The return of video by Antonio!
Blogging by Joseph
I slowly opened my eyes with drowsiness still all over me. "Time..." I muttered that to myself as I grabbed the watch beside my pillow to check the time. "Hmm... eight thirty... EIGHT THIRTY?! Hey Luis, wake up! 8:30!!!"
This story well represents how active I was yesterday. For the same reason, I was to start the second day.
We started our day just like the first day, eating breakfast together. The school has been giving us balanced meals of fruit, vegetable, meat and starch. I found this very thoughtful. Around the end of the meal, one of the teachers showed the students 4 foot exercises which could be used to keep oneself healthy. According to a Chinese conception, as one's feet are the furthest from one's heart, such exercises are conducive to good health. After this demonstration, we moved on to our second urban sustainability simulation of the program.
The second simulation (the first of which was in day 1 in the high school; yesterday) demonstrated the difficulties families faced during extreme urbanization. We, along with other students of the high schools, were divided into numerous "families" represented by circles of chairs per family member. Each person was assigned a role of the family, whether it be a child, a grandparent or a mother (regardless of gender), and we were asked to act out our roles as best as possible. However, the real conundrum lied in what was given to us in plastic bags. They contained for each family the family information, money and properties. However, they also contained the bills that had to he paid within "4 weeks" or 1 hour consisting of 15 minutes equivalent to 1 week. One of the resources in the pastic bags was transport cards. Every time someone from a family moved from one public location (ex. Bank) to another (ex. Social services), he or she was required to turn in one transportation card. And of course, transportation cards were a limited resources. And after all these explanations, the coordinator of the simulation had the whistle blown to indicate the beginning of the first week.
Some people were panting; some people were lounging about. I was part of the latter. By the end of the simulation, each person was aware of the varying degrees of difficulties different individuals faced. Emulating a 7 year old, one person was forced to go to school for most of the simulation, unable to give any help or advice to the "parents"--or just a guardian in certain cases. Some families only had one grandmother to take care of several children. In my case, I was an 85 year old homeless man, kicked out of my house by my own family. Initially, people were unaware of how hard the simulation could get. In the beginning, not many people were rushing, and some were simply confused. By the end, a drug dealer was running around with a gun (water gun), stealing other's money and property. Someone had robbed a bank. Utility was shut down. People starved to death. People were evicted. The simulation had taught everyone just how hard people have to struggle to survive.
After the simulation, all the students were given a break intended for resting. However, my group had a different agenda. Each of the four groups was assigned 3 different tasks to prepare for the final day in the school: one or two talent shows, a fashion show from recycled materials and a group performance of 8 minutes. We weren't exactly sure if other groups were working on theirs; however, we knew time would be tight for the preparation and decided to work on them rather than rest. I really appreciated the fact that the Chinese high school students were willing to work with us at the expense of their time and persisting through our language barrier. As a result of our time together, we became more comfortable within the group and was able to get a good idea of what we wanted to do. Although it felt far away, we knew our performance tomorrow would be a blast.
After the break ended, all the students gathered in the auditorium to prepare for the shipyard trip we were about to embark upon. The shipyard was a historical site with interesting aspects to it. The shipyard has a railway so that ships can be carried. At first, this was very confusing to me. How can ships travel on railways? According to one of the teacher assistants, the ships had wheels that could be taken out once they were on land. Throughout our exploration of the shipyard, the teacher assistants had prepared several games for us students. Not everyone played the same games, but I'm sure they were as interesting as the ones my group played. One unique one was that a Chinese student was to tell an American student about a Chinese historical event. Afterwards, the American student would attempt to describe the events in the same way and try to make the game overseer guess the name of the historical event. This was a very fun activity amidst all the serious discussions about urban sustainability.
Immediately after this trip, we went to eat dinner at a restaurant. The way they served the food was very interesting. They had an array of dishes for us to choose. We were allowed to take a bowl or rice, a bowl of soup, a bowl of vegetables of choice and 3 bowls of different Chinese dishes. Based on the first glance of the size of the dishes, I was slightly doubtful how it would be enough. However, we sat in a big table seating several students, and once each person set down their chosen dishes, the table was so full of food that I now wasn't sure how we would finish it all! This was actually a very interesting phenomena for me, because one of the concepts the program was teaching to us students was the power of collaboration. In a sense, the way my perception of the amount of food changed based on how they were presented reinforced that important concept.
After eating dinner was our final activity of the day--a boat ride. Since there were so many people, we needed 3 different boats. Two had open-tops while the other was closed. I was in the closed boat and I could hear the complaints of those who really wanted an open-top boat. However, thankfully, no one made a large fuss about it and with many pictures and boat to boat conversations (through yelling), each person was able to have his or her own fun. Who wouldn't have fun when we saw the biggest advertising billboard in China?
And with that (and a canceled reflection section--much to everyone's satisfactions) our action-packed day came to a close. However, for my group (and many others), only the action part was done. The 3 assignments per group were all to be ready before dinner tomorrow. There was much to be done. And with that thought, each and every person began to prepare for the assignments. Everyone tacitly knew that for many, sleep would come at a very late time in the night. And I knew I myself would wake up late...
Additional photos by Nate Ivy: