EIL Intercultural Learning - Shanghai

My architecture internship in China

Anton — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 11:08:26 +0000

I guess that it’s a measure of how good the last couple of months have been that it’s taken me so long to write this. Originally intended to be written as a blog, since I’m struggling to even keep a sporadic personal diary it’s been downgraded to a simple review... I hope that I can do the great experiences I’ve had here justice with something more concise!

It’s been just over eight weeks since I arrived in Shanghai. These eight weeks have maybe felt like four, but during which I’ve done enough for it to perhaps be twelve. Even during my first three weeks I got the sense that my time here was going to be too short. Unfortunately I have been proved right and with only three and a half weeks remaining I know that I will be sorry to leave.

But let’s get one thing straight: Shanghai is never a city where I personally could imagine settling down – for me it is simply too different a culture to stay here long-term. That said, my perception of ‘long-term’ has become progressively longer with each passing week so I guess you never know... Either way, the opportunity to experience this city as volunteer or intern is something that shouldn’t be missed.

I understand Shanghai is more ‘Western’ than the majority of Chinese cities but even so it is in a different world to metropolises such as London or New York. My preconceptions have proved oddly accurate – it is a city of little English (though more than anywhere else in China), crazy streets, strange food, and stranger smells. There is a noticeable contrast in wealth throughout the city, while in China it seems there exists no such thing as social welfare – everybody works, whether that work is collecting empty plastic bottles, being chief executive of HSBC, or waving a flag to signal that nobody is stuck in the doors of a metro. That reminds me of something I saw recently that I found summed up the growth of this city. A guidebook of Shanghai from five years ago showed two subway lines. My own updated version shows eleven. Seven metro lines in five years?! Another interesting fact is that (one of) the business hub(s) of the city, the Pudong area across the Huangpi River (home to some of the world’s tallest buildings and location of that famous skyline shot if you’ve ever seen a photo of Shanghai) was simply farmland 20 years ago. Look at it today and that is an amazing thought.

The expat community in the city is strong, which means that there are plenty of English speakers about if you know where to find them. Apparently there are 20 000 U.S. citizens in the city at any given time - whether that’s a good or bad thing is up to you!

Staying in the flat with the host organisation is such a blessing, if not a necessity, to enjoy your time here. You get to live with other Europeans/Australians/Americans who are doing similar things to you, are around the same age as you, and who, like you, know nobody. Anybody that comes to China to work/volunteer is by virtue outgoing, and this ensures that a lot of fun is had. Since I’m staying 3 months and the majority are here for only five weeks, I’ve seen quite a turnover of people which always keeps things interesting. Many volunteers working elsewhere in China will first spend a few days in Shanghai, and their enthusiasm to make the most of their few days tend to rub off on everyone in the apartment. This means that there is no shortage of good nights out!

Anyway I’m rambling and this actually is starting to read like a blog...

My situation here is a little different than most of the volunteers that come here in that I’m doing an architecture internship rather than teaching English. Having lived and spent a lot of time with these volunteers I do however feel qualified to give an opinion on both options offered by EIL.

First for my own role, as architecture intern. I was lucky enough to be placed in a renowned (even famous, in China at least) firm. They also have offices in the Chinese city of Xi’an as well as in Los Angeles in the United States. As such the firm works through both English and Chinese, but as is hardly surprising the Shanghai office works mainly through Chinese having a majority of Chinese workers. I guess they are not a typical architecture firm in that they are quite progressive and push the boundaries in terms of creative projects. They receive quite a few important commissions in China. The variety of these projects ensures that (even though the designs may be a bit questionable...) it is always fresh and interesting work. You are no CAD monkey in this office and that is a pleasure. I have done a good variety of work in my short time here and for any architects thinking of applying for this internship programme I’ll detail a few of them here. If you have no interest in architecture then I suggest you skip this bit.

1) My first project was to design a concrete ‘sculptural’ installation as an exhibition piece for one of the company’s major development projects. I was given a sketch of the idea and tested different iterations while consulting with my mentor (every intern is assigned a senior designer who is your point of contact). Quick sketch-up models, a more definite blue foam model and final Rhino 3D model, dimension and presentation sheets completed this project. Although I still don’t know if they’ve built it yet...

2) Design of the metro station for Disneyland Shanghai, you can only enjoy telling people you’ve worked on this project. A crazy scheme where the ‘roof’ of the station is made up of giant 15-20m wide ‘umbrella’ structures inclined at different angles, I designed the layout/inclinations of these umbrellas. There is no way you would be given this much responsibility in Europe... (good for me at least!). This was done primarily in Rhino (of which I had very little experience before I arrived here – nothing to worry about).

3) Masterplan drawing for a major infrastructural development in Shanghai. The largest shopping area in the city is made up of numerous shopping centres, and the project connects all of these with an extensive bridge system suspended over the road network below. This drawing took forever and was done in Illustrator.

Forget your 9-6pm working day here, I am sometimes working late when I am under pressure with deadlines but I've also had periods where its quite relaxed and I can do things like write that blog during the normal working day. It’s been such a good experience and I’ve learnt quite a bit so there is no way I could possibly complain!

Just to finish, I can only recommend this programme (intern or volunteer) to anyone considering it. China was not, admittedly, number one on my list of places to visit. Perhaps that has been the beauty of it - it has opened my eyes to just how different even quite a developed part of the world can be when you leave the comforts of your own home. I wanted a new experience and China has provided it with more enjoyment than I could ever have hoped for.

Lloyd Helen, Architecture student in UCD

Volunteers and interns during an excursion in China: hiking in Yangshou

Anton — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 11:00:32 +0000

Volunteers and interns during an excursion in China: hiking in Yangshou

Lloyd Helen in China, architecture student from Dublin

Anton — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 10:53:47 +0000

Lloyd Helen in China, architecture student from Dublin, in the office during his internship in Shanghai

Classroom, Min Hang kindergarten, Shanghai

Daniel Farrell — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 07:09:18 +0000

In a restaurant, Shanghai

Daniel Farrell — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 07:03:09 +0000

Irish Pavilion

Daniel Farrell — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 06:55:03 +0000

Yu Gardens, Shanghai

Daniel Farrell — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 06:47:28 +0000

Volunteers at monastery in Suzhou, near Shanghai

Daniel Farrell — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 06:39:05 +0000

Settling in to life in Shanghai

Daniel Farrell — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 04:35:50 +0000

I'm now into my seventh week in Shanghai and I'm well and truly settled in to my life here - I still have three weeks of my placement left, but I already find myself getting sad at the thoughts of leaving the city!

Since my last post I have finished teaching in the Creativity Kindergarten. For my final two weeks there I had some extra classes as a few of the other volunteers had finished up their programmes. Even though I had only been with my original classes for two weeks I had got to know what would work with them and what wouldn't in terms of songs and games. Having got into a routine with them, it was strange to start from scratch with new students who were used to different teachers. Just because something works with one class doesn't mean it will with another! I had one song for teaching the body parts that my other classes loved. I used to finish every lesson by playing it, but in one of my new classes it was met with blank faces and complete indifference. Despite my best efforts to make it seem fun (ie. by making a complete fool of myself, much to the enjoyment of the other teachers), it was a complete flop and I had to move onto something else pretty quickly. This was a bit of a learning curve, but it kept me on my toes!

For my final week in Creativity there was a lot of confusion among the volunteers as they place seemed to be in total chaos. There was furniture being moved around the place at a great rate and classes turning up in the strangest of rooms all around the school. Eventually we found out that because the kindergarten doesn't close for the summer, the students just move up a grade overnight, rather than after their summer break. The kindergarten stays open all the time and parents just take their children out for holidays as they want.

Since last week I have been teaching in Min Hang Kindergarten at a summer camp. Like Creativity, this kindergarten doesn't close for the summer either, but here they run what they call a 'summer camp' for the students who will be leaving the kindergarten to start primary school in September. However, it's not quite the same as our idea of a summer camp! It's designed to help the students make the transition to 'big school' so they have a proper classroom setup and more structured lessons. In Creativity the children sat on little chairs in a semi-circle and I sat with them, but at the camp they sit at desks and I stand up at the whiteboard. I also teach from a book and have to follow a stricter curriculum. Whereas I had been teaching three and four year-olds up to now, these students are six so they have a lot more English already. I was really impressed on the first day when they were all able to write their own names in English with no hesitation. They can understand a lot more which makes it easier for me as there are no Chinese teachers in the room to help me anymore!

There are twenty students at the camp and I share the work with one other volunteer from France. We spend two hours with the children every morning, dividing the time between an English lesson and one other activity, such as music or art. This week in the music and art classes we have been preparing for French Day which is coming up on the 14th of July for Bastille Day. We have been teaching a French song that the children will perform on the day and drawing pictures of the Eiffel Tower and baguettes. Every Thursday in Min Hang the kids have a waterfight. Unsurprisingly all the students just gang up and go straight after us - we weren't prepared for it last week, but we won't be making the same mistake again!

We have also begun preparing for a joint Irish-Norwegian Day on the 23rd of July. We are planning to paint the children's faces with shamrocks and make flags. Kelly (the other EIL Ireland volunteer) will be teaching some Irish dancing steps for what is likely to be a pretty hilarious game of musical chairs. They will also be playing 'Giant's Causeway hopscotch' and will finish up with a carton of milk and a piece or brown bread with jam!

Even though Shanghai is such an international city, where we live is a little out of the centre and we haven't seen any other Westerners in the area at all - we used to get a lot of strange looks, but I think people have got used to us over time. And we have also got used to strangers eager to show off their English shouting 'Hello, how are you?' at us in the street! We have found a few restaurants in the area (all of which coincidentally have pictures on the menus) where the staff know us and what we like to eat. We have found one restaurant down the street serving 'Western' food which to us is what a Chinese restaurant in Europe must be like to Chinese people - they get some things right, but not many. They have some interesting dishes like fruit pizza, snails and pasta with squid and no matter what you order you get ketchup with it!

Two weeks ago I finally got around to visiting the Expo - I had been avoiding it because of the crowds and queing, but I knew I couldn't come to Shanghai for this long and not visit it! There are about half a million people attending each day and it can take up to four hours to get into the most popular pavilons. In the end it wasn't too bad - if you show your passport at the door, you can skip the queue at your own pavilion. I was with a group from all over Europe so we got to skip a few queues thankfully. The Irish pavilion is a bit disappointing compared to many others - it looks like Newgrange with a glass box on top - but it was nice to see cartons of Premier Dairies and Barry's tea this far from home! It's impossible to visit the Chinese pavilion because so many people want to visit it that you have to book your spot and it's currently booked up until a few months after the Expo finishes.

A couple of weeks ago a group of volunteers went to Suzhou, a city about an hour away from Shanghai by train. Even though everyone has their seats booked there is still a mad dash for the train once the gates open, as if people's lives depended on getting on first or something! It was pretty funny to watch, yet we still found ourselves getting caught up in it, afraid that there was something everyone else knew that we didn't. Getting out of the city has become a lot more difficult though as the weather heats up into the summer - millions of people want to get out of the city for the weekends, but there are only so many trains and buses. We have tried a few times to organise trips but it's so difficult as you can only buy tickets in the station or from travel agents ten days before and they're all snapped up pretty quickly.

As I head into my final few weeks here, I've started planning my travels for when I finish my programme. I've booked a week-long trip to Tibet with one other volunteer which I'm really looking forward to. The trip includes one night in a tent near Everest Base Camp and a train journey back to Shanghai (which takes 48 hours!) across the permafrost. After this I'm hoping to spend a few days in Beijing, visit the Terracotta Army in Xian and then spend a few days in Hong Kong and Macau before returning to Shanghai to fly home at the end of August. I wish I could go to some places a bit more off the beaten track but I don't have the time - you could spend a lifetime travelling in China and still only touch the surface.

Jing'An Temple, Shanghai

Daniel Farrell — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 13:43:26 +0000

Volunteers at the Bund in Shanghai

Daniel Farrell — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 04:57:38 +0000

My First Three Weeks in Shanghai

Daniel Farrell — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 07:38:33 +0000

I'm now three weeks into my three-month trip to China and I'm loving it! I arrived in Shanghai at the end of May and will spend a total of nine weeks in the city, with one month teaching English in a kindergarten and one month working in a primary school summer camp.

Last year I participated in the EIL Hong Kong-Ireland Youth Exchange and after this trip I really wanted to explore some more of China. I have always wanted to volunteer abroad, so coming on this trip has given me the opportunity to do both at the same time.

I arrived on a Monday morning and was picked up from the airport by a member of the local staff in China. The most difficult part of arriving was trying to stay up for the rest of the day to beat the jetlag! Before I began working, I had one week of orientation. For this week I stayed in the volunteer flat right in the centre of the city. Another EIL Ireland volunteer, Kelly O'Flaherty, arrived at the same time as me and we did the orientation course together. We went on sightseeing trips, learned about Chinese history and culture and received some Mandarin lessons to help us get by. We also visited the schools where we would begin working the following week and met the students and teachers. This first week was brilliant as it gave me an opportunity to get settled in to the city before starting work. As well as allowing me to get sorted with SIM cards and metro tickets, it gave me time to meet and get to know the other volunteers I would be working and living with.

When I applied, I was a bit worried about being the only volunteer and being alone in a huge city for two months. But a while before I left I found out that Kelly would be here too, and once I got here I was immediately put as ease. There are about ten other volunteers here from across Europe so there's always people around and something to do. Even in the short time I've been here I've made some great friends and I'm already making plans to travel around China with some of them when we finish our placements. All the staff here are very friendly and made me feel at home straight away. They are very helpful to the volunteers, writing out addresses in Chinese for taxi drivers and answering all our questions.

After the orientation week, Kelly and I moved out to the Kindergarten with three other volunteers to begin our placement. The other volunteers had already been working there for a few weeks and had settled in, but I was nervous about starting my English lessons. For the first day, I sat in on one of the other volunteer's classes and the next day I was on my own. The lessons themselves are short (about twenty minutes each) because the children are so young, yet it can still be difficult to find fun things to do each day to keep their attention for that long! I teach them songs and play games for remembering words and phrases as much as possible, and it's funny to watch as they use the rhythm of the songs to count to ten or answer questions. I was worried about teaching English in China when I don't speak any Chinese or have any real qualifications, but the teachers stay in the room to help me explain things and to keep the kids sitting quietly (or as quietly as you can expect four year-olds to sit).

In the kindergarten the day begins at 8 o'clock when all the teachers, including the volunteers, stand at the school gates to greet the children. As they walk by they say 'Hello, good morning' to the volunteers and then go to wash their hands. After this, the nurse inspects their hands and takes their temperature before allowing them in to the school yard. After the morning exercises the flag is raised to the national anthem while the students march on the spot - this is probably the biggest difference I've noticed between schools here and at home. The children then go in to the school for some milk and biscuits before their English lessons. The English classes are over by about 10.30 and then we stay in the classroom helping the teachers with other activities or playing with the children. At 11.30 everyone has lunch from the school canteen and then the children have a nap for about an hour. We use this time to prepare our lessons for the following day, and finish work at 1 o'clock, giving us the rest of the day free.

For my first week in the kindergarten we had to work for seven days straight because of the Dragon Boat Festival. We got the following Monday-Wednesday off for the festival, but everyone in China had to work for the weekend beforehand to make up for it which we all found a little strange. On the Sunday, two of the other volunteers organised Austria-Holland day for the kids, where they made flags and played games, including a game of musical chairs to Mozart! I'm hoping to hold an Ireland-Germany day with one of the other voluntters soon. By Sunday afternoon everyone was wrecked and looking forward to a few days off. We were told that there would be dragon-boat races on for the festival, but we never managed to find any...until we found out afterwards that they started at 8 o'clock in the morning and were over well before we were out of bed on our days off. Having the other volunteers here too is great as we can spend the afternoons and days off together before returning to the kindergarten to sleep. There is so much to do in Shanghai and so many nice cities and towns around it that we never have trouble finding something to do. We are the only people living in the school so it's quite eerie at night walking around the empty classrooms and corridors!

I have felt at home in Shanghai since I got here. It's a huge city where you can really feel China's rapid development happening around you. It's starting to get hot and very humid now, and it will stay like this for the rest of my time here. We can be out in shorts and t-shirt at any time of the day or night and it's always a relief to go inside where there is air conditioning. Crossing the road can be an experience as red lights and pedestrian crossings don't mean very much, and buses and taxis weave their way in and out of cars, bikes and pedestrians making every journey interesting. One of the best things about China is the food. There are so many different things to try and it's all so cheap that we can eat out every night for less than two euro each. The World Expo is on here at the moment so there is a great atmosphere in the city. Though it's not such a big deal outside of China, for many Chinese people the Expo is their first opportunity to learn about other cultures so there are millions of people coming to visit it from all over the country, with approximately half a million people visiting each day. For Shanghai, the event is as big as the Olympics were to Beijing.

So far, my time here has flown by; I can't believe I've been here for three weeks already. I'm really enjoying working in the kindergarten and am also looking forward to working in the summer camp in two weeks.

Peggy and Tom invite you to volunteer in China

Piers Meynell — Thu, 13 May 2010 09:16:10 +0000

Volunteer Abroad

Individual volunteering

China

Description:

Peggy and Tom are the volunteer coordinators who match the skills and interests of volunteers with the needs of a network of local projects in three provinces of China: Shanghai, Su Zhou and the Si Chuan.

China

Volunteer

Shanghai

teaching

welfare

sport

volunteering

Su Zhou

Si Chuan

Claire Wlash from Co. Wicklow spent six weeks in Shanghai volunteering in a school with her friend Dolores

Anton — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 09:59:24 +0000

Claire Wlash volunteered in a school in Shanghai and shares her story with us:

China was a surprise to me on first impression – it felt more like New York., but even bigger. It’s a very impressive ‘highrise’ modern city with fine buildings and as glitzy as any city I’v been in. it is big – and until you get your bearings, rather exhausting getting about, as even crossing the road involves an underground passage way with , it seemed dozens of options as to where you might choose to come back up to street level. There is huge construction going on – repaving/piping with some areas inaccessible in preparation, we understood for this year’s EXPO. The pollution level was high.

We had a week’s orientation – including 2 days of mandarin classes, a tour about Shanghai on the local buses and subway/we were organised to get our convenient ‘travel passes’ , we were introduced to our local food areas. All our queries were answered and we were told to get our ‘presentation’ for school ready. This was to be a Power Point Presentation – I found this a steep learning curve - never having done a ‘power point’ anything since my ECDL training. With a lot of essential help from our very helpful fellow volunteers this was done with reasonable efficiency.

Week 2 saw us at our assigned school way out on the north west of the city – a much more ‘local’ area - straddling a main thoroughfare with a ‘flyover’ overhead on a concrete pod which had the metro line in the centre of this elevation. A busy/dirty area it seemed on first inspection. Our school was tucked behind the main street and so was very quiet/full of bird song in the early morning. We soon got to know our area – a fine park full of all social activity – the parks are a wonderful centre for all social life it seems - dancing/exercise machines/musicians-majong players, duck pond etc. The side streets were a thriving local business area with lots of food stalls/restaurants/shops industry and people. It was really a great BUZZ. – despite the noise and confusion on the main street.

The school is a busy primary school and we had 15hours a week of teaching to do. Some days very busy and some just 1 class. We always had the Chinese English teacher in the class with us to help, sometimes with keeping order and some times and to make things clearer all-round. The classes all had power point presentation facilities and this was the usual teaching method which I thought terrific. It was difficult to know where to ‘pitch’ the lesson – the more junior classes were fine as they learn mostly to music and rhyme and we had a good selection of material. They were terrific singers and seemed to love the classes. I thought the older children could have done with more stimulation in the English classes – their standard was really very good / some excellent. Because we were on just a 6week programme it seemed better to present the ‘assigned’ class of the day and keep to the class agenda – I thought this material a little unexciting.

The school had a very good atmosphere of care and a fine standard of work. All the teachers were young and very hardworking. I loved it all – I learnt a lot / I don’t think our contribution was vast but everyone was very accepting and appreciative. We were there during term exams (for all grades) these are taken very seriously; so we had a lot of canceled classes as the teachers needed to do preparation work.

The winter came in earlier than expected which made keeping warm a priority and an effort. Food was also quite a challenge – though we had a tiny and very special ‘hot pot’ restaurant right at the school gate where we became the regulars. Despite our 2 days of Mandarin classes it was hard to read /impossible to read a menu! It took much mime and pointing to order food – people were amazingly tolerant and helpful.

We were invited to one of the student’s home for a cooking session – to make dumplings and that was a great privilege and great fun. We also went on the school tour to the Film Studios, which presented the Shanghai of my imagination. All the volunteers participated in the ‘Halloween’ weekend at another school – a great dressing up day and fun / we had a super meal as guests of the school afterwards – another ‘hot pot’ meal – but this time with all the trimmings.

We had the use of the city centre accommodation for the weekends and we and all the volunteers returned / it felt like coming home and we did lots of touring/touristing together and had great fun.

If I was advising a new volunteer to China (Shanghai):

1. You will be asked to do a presentation of ‘yourself/country’ – this is entirely your choice but remember, it will be shown to children from 4-13 years. In Shanghai they start learning English at 4 years and I thought the standard very high. Obviously the young children will relate best to other children /animals/games/toys - they loved rhyming/musical material – great singers! – and you will be trying to get some reaction from the older children to the material.

2. All the classes had Power Point Equipment and all classes were presented on Power Point. So don’t forget your Memory Stick - you can buy them in China of course but its obviously the easy way too carry material.

3. There was a terrific interaction and exchange of information amongst the volunteers / it would still be a good idea to have some ideas for dealing with the particular age groups. The more ideas the better.

Volunteer China

Piers Meynell — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:49:29 +0000

Introduced by the school staff, this video follows a few volunteers who are helping with English tuition in schools in Shanghai and other areas.

Volunteer Abroad

Individual volunteering

China

Description:

<p>China is a huge country with the world's largest population. It is a land rich in culture, traditions, and technological advances dating back more than 40 centuries. In recent years it has undergone a very rapid industrial revolution to become one of the worlds fastest growing economies. Such a rapid pace of change is not without its social cost and coupled with an increasingly outward looking society with a people eager to engage with foreigners, volunteers are needed for teaching, welfare and sport projects. This video follows a few of the volunteers who are helping with English tuition in schools in Shanghai and other areas.</p>

Volunteer

China

English

teaching

welfare

sport

language

Shanghai

Suzhou

Mian

Yang

Chong

Ming

Mandarin

social