want to see the world with a team of the folks I love traveling with most: young adults in their late teens/early twenties. You can’t beat ‘em for openness to new experiences, energy and flexibility. I can’t say enough about what fine travelers this team is. I have yet to hear a complaint, a whine, even a snippet of conflict and they have innate capabilities to find the cheapest way to have the richest experience possible. Best of all, I get to be reminded through their eyes every day how exciting new adventures are. From a first air plane ride to first time operating a Chinese washing machine (with no instructions in English, of course) it’s all a treat. And what will be the impact of this trip in their lives? Watching that unfold will be the most interesting part of all.

Our alum Jim Arnold in Shanghai, reminisced with us how the Fellows program had been his ticket as well to new adventures and a life path of greater depth and diversity than he had ever imagined for himself. As a freshman at NC State in 1970 from rural Virginia, it was the Fellows program that took Jim on his first airplane ride to Washington, DC. “I don’t think I’d be living here in Shanghai, having the experiences I’ve had, except for the Fellows program.” In an email after our week in Shanghai, Jim wrote: “I was curious to meet the group, perhaps subconsciously to compare them to my old Fellows Group, of whom I had the highest regard. After meeting your group, I am reminded in some ways of mine. I can see that the Fellows Program is still a vibrant and creative program with a lot of special people. That makes me feel very good to see the program doing so well.

CHINA TIME

I missed this little detail before arriving in China, so was fascinated to discover that in terms of area, I am in the largest country in the world with only one time zone. This single time zone is China Standard Time, or Beijing Time, which is Greenwich Mean Time, plus 8 hours (GMT+8). (We are twelve hours ahead of North Carolina time.) Once upon a time, back in 1912 under the Republic of China, the country was divided into five time zones. These were done away with in 1949 with the Chinese Civil War and the establishment of the Communist People’s Republic of China (PRC).

This explains why sunrise here in the eastern part of China happens around 5:00 am and sunset comes about 7:30 pm. In western China, the sun may not rise until 10:00 am, and it sets much later than normal as well. The uniformity of time allows for a single unified national news announcement, programmed simultaneously all over the country, which serves to eliminate confusion or conflicting elements in hearing the daily news. Aside from the craziness of adjusting time of day to sunlight, I find myself imagining the appeal of one time zone for the US. It would be a win for those of us who detest resetting digital watches when we travel, who wonder what would be the impact on that tricky timing of ‘closing of the polls/reporting the voting outcome’ thing when we have a national election, and who miss seeing David Letterman because we are already asleep...

The China Fellows

Service Snapshots

I could write a chapter on each of the service experiences we have undertaken, but it is better that these perspectives come to you by way of the students themselves. Stay tuned for excerpts from their journals that I will be posting in the days to come. Meanwhile, here’s a little context for what we did at each of our service sites.

WORKING AT THE MORNING STAR REHABILITATION CENTER FOR CHILDREN WITH AUTISM

We divided our hoard into small teams of four or five and dispersed through classrooms where we sat in tiny chairs (less a challenge for me than for some of our 6’3” guys) among uniformed preschoolers. We engaged in a well orchestrated schedule of activities to draw the children into sensory and social interaction. We strung brightly colored wooden beads to make bracelets; did movement activities; made Chinese dumplings and shared lunch. The number one thing we did was to be impressed. On every front, Morning Star left us with great respect for the adults who worked lovingly and skillfully with these special children.

I got to work with a mischievous four year old who figured out that making dumplings with me was more interesting if in doing his job of placing filling onto the little circle of dough I held, he overloaded what was needed, each time working up to a bigger spoonful. With each larger portion he scooped, his laughter grew proportionally and his laughter fed mine. I’m not sure our shared hilarity fit into the structure on which a classroom for autistic children thrives, but it was one of the more memorable moments of this trip.

ATTENDING AN ART SHOW BY HANDICAPPED ARTISTS

An umbrella organization for handicapped services in Hangzhou arranged the various visits we are making here. They provide a network for support and services to their members. They arranged for us to meet a group of Hangzhou artists, each with some form of physical disability, and each one a gifted visual artist. They prepared us a show of their work that filled a sizeable conference room. The purchases we made support the livelihood of the artists we had the privilege to meet, and will surely be treasured among the souvenirs of this trip.

Riley Huston taking in the art at the Art show by handicapped artists in Hangzhou.

Artists at the show

ACCOMPANYING AND AIDING IN TRANSPORT FOR A TOUR OF WEST LAKE BY A GROUP OF LOWER-LIMBED HANDICAPPED PEOPLE

West Lake is, by far, Hangzhou's most prominent feature. The large lake sits in the middle of the city and is surrounded by ancient temples and gardens. Within the lake itself, there are multiple islands to visit and a causeway that is lovely for walks. It is not so lovely, however, if a wheelchair is your means of mobility; handicap access is non-existent. This made for the perfect pairing, our team of able bodied young adults with a group of lower-limbed paralyzed men. (Some of whom were artists we had met the day before at the art show.) We provided the manpower to lift wheelchairs onto a boat, up steps, and across embankments otherwise impassable. Together we shared the wonder of West Lake, as it was the first time there for all of us. Hard to believe, but true, that these men, having lived all their lives in Hangzhou had before our shared excursion never been around the most prominent feature of their city, all for the lack of means to do so.

WORKING AT A RURAL SCHOOL ALONG WITH VOLUNTEERS FROM THE HANGZHOU CHARITY FEDERATION

Together with members of the Hangzhou Charity Foundation, we traveled three hours into the rural area. Our trek took us past rice fields and oxen and around a reservoir created by a hydroelectric power plant. There were several close encounters between our bus and other vehicles on the final portion of narrow winding road leading to the school. The school itself was a startling sight; In the middle of seeming nowhere, a gleaming new, state of the art facility. Money for this school (11 million) had been raised by charity efforts.

The Hangzhou Charity Foundation comes to this school to provide adult support for children whose families in this community have been disrupted by the common phenomenon of change in rural China: adults leaving the poverty of the rural areas to pursue employment in the cities, leaving children behind in the care of grandparents.

We spent our day teaching English, music, and movement games. We also observed a masterfully led intergenerational workshop designed to address the stress on relationships between children and their family members caused by the social disruption of migrant labor into the cities. The skill of the workshop leader, a professional from the department of education in Hangzhou, impressed us, as did the foresight of the educational system to offer such intervention.

Fellows and members of the Hangzhou Charity Federation having lunch at the rural school

MEETING WITH MEMBERS OF THE HANGZHOU CHARITY FEDERATION FOR DIALOGUE ABOUT THE DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITIES IN ATTITUDES ABOUT SERVICE ACROSS OUR TWO CULTURES

It is an understatement to say that China and the US have different ideologies about the relationship between the individual and the larger community as well as different ideas about the concept of service. We have been wearing our anthropological hats in trying to be adept cultural observers on these issues. One of our richest exchanges came through time spent with the young professionals who belong to the Hangzhou Charity Foundation. (The same group that we accompanied to the rural school.) They remind me of a group like Rotary in the US. They devote a portion of their free time and means to address social needs in their community.

In an office building several stories above the streets of Hangzhou, we shared an evening of honest and deep dialogue that dispelled many stereotypes of each other’s culture. We discovered in each other a parallel community of well educated, warm and humorous, service-committed peers.

We left heartened. ... and with gifts: CDs of Chinese opera and ball caps with the organization’s logo. (For every meeting and visit we have made, in Chinese tradition, we have left with gifts. I’m threatening to make our group wear their hats when we travel so we can fit in with the Asian tourist groups we encounter who typically wear matching hats and follow their tour leader who carries a flag and a megaphone. ... Now where can I get a flag. .??)

Of Swine Flu and Service Learning

HANGZHOU

Southwest of Shanghai, about three hours by bus, is the provincial capital city of Hangzhou. The city stands at the foot of a range of hills, the Xitanmu Shan (“Eye of Heaven Mountains”), and on the shore of the famous Xi (“West” ) Lake, historically celebrated for its beauty and carefully preserved as a scenic district and tourist attraction. The silk industry, a major hydro-electric project southwest of the city, a Caterpillar tractor plant, and the industries of tea processing, grain-milling, and cotton and hemp manufacturing, all contribute to the vibrancy of Hangzhou.

Hangzhou is also home to Zhejiang University, one of the top-ranking research institutions of higher learning in China. With 331 academic and Master’s programs and 283 Doctoral programs, it has a student body of 39,000. It is also the University where for the past three years NC State has had a summer study abroad program. This connection and Hangzhou’s appeal as one of China’s most beautiful cities are the reasons it is the second stop of our expedition.

PERSPECTIVES FROM THE QUARANTINE ROOM

The concern that we Americans might be carriers of the H1N1 virus (no one calls it swine flu here) did not end once we got past our welcome at the airport by the temperature-checking, spacesuit-wearing SWAT teams. Our arrival in Hangzhou and Zhejiang University brought a whole new level of scrutiny about our health. Since we, thankfully, had been in the country more than seven days once we came to Zhejiang, we were spared the practice that new arrivals to the country have been getting at the University: reporting for daily temperature checks. We are relegated, however, to eating in a special dining room in the company of other westerners, of which there are quite a few here in the International College section of the University, which hosts summer study abroad programs. Our students wryly refer to it as ‘the quarantine room.’ In addition, one of the service agencies with which we were to have worked in Hangzhou has cancelled on having us with them, due to their concerns about H1N1.

If you want to create a little space for yourself as a westerner in this very populated society, just dare to sneeze in public. The Chinese scatter from you like dandelion fluff in a strong burst of air. Why this level of caution? While it may seem like over-reaction (much the way I feel about certain airport security measures, but that’s another topic), one need only remember the devastating impact of the SARS epidemic in China to respect their high level of caution. Deaths from SARS and the government’s denial of any problem during that time resulted in terrible press for the country. China’s density of population, combined with their less than adequate infrastructure to deal with a major infectious outbreak, gives understanding to the prudency they are practicing around H1N1. Given our otherwise close quarters at Zhejiang, ‘the quarantine room,’ by the admission of our Zhejiang host, provides nothing other than ’psychological comfort’ to the Chinese. We have mused what might have been the terrible indiscretion of the young Chinese staff member we see each day in ‘the quarantine room’ whose apparent punishment has been to be relegated to spending all of his working hours serving food to potentially infectious westerners. . .

The "booties" we wore as a precaution while visiting a Dair

TELLING OUR STORY

The H1N1 segregation, along with the reputation that westerners are excessive drinkers (created by the unfortunate prior behavior of guests from some other study abroad programs) made for a somewhat somber arrival to Zhejiang for our group. Coupled with these distancing factors has been the fact that ours is the only program here that rather than attending classes each day is engaged in ‘service learning,’ a concept new to the Chinese and somewhat confounding even to our fellow westerners. George, our primary host at Zhejiang, said that when he was first told about a service-learning group coming, he googled the term to see what it meant. Under Chinese sources, he found nothing. ‘So I looked under English sources’, he said, ‘and there I found plenty.’ This is how new the concept is in China and how interesting the opportunity we have to be an example of service learning at work.

Ever the diligent diplomats, in a group reflection session on our second night in Hangzhou, our students proposed offering a presentation about the mission and methodology of our trip for those outside our program.

What resulted was a seminar prepared and led by our group to leaders of Zhejiang’s International College, Chinese students in the ‘3 Plus 1’ program (who will have three years of their education at Zhejiang and one at NC State) and faculty from our own campus who are here with the NC State Hangzhou study abroad program. Their content included history of the Caldwell / China Fellows and explanation of the theory and practice of service learning. They explained the academic work in which they have been engaged, which gives intellectual grounding to the cultural experiences provided by our hands-on engagement in the community.

The group shared their reading list, the outline of our seminars and the model of our trip writing project, and read aloud excerpts from their journals and essays. Accompanied by PowerPoint slides, they shared photographs of each of the four service-learning sites were we have worked.

The Chinese were fascinated and impressed with what our group is undertaking, and our own NCSU faculty gave validating feedback to our group. Perhaps one of the most telling responses was made by one of the Chinese students, Marshall, who told of accompanying us to our service sites as an interpreter and in the process becoming quite taken with the new experiences he was having as a volunteer. He now dreams of this kind of community engagement when he comes to NC State for the coming year. Our group has promised to make him an honorary Caldwell for the coming year and to include him in the various projects in the Raleigh community where they are volunteers.

“SHOWING UP”

It has become one of the mantras among Caldwell students. “Showing Up” is perhaps the most important aspect of offering service. “Showing Up” means that simply valuing enough the lives of others to invest in spending time with them can be the most significant contribution that service volunteers make. We don’t believe in showing up with any agenda to ‘help’ or to ‘fix’ (the typically American perspective); rather we show up with an attitude of respect for how a local community is addressing their social issues. We show up to work alongside and to learn from and with them. Service learning is a reciprocal process. Frankly, “showing up” matters a great deal as well in places where the option to travel outside of where residents are is simply not an option. Economic or political reasons aside, it is the same. Our coming (as long as it is with equal regard) is validating; this is a place and a people where we want to invest and learn from. It also provides a broader world to those who are prohibited from having that broader world through the opportunity of traveling firsthand. Yes, we must contend with the responsibility that comes with having the means to be the ones who can travel, and to show up with the awareness and humility of that privilege.

Through our connection to Home Sweet Home by way of Jim Arnold, meeting needs of the handicapped became the social issue around which our service-learning efforts in China are centered. In Hangzhou, we have been spending our days across a number of projects. While our practice on other trips has been to immerse deeply in one project for at least two weeks, this trip has been about showing up for a number of ventures, all related to understanding and serving the special needs of the handicapped. This broad versus deep approach has been dictated by the norms of the agencies we have served and the fact that we are in a community where Americans showing up to volunteer is still a somewhat peculiar notion.

Here’s what we have been doing:

- Working at the Morning Star Rehabilitation Center for Children with Autism

- Attending an art show by handicapped artists arranged especially for our group by the Commission of the Handicapped People and spending time with the artists

- Accompanying and aiding in transport for a tour of West Lake by a group of lower-limb-handicapped people

- Working at a rural school (three hours outside of Hangzhou) along with volunteers from the Hangzhou Charity Federation

- Meeting with members of the Hangzhou Charity Federation for dialogue about the differences and similarities in attitudes about service across our two cultures.

Culinary Adventures

One thing that makes this group an ideal traveling team is that there is not a picky eater in the bunch. In fact, these folks will try anything. This has resulted in some new culinary adventures for us all. Here are a few new tastes from my last few days: chicken feet (seems like a lot of work for not much), eel (more benign than I expected), glutinous rice ball (the name is terribly off putting and the reality rather like a big lump of super-slimy tapioca), and roasted cicada (which if you can overlook having little cicada legs stuck in your teeth, is actually quite tasty. Roasted means crunchy and rather chewy with a rich flavor of garlic.)

This group is also great at tracking down local holes in the wall for authentic and inexpensive food. Needless to say, these venues do have English translations on their menus. Not to be daunted, we have mastered the fine practice of pointing to whatever dish looks good on someone else’s table and taking our chances. This in turn provides interesting meal conversation as we play the ‘what are we eating?’ game.

I find breakfast food in different countries is particularly intriguing. The food we begin our days with typically has a narrower range of menu than other meals and seems to thrive on routine. In China noodles and dumplings are the fare for three meals a day if you like. Throw a fried or boiled egg on top of those noodles or wrap it in a crepe and voila! China breakfast. Fruit and some sweet sesame crusted balls (whose name I have yet to learn) are also common. You can, of course find other variations including, to my surprise, a nice array of pastries. I have tried to start my day with the green tea that is in available In my room, but my propensity to coffee has had me on a quest in each of our locations. Downtown Shanghai was easy . . . coffee shops are part of the diverse westernized scene. Here at the University there is a coffee shop a few blocks from my room . . . with good coffee and good pastries, but which sadly doesn’t open until the late hour of 8:00 a.m. Have I mentioned that the sun is up at 5:00 a.m here?

A Place of Elaborate Contradictions

China is a complex place and like the traffic that I still walk through with trepidation, it seems that opposing forces are propelling towards one another from all directions. In near collision are the ancient social ideology of Confucianism, the control of a one-party government, and the embrace of economic reform that is transforming China into a capitalist society.

After four days of seminars with Jim Arnold on the history and current issues of China, along with our readings and seminars prior to coming, our last seminar with Jim on the future of China was a fitting capstone. Joined by a panel of business leaders in Shanghai, friends of Jim, we listened and debated the complex questions facing China at this time of huge intersection:

• Will China evolve to a two party democracy?

• What will be the primary belief system / ideology in the future of China?

• What will be the key drivers for China’s future foreign policy?

One of the panelists, Jeff Song, Ph.D. is Corporate Vice President and President for Ingersoll Rand China. Earlier in the week he had been to Beijing to join a team of Chinese business leaders in conversation with Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry about American/Chinese business and environmental issues. He and fellow panelist James Wu, former General Manager at Honeywell, had both been the age of or students during the Cultural Revolution. They had sobering stories to share of that era when among other upheavals in the society, all universities were shut down. Jeff went from being a university student to working on a farm near the Chinese/Russian border for a decade. These two were exceptions to what happened to most of their generation, they survived the upheaval, returned to finish their educations and become successful businessmen.

Jin Dai and James Wu, both in their late thirties or so, represented the perspective of a younger generation in the conversation. All four spoke frankly about the “superficial harmony but underlying tensions” of China today. The timing of our trip corresponds with the twentieth anniversary of Tiananmen Square in June of 1989 which makes these particularly sensitive days in China. Police presence is up in sensitive areas, we are told, and blogging spots have been restricted or shut down to discourage the exchange of ideas and social organizing. Thus the limits on my access to Blogspot. China is clearly in the midst of huge economic reform. This reform has not yet extended to politics and since Tiananmen, some feel, the country is less tolerant and social unrest has increased.

The Woes of Blogging

If you are following this blog, you have surely noticed the infrequency of my posts. Time for some explanation. For a few years I have maintained a trip blog as a fun sideline to traveling. This year the NC State Alumni Association upped the ante with the challenge that I keep this not strictly as a personal blog but as one for the program with a link from the AA website. This in turn also upped my expectation on the frequency and rigor of my postings as well as my intention to master new technology skills in order to post pictures and have regular computer access.

Setting high expectations is the perfect set-up for frustration. Or in a more Zen sense, to be reminded of all that we do not control . So this post serves to explain the obstacles and my inner journey in reframing expectations.

The biggest challenge to blogging from China is the simple fact that blogging sites, such as Blogspot, are inaccessible here. (More explanation on that to come.) I knew this before leaving the US and arranged to send documents as email attachments to the communications staff at the Alumni Association. Thanks to them (Chris and Cherry and some interns), you are reading this. I cannot see the final product here.

I came to China with a new tool to master my blogging task: a ‘netbook’ personal computer. This would surely be an improvement over my prior dependency on internet cafes. In part it has been . . . when the computer is working (some glitches with that) and access is available (more limited than I expected) and when it is available, to have my computer configured correctly to meet the demands of our changing locations. At the University in Hangzhou, a technician had to reconfigure my IPN address to sync with the university system (a two and a half day process.) These hurdles have meant intervals of several days with no access. Finding time in our schedule to sit and write has been the other obstacle. So here is my official reframing of expectations about this blog. While I continue to strive for frequency, the reality is that you are likely to see hunks of entries posted sporadically vs. a neat calendar of daily posts. This experience provides yet another chance for me to practice one of traveling’s best lessons: be in the moment, be flexible to accept whatever may come. And don’t let the obsession to document the experience get in the way of having the experience itself.

And fittingly, I am off to a Tai Chi class. . . .

“Where the Winds of Dixie Softly Blow, O’er the . . . Streets of Shanghai”

If one were to imagine a slight alteration to the opening line, the NC State Alma Mater took on new meaning Saturday night. It wasn’t the hills of Caroline, and we were eight thousand miles from Raleigh. Still, Wolfpack pride was tangible as the Caldwell and China Fellows were joined for the evening by Shanghai area NC State alumni. Over dinner and the sharing of stories, common ground was found around favorite Raleigh hangouts, shared courses and professors, and a bit of Wolfpack sports.

Quint Reid, a junior in biochemistry discovered that he had professors in common with Tao Lin, who did his graduate work in Chemical Engineering and now works for Bayer Technology Services as Head of Redaction Technology . One name they had in common was Lisa Bullard, faculty in chemical engineering as well a Caldwell Fellow alumni .

Yipeng Yang completed both his Master’s in Financial Math as well as his PhD in Operations Research at NC State. That meant 27 graduate courses. Another product of the NC State math department was Jin Dai, now an Underwriter with Cologne Reinsurance Company Shanghai Branch. I was lost in the conversation when they both met Zach Clawson, a junior in Mathematics and they began chatting higher level math lingo but was amused with the chatter over how many professors they had shared. Yipeng spent five years in Raleigh, and he wistfully adds, "I have a lot of feelings there." He also has warm and wistful feelings for Raleigh weather and for North Carolina beaches. . .

The alumni dinner had been one of the much anticipated events of our trip; our group was enamored with the idea that we could travel this far and find NC State folks. With the exception of Jim Arnold, who received his undergraduate degree from NC State in statistics (class of 74) , others at the Alumni dinner had all attended NC State for graduate school. Each of these alumni is now in some significant leadership role in Shanghai.

Ping Liu who completed her PhD at NC State in atmospheric sciences is a faculty member at Jio Tong University. She works with a team designated to improve Shanghai air quality, specifically for the 2010 World Expo to be held in Shanghai.

Xinbing Wang is the spouse of Ping Liu and is an Associate Professor at Jio Tong in the Electrical Engineering Department, teaching about wireless communication. He earned his PhD in electrical Engineering at NCSU.

Miranda Yue Dai, an Associate Professor in the Department of Management Science at Fudan University is also the organizer for NCSU alumni activities in Shanghai. Miranda exudes pure enthusiasm when she talks about NC State. “We are very proud of NC State and hope NC State can be proud of us." she says. Miranda wrinkles her nose a bit when she admits her husband graduated from Duke, then her eyes twinkle as she adds, "The NC State Shanghai alumni are more connected than the Duke alumni!"

I get very emotional when people mention NC State, Miranda says. "That was the place where I changed a lot; I rebuilt myself."

“We hope you can visit us many more times in the future,” Miranda tells us several times. Then she enthusiastically adds: “When Is NCSU hosting the global reunion . . ?!”