Nanjing, Mr. Gong Hongjian

Boats on the Yangtze river

 

In the remote western area of Hexi, a new urban district in the west of Nanjing, runs a narrow branch of the Changjiang (Yangtze) River. Ships and boats, big or small, are moored alongside the river. On one boat, we see Mr. and Mrs. Yu, who welcome us aboard.

 

Mr. Yu, 65 years old, has been a fisherman for the last forty years. Compared to the earlier days, he is catching fewer and fewer fish these days. According to him, the heavy contamination in the Yangtze River is to blame for the decrease of fish. With the Qinhuai River, which flows through the downtown area of Nanjing, flowing into the Yangtze a few hundred meters north, the Yangtze river has to receive tons of polluted water each day. Besides, he complains, the newly established residential area, which is half a mile away from the river, has aggravated the situation.

 

 

Mr. Gong, a friend of Mr. Yu, is the owner of the boat. He was born in 1958 in Xinyi, a county in the northern area of Jiangsu and moved to Nanjing in the 1970s. His parent’s generation made a living by fishing, whereas he left the fishing business and started work at a chemical plant, which gave him a better job security. After his retirement in 2006, he bought this 24 meters long boat for 30, 000 RMB to pick up fishing again.

 

The fishing boat is not his home, but his working and leisure place. Usually, Mr. Gong and his fellow fishermen fish in the morning and sell their spoils on the market in the afternoon. He likes to invite his friends to the boat to drink, play cards or to “chew the fat” now and then.

 

 

Also according to Mr. Gong, fish catches are not predictable anymore these days. However, fish of big sizes is still not rare. In a large container on the boat next to his, we see a big fish, which is almost one meter in length and weighs around 4 kilograms. Mr. Gong tells that one kilogram is worth at least 160 RMB on the market. He also shows some smaller fish which were caught in the morning. They will earn him 30 RMB per kilo. If they are lucky, they can catch wild carps, which can be sold at 200 RMB per kilo or more.

 

Apart from the fishing, Mr. Fong is an amateur craftsman who makes ship models from wood. For the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, he spent over two months to make two large models. Unfortunately, he did not finish his work before May and missed the deadline to denote the models to the IOC. Today, one ship is on the display in the hall of Nanjing Sports Bureau; the other is preserved in his private collection at home.

 

 

Since the ships were specially designed for the Beijing Olympics, they carried numerous meaningful symbols. They are both 2.08 meters in length, indicating the year of the event. They both have five masts, standing for the five continents that take part in the event. He engraved the Chinese Character “京” on the first mast, the Olympics flag on the second one and the map of China of the third; also the main one. On the roof of the three-story cabin in the middle of each ship, he carved four dragons, the well-known totem of China. On the rear deck, he placed a miniature bird’s nest which was also made by him.

 

Mr. Gong says he did everything he could do to donate his works. He asked the Nanjing Sports Bureau to negotiate with the IOC for many times, but the IOC declined him in the end. Only official donations rather than folk artworks were accepted after the month of May. Realizing that it was unlikely to donate the models to the IOC, he decided to present one of them to the Nanjing Sports Bureau.

 

 

Now, he has a bigger plan: to make a 2.14-meter-long model for the 2014 Nanjing Youth Olympics. He admitted that he was less passionate this time, because making a model in such size consumes both time and money. For example, to make the two models for the Beijing Olympics, he worked more than ten hours each day for two whole months. Since he pursued every detail of his works, he selected premium timber as material, which did cost him nearly 8,000 RMB.

 

Mr. Gong tells that he once cherished a dream of becoming a real craftsman. However, he soon found the dream to be a fantasy. Right after retirement, he decided to rent a room in the downtown area of Nanjing to sell his ship models. With only a handful of models sold, he quit after one year. He knew that the reason of failure were the high prices. For example, a simple model of 70 cm long was sold at 500 to 600 RMB. Considering time and money he had to spend, he believes such a price was reasonable. He shows us a model with a few decorations on it. “Even such a small model takes me a week,” he says, “I could spend the week fishing, which guarantees an income of at least six hundred. That’s why I now rather fish than making these models.”

 

 

Instead, Mr. Gong now takes making wooden ship models only as a hobby. He says he dares not to dream of someone buying his models at a considerable price any longer. That was the reason that he chose to donate, rather sell, his works to Nanjing Sports Bureau. He expected only the official recognition of his efforts. He felt sorry not being able to show us the photo of him and Xu Guoping, who was the managing director of Nanjing Museum and the child of the renowned Chinese painter Xu Beihong. “Now the simple wish of me is to win the recognition of people like him”, he says.

 

In the end, Mr. Gong says: “In the early years, I loved photographing, but I could not afford a car which could take me everywhere. Such was the same in my childhood; I loved school, but my family could not afford to pay for the tuition fee.”

 

 

Nanjing, Pastor Yin

 

Mr. Yin is the pastor at the Christianity Jiangsu Road Church.

 

He tells us that, though not in large scale, this church already has a history of over 60 years. It started in 1941 by some local Christians and changed its locations for three times from 1947 to 1999. During the period of Cultural Revolution (1966-1981) it was closed and occupied by the government for other uses. In 1999 it moved to the current location.

 

Mr. Yin was born in a small city in Jilin, a province in the northeastern part of China. He has been in Nanjing for 15 years and now has become a local here. He entered the Nanjing Union Seminary in 1996 and continued his graduate study to get his master’s degree in 2003. Asked why he came to such a faraway city to study theology, he explained that in China only the seminaries in Nanjing are recognized throughout the nation. According to him, seminaries in China can be classified into three levels, namely the national, provincial and municipal level. Comparatively, the nationwide seminaries enjoy more abundant teaching resources and more authoritative status.

 

Since priesthood is still a rare job in China, we are curious why he decided to study theology and chose it as his lifelong career. He tells us it was decided by his family and his experience of understanding Christianity. Because his parents are both pastors, he was exposed to religious culture at young age. During his teens, he felt that his life has been elevated by his belief and therefore he confirmed his willingness to believe in God. At the decisive crossroad of life where he had to choose his future career, he heard Jesus’ calling from inside and was determined to dedicate his life to God.

 

Last year, after being a preacher for six years, he was promoted to pastor. His main duties include preaching, giving services, dealing with the everyday affairs of the church, teaching religious knowledge to pastors of other churches and acting as the host of weddings and funerals. In the past, he says, some people taking part in the Christian funerals would mind abandoning the Chinese traditions like the burning of paper money. However, with more and more people beginning to respect the Christian rituals, these conflicts do not exist any longer.

 

Mr. Yin is also responsible for hosting the annual baptism ceremony. Usually, there is only one big open ceremony in July. For people with special needs, such as the elderly and the disabled, they go their homes for the baptism. Next to all these tasks, Mr. Yin acts as a consultant in the church. People come to him for various reasons. Some of them come to relieve their confusion in belief before deciding to become a Christian or convert to Christianity. Others come to solve their questions in reading and understanding the Bible. There are also people who come to ease their mental stresses caused by family, social relations or work. “It is estimated that in China 60% to 70% of the population have psychological problems to different extents,” he tells us, “so it is important for us to be their listeners and help them to live with love, hope and belief.

 

 

Talking of his family, the pastor shows a wide smile on his face. He got married in Nanjing and now has two daughters. The older is 7 years old, while the younger is a baby born in May 2012. They live a typical Christian life, praying before dinners and reading the bible before sleeping. “I am happy,” he says, “ to see my children grow in the blessing of the Lord.”

 

Mr. Yin is also excited to tell us about the development of Christianity in Nanjing. Twenty years ago, there were only 2,000 to 3,000 Christians in Nanjing, whereas the number has increased to 150,000 today. Most Christians here are protestant. He gives us two reasons to explain why the development of Christianity is going so fast in the past 20 years. The first is that everyone has a need for belief. In the Chinese society where dramatic reforms and changes are taking place, numerous values spring up. When exposed to the voices advocating individuality, profits, efficiency or any other values, many people gradually lose the sense of belonging. In such cases, they need a spiritual support, a voice that can firmly tell them what is the truth. The second reason is that the development towards a more liberal society in China allows for the existence of religions. In the Cultural Revolution period, religion was regarded as superstition and strictly forbidden. People had craving for belief, but where deprived of the right to exercise their belief. However, now the society begins to recognize religions and to respect people’s freedom of choosing a religion.

 

Mr. Yin denies the thought that the Chinese churches are simulating the traditional Western churches. Though Christianity originated from, and has had a two thousand years of history in, the Western countries, the values it has been advocating transcend the boundary of nations. The mission of Chinese churches is to practice and spread these values in the most acceptable and effective ways. He highlights that they do not rigidly exercise the rituals of Christianity, but focus on the essence. “We often play anthems with erhu and guzheng, build churches in Chinese traditional style and preach with Chinese examples, and so forth”, he says. “Chinese elements can be found almost everywhere in our churches; such as music, poems, books, rituals and buildings.”

 

In the end, Mr. Yin discusses with us the relationship between Chinese churches and the Chinese government. First, there is not an official organization that leads all the churches, nor a leader like a cardinal or a bishop. Churches of different types disperse all around the country, including some family-run ones and even illegal ones. Second, Chinese churches do not have to pay any tax to the government. Third, the attitude of Chinese government toward Christianity has changed from inhibition to respect and support. One example is that the Nanjing government is investing in building a large church which can accommodate 5000 people in a suburban area (near the Olympic Sports Center). According to Mr. Yin, churches need the support of the government, because the government is able to provide sufficient financial security to help them.

 

 

Nanjing, Ms. Tao Rong

 

Ms. Tao, 42 years old, is the manager of Jiyinian Psychological Counseling Center in Nanjing. Although she majored in literature rather than psychology in university, she developed an interest in psychological analysis, especially the theory of psychodynamics. She became the student of a Norwegian psychologist to systematically study psychoanalysis in 2003 and started her counseling career in 2004.

 

Jiyinian Psychological Counseling Center was established by Ms. Tao and her friends, Ms. Yang and Mr. Chen, in 2006. In its infancy stage, it was rather difficult to run the center. Therefore, in the next year, both Yang and Chen left the center for better careers. Ms. Tao remained till now but did not enlarge the scale of the center. There are two full-time counselors in the center and several part-time psychologists who come at times for academic exchanges. She explained that she neither has ambition or time to manage a center on a larger scale.

 

According to Ms. Tao, the history of psychoanalysis in China is rather short; it can be traced to the years before the Cultural Revolution. At that time, some Western psychoanalytical theories were introduced. The development was suspended during the Cultural Revolution Period and slowly restored when medical colleges re-introduced Psychiatry as a subject. The first generation of students majoring in Psychiatry after the Cultural Revolution, have become the backbone of the psychoanalytical profession. Many of them, she says, are her teachers.

 

 

Ms. Tao tells that in China counselors mainly utilize Western approaches, such the psychodynamics of Freud or the TA methodology (Transactional Analysis) in their counseling. However, many of them are making endeavors to adjust these traditional Western methods to better serve Chinese people. Their major attempt is to introduce Chinese ancient philosophies into psychoanalysis, such as the thoughts of Zen, Confucius and Tao. In the last few years, she herself has pursued the wisdom in Zen and tries to practice her findings in counseling.

 

She believes this attempt is necessary in China. First, the disasters China has weathered in the past one and a half century, namely 150 years of war and 10 years of Cultural Revolution, have torn a huge trauma on people’s sub-consciousness. Second, Chinese people show little concern on children’s mental health both in the traditional and modern education. This ignorance distorts the personalities of many children. Therefore, Chinese people have their own psychic wounds that cannot be cured merely through imported psychoanalytical methods.

 

“In psychodynamic treatment, counselors take respecting their clients as the primary principle”, said Ms. Tao, “so we call clients ‘visitors’ or ‘cases’ instead of ‘patients’.” Ms. Tao cannot give an average age, education level or social background of her visitors, because they are from all walks of life. Yet she is sure that all her visitors can afford the consulting fees and young people at the age of 20 to 30 account for the majority. In the exam season, many adolescents who are going to take the entrance examination for college or high school come to her to relieve their pressures.

 

 

In the psychoanalytical theories, mental illnesses can be classified into three kinds based on the severity; namely schizophrenia, personality disorders and neurosis conflicts. In European countries such as France, psychological counseling centers provide psychotherapies to all the three illnesses, whereas those in China are currently lacking the conditions to treat schizophrenia. Therefore, visitors coming to Ms. Tao usually suffer from personality disorders or neurosis conflicts.

 

In most cases, visitors are unaware of their personality disorders or neurosis conflicts. Visitors come to Ms. Tao to solve various types of common problems, for example, their difficulty in dealing with colleagues, friends, lover or pressures from their job or study. These problems are in effect only the symptoms of certain mental illness. Ms. Tao needs to utilize complex techniques and skills in psychoanalysis, which are mainly based on Freud’s theory of defense mechanisms and Bowlby’s theory of attachment patterns, to trace the root causes beneath these symptoms.

 

It is crucial to distinguish whether the visitor suffers from personality disorders or merely neurosis conflicts. For an experienced counselor, it takes only one or two sessions of talking to resolve the neurosis conflicts. Nevertheless, the treatment called “personality integration process” can last up to several years if the visitor has been assessed to have personality disorders.

 

 

Ms. Tao told that both personality disorders and neurosis conflicts find their roots in the childhood experience of visitors. People with such illnesses did not have a good connection with their “mother”, a metaphor of guardians like parents, grandparents, other family members or nannies. Any hurt feelings related to their “mother” could be deeply embedded in the sub-consciousness of them. Personality disorders are more severe than neurosis conflicts because they originate from the early stages in life, when people did not know how to deal with them.

 

Personality disorders can be caused by a variety of psychic shocks occurring to the visitors before they were three years old. The psychic shocks include the early death of parents, early divorce, domestic violence, abandoning or disregarding girls. Ms. Tao added that parents with psychic traumas, for instance, thanatophobia (a specific fear of death) or fear of being abandoned, tend to transmit their illnesses to their children. For instance, during the “Three Years of Natural Disasters” (1958 to 1961), people had to face the death of many family members. In some families, only one or two children survived out of ten. These miseries were ascribed to the thanatophobia of that generation and exerted a far-reaching effect on their next generation.

 

Most of the people with neurosis conflicts have an Oedipus Complex, which means, they have failed to establish a healthy relationship between father, mother and themselves. They were exposed to severe external shocks at the age older than 6 years old.

 

 

Ms. Tao tells that the charges of the psychological counseling service in her center are 300 RMB for a 50-minute talk for regular visitors, while new visitors need to pay 400 RMB. Visitors’ medical insurance does not reimburse the counseling fees. She said it is lower than the average level in Nanjing. Some counselors with less experience of counseling, ask 500 RMB. Visitors with severe symptoms, come twice per week, whereas others come once every week.

 

In China, it is now easier to get a license to work as a psychological counselor. Ms. Tao has such a certificate for her qualification. In the opinion of Ms. Tao, having a license is not equivalent to having the certification to be a good counselor. Many people who memorize book knowledge to obtain the license are short of clinical knowledge, which is critical in the practice of counseling. She accumulated experience through a 3-year clinical study following her Norwegian teacher in Wuhan, Hubei Province.

 

She stresses the importance of experience. She developed a set of methodology in counseling by reflecting upon every case she ever took. However, she avoids applying her experience to her new visitors. “It is necessary for us to keep curiosity for a new visitor, even if he has symptoms I am already familiar with,” says Ms. Tao, “for individuals are distinct, and their psychology changes all the time.”

 

 

Nanjing, Still Water Counseling Center




Mr. Sun, thirty years old, is one of the three shareholders of Still Water, a private counseling center that was founded last year after two years of preparations.


In China, more and more private counseling and psychotherapy companies emerge. However, Mr. Sun claims, it is not an easy business to run. Last year three counseling centers, including Still Water, were founded in Nanjing, but only Still Water survived. The overall demand for psychotherapy services is absolutely growing, but Mr. Sun thinks not many people can afford it right now.


As an example he mentions psychoanalysis, which requires an intensive and long-term treatment process. Usually, the treatment needs three to four sessions in a week. The price of each session depends on the counselors’ experience, which is decided by the accumulated therapy hours and supervision hours. Prices for one hour therapy sessions at Still Water are 200, 300, 400 and 600 RMB. Mr. Sun’s price is 300 RMB per session. Most of the people coming here, especially the younger generations born after the 1970s and also teenagers, can afford up to 30 sessions.





Today, the government issues official licenses for the counselor profession. Mr. Sun explains that it is the Labor Department of China that is responsible for issuing the psychological counseling certificates. There are two levels of certificates; one level for senior counselors and one for junior counselors.


The criteria to get a certificate includes passing basic psychology and clinical psychology tests, as well as concluding a certain amount of counseling cases that will indicate your ability to the conceptualize cases. The scientific foundations of the tests lie in the most prevalent psychotherapy approaches. The first is Freud’s methodology of psychoanalysis, because it is the earliest and most classical approach in history. All the counselors have to read some materials from Freud, not the original version but some abstracts. The second approach is the Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), an evidence-based approach with a “natural scientific flavor”, as Mr. Sun describes it. Through CBT, counselors learn to explore the stimuli and responses of their clients. The third includes a more humanistic approach. Mr. Sun refers here to Transactional Analysis and similar derived approaches.





Mr. Sun gives us a short introduction to the history of psychotherapy in China. Psychotherapy already existed before the establishment of the Republic of China. His grandfather was a psychologist. Together with colleagues he conducted psychotherapy research and practice.  However, the Cultural Revolution wiped out the whole discipline between 1966 and 1976. In a communist country like China, which puts material as the first substance, psychology with its concentration on spirituality was regarded as a fake and Bourgeois science. The early generation of psychologists either committed suicide or were captured. His grandpa, one of the captured, was forced to perform ridiculous tasks, like cleaning toilets.


The whole discipline was totally destroyed during the 10-year disaster and was not rebuilt until 1980s. Before 2001, there were only psychologists who prescribed pills. Therapies where psychologists would have sessions talking with their clients were nonexistent. It was in 2001 that the first new generation of counselors got their licenses from the government. According to Mr. Sun, at that time the government realized that some mental diseases cannot be totally cured by pills and they decided to issue the psychological counseling licenses.





When asked, Mr. Sun explains that there is not yet a market for affluent middle-class people who do not have serious disorders but want to take therapy sessions get to know themselves better.  His clients for therapy are mainly the neurotic persons, such as those suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorders (OCD). All of his clients come to him after having extremely serious quarrels or fights with their family and they have become too depressed to overcome the problems on their own. He shares with us an interesting finding that almost all his clients are from private companies or starting their own business. He speculates that civil servants working for public institutions live a pretty happy life, so none of them has the need of psychological counseling.


Since all the supervisors of Mr. Sun are Swedish, he has access to plenty of European cases of psychotherapy. Based on his comparison of the foreign and domestic cases, he tells that most of the foreign clients have problems deeply rooted in their family background, whereas the Chinese clients have problems driven by social changes taking place in the last decades.


According to him, the majority of Swedish clients suffer from personality disorders and neurosis conflicts caused by family miseries at their early ages, for example, sexual abuses and physical abuses. Thanks to the stable society in Sweden, few people have problems in adapting to social changes. However, for the last two to three decades, people born after the 1970s in China have undergone dramatic social changes. When they were in their primary schools, they were taught to love the country and the communist party. However, after they grew up, they found this cramming of ideology was fake and useless. They were exposed to and were forced to adapt to the brutal competitions for materials in the jungle society. They pursue so hard to own a house, a car and other materials, seen as necessities for marriage and life nowadays, that they lose their focus in the spiritual world as a consequence.





Now that the problems are driven by social changes, Mr. Sun sometimes feels that he cannot do anything to exterminate the root of these problems. However, he and his colleagues are endeavoring to guide their clients to address the problems with a peaceful state of mind. One of his colleagues joked that as a matter of fact, they are all working for the government, because their main job is to wipe out the anger of their clients and to make them more adapted to the society.


However, after years of practicing, he is more willing to describe his duty as growing the personal freedom inside his clients. He and his colleagues now share the view that if we get more personal freedom, sooner or later our society would be freer. He cites from one of his colleagues, that a free country cannot be built with a bunch of slaves. He says that “our people” are suffering from an inner constriction that they easily knee down to the authority of the government, and even worse, cherish “worship with a fever” for the authority. Through the communication between him and his clients, he believes that they have more courage to defend their own rights in their life and more knowledge to earn their money and status without abandoning their dignity.





We continue our conversation with the focus on Mr. Sun’s personal experience. He majored in English and Chinese Comparative Literature in college. In 2005, he pursued a master’s degree in clinical psychology and now has one year before getting his doctor’s degree in the same major. Till now, he has practiced clinical psychology for seven years. He will go to Norway next year for further study.


He describes his personal counseling style as the combination of Western methods and Buddhist theories. Despite utilizing the Western methods to analyze and research, he makes the wisdom of Buddhism the foundation of his counseling. The goal of Western psychotherapy is to cure people, while the marrow of Buddhism is to accept. For example, he uses Western techniques such as the double chair, i.e. he asks his clients to communicate with their family members as if they were present. However, if they refuse, he accepts and changes to another technique. The foundation based on Buddhist philosophy enables his clients to have the feeling of being accompanied in their most difficult period, not being treated as a patient. He is sure that this accompanying is curative to his clients.





Mr. Sun says that three or four years ago, he would agree that the western psychology attaches so much importance to the value of individual that it helps create too many selfish people. However, now, after further study and reflection upon Western theories and Buddhist philosophy, he has changed his view. First, more theories with the premise that human beings exist in relations, such as the “Dasein” analysis approach, are burgeoning in recent years. Also, he does not think there is a conflict between the emphasis on ego and the emphasis on relationship any more. The Buddhist, especially the South Buddhist theories, also focuses on the individual. What they advocate is that if people can love themselves, they will have more strength and power to love others. He further illustrates that if people have more personal freedom, they will have more chances to build the intimacy with others, while those haunted by inner constrictions find themselves hard to establish and maintain relationships.


Mr. Sun admits that seven years of study and practice of clinical psychology exerts a far-reaching influence on his own development as an individual. In the past, he could not bear some personal conflicts, but now he becomes more emotionally stable, peaceful and happier in his life. His professional goal in the next ten years is to develop his own approach and original therapy theory, which can better fit the Chinese people’s psychological need. He has been forging the way of integrating the Western methods and the Buddhist philosophy, theoretically and practically.





“Still Water”, the name of the counseling center, according to Mr. Sun, was derived from the movie “Almost Famous”. There was a rock band called Still Water in this movie. He added that they were also inspired by the famous western saying, “Still waters run deep”.


Seven young therapists work in the center and they all want to go deeper in their counseling career and psychological research. For the first two years of this center, they invited supervisors from Sweden and America to have workshops and one year ago, they all thought it was high time to receive clients on their own. Clients can find them on their website through their advertisements.




At two o’clock p.m., a weekly salon begins in the center. About fifteen people participate in the salon, including three therapists, college students majoring in psychology in Nanjing Normal University as well as people interested in psychology. This week’s theme of the salon is peoples’ expression of their anger. All the participants are asked to share their experience of getting extremely irritated.


Mr. Chen, one of the therapists, lost his temper with a bunch of college students in Wenchuan during the post-earthquake (2008) reconstruction period. His team and the college students were both sent there to carry out psychological consultation to children. Since no task was assigned to the students, they were playing all day long and making a lot of noise. Mr. Chen, dissatisfied with the students for rather a long time, finally lost his temper because he could no longer bear their noisy behavior.





The two college graduates following Mr. Chen’s story have both identical stories. They both want to become psychotherapists in the future, whereas their parents insist that they have to do more stable and income-guaranteed jobs, such as a salesman or a civil servant. One of them left home when he had failed to control his resistance to such pressures.


Another girl was irritated after a sexual harassment. The boyfriend of her roommate touched her butt while she was washing her hair. She described her feeling at that moment as being instantly detonated. She poured all the water on him, slapped him in his face and did not allow him to come to their dorm any more.


Most of the participants regretted their outrage afterwards. However, Mr. Sun tells them it was the outrage that visualized their emotional needs for them. Through expressing their anger, they could see a clearer self and hear a clearer crave from the inside.


Nanjing, Tanker Shipping Sailor Training School

 

In the middle of a residential area, located in the west of the Gulou district in Nanjing and just 1.5 km from the Changjiang (Yangtze) River, a ship rises between the buildings. Closer inspection learns that it is only half a ship. Fourteen years ago the ship was built for training students at the Tanker Shipping Sailor Training School.

 

Mr. Qi is 55 years old and has been a teacher at the school for the past 10 years. He tells the school is affiliated with Sinotrans and CNS Holdings CO Ltd. Established in 1984 it moved to its current location in 1998. The school employs around 10 full time teachers and a handful of part time teachers. Though small, it is the only official training institute for sailors in Nanjing.

 

 

The school issues official shipping licenses. As sailor is considered to be a stable job, there is a steady influx of up to 300 students every year. Not only young people apply; the age of students varies from 18 to 60 years old. While some female students enroll every year, the male students outnumber them at least 1:10.

 

The school offers three different kinds of courses: the training of river transportation, coastal shipping and ocean shipping.

 

Before becoming a teacher, Mr. Qi used to be in charge of the supply of electricity on a ship. He describes his early life on the water as both “boring” and “free”. He tells that in the 80s and 90s of the last century telecommunications were not that advanced in China. He and his fellow boat mates could not surf the Internet, watch TV or even listen to the radio on the ship. All they could do to kill the time was to have a little drink, play chess or cards and read some books. However, they always had a good time when their ship was berthed at a port. They were usually given six or more hours of free time, which they used for short, yet exciting, visits to the city areas around the ports. He enjoyed a feeling of freedom in meeting people and discovering cities unknown to him.

 

 

This all changed after he got married. He felt bound to his family and did not enjoy the freedom anymore. He refers this period as a “hard time”. In the end he quit his job and became a teacher.

 

When asked if dealing with loneliness and being far away from your family for a long time is a subject that is part of the school’s curriculum, he explains that such subjects are not discussed with the students. Everybody has to deal with that in his or her own way.

 

 

Mr. Wang Xinqiao, 57 years old and a teacher at shipping schools for the past 30 years, joins our conversation. He speaks some English which he learned when sailing the world for 11 years as a young man.

 

We briefly talk about the school again. The level of education of most students is not very high. The teaching is quite relaxed; the subject matters they teach are easy to acquire. Classes are from Monday to Sunday, but teachers don’t need to work many hours in the office; they just come and go for classes.

 

 

 

 

Beijing, Real-estate development in Jiugong

 

The area near the new Jiugong subway station, in the southeast of Beijing, is bustling with building activity. Several new high-rise residential compounds are almost completed and elsewhere workers are preparing building grounds for more real-estate development. The area used to be farmland. We visit the remnants of, what once was, a farmers’ village.

 

 

The one and two story houses of the village have to make way for another development project. Two third of the village has already been demolished, but 40 families refuse to leave.

 

 

 

 

We talk with Mrs. Li Shulan, almost 79 years old, who has lived in the village for the past 54 years. Mrs. Li is a mother of four daughters and two sons, who still live with her and her husband. The project developer, she tells, offered her family two apartments as compensation, but according to her that was definitely not enough to house her family. Apart from that, the apartments offered where of very bad quality and they were destroyed after the case was exposed in the media.

 

All houses in the village should have been demolished by June 2011 according to the developer’s planning. However, 40 families decided to stay because they were not satisfied with the compensation.

 

Mrs. Li tells that in June last year the water and electricity has been cut off and the public toilet has been demolished. For water they now go to a neighbor across the street and instead of going to a toilet they use the open land around the village.

 

Because of the harsh conditions, Mrs. Li wants to move. “What else can I do?”, she says. How and when she can leave is not clear.

 

Mrs. Li was born in the Shandong province. 54 years ago she and her husband moved to Beijing to work as a farmer at the Nanjiang farm. At that time, there were so many farmers that the farm could not provide enough accommodation in the dormitories. Thus, they built their own house in the field and settled down.

 

Now she and her husband, who stays in the house because of health problems, are retired. Together they receive a pension of 4,000 RMB per month.

 

Mrs. Li tells that there are many old people living in this village and a lot of them got ill due to the sanitary conditions and the worries about the future demolition of their houses. A few of them passed away in the past year.

 

When we leave the village we meet some people who live in the neighborhood. They explain that many of the residents in the village have spent all their lives living here, they invested a lot of money in their houses and feel it is hard to leave all their memories behind. Next to that, the compensation fees are too low.

They tell about an old lady from the village. Every night so goes to her daughter’s house to sleep and early the next day she returns to her old house in the village.

 

We also hear a lot of muttering about the rich people who drive poor people, who lived their whole life in this place, out of the city. They express a resentment against the rich, and the preferential treatment of government officials, that we have come across a lot lately.

 

 

 

 

 

The area near the new Jiugong subway station, in the southeast of Beijing, is bustling with building activity. Several new high-rise residential compounds are almost completed and elsewhere workers are preparing building grounds for more real-estate development. The area used to be a farmland and we visit the remnants of what once was a farmers’ village.

The one and two story houses of the village have to make way for another development project. Two third of the village has already been demolished, but 40 families refuse to leave.

We talk with Mrs. Li Shulan, almost 79 years old, who has lived in the village for the past 54 years. Mrs. Li is a mother of four daughters and two sons, who still live with her and her husband. The project developer, she tells, offered her family two apartments as compensation, but according to her that was definitely not enough to house her family. Apart from that, the apartments offered where of very bad quality and they were destroyed after the case was exposed in the media.

All houses in the village should have been demolished by June 2011 according to the developer’s planning. However, 40 families decided to stay because they were not satisfied with the compensation.

Mrs. Li tells that in June last year the water and electricity has been cut off and the public toilet has been demolished. For water they now go to a neighbor across the street and instead of going to a toilet they use the open land around the village.

Because of the harsh conditions, Mrs. Li wants to move. “What else can I do?”, she says. How and when she can leave is not clear.

Mrs. Li was born in the Shandong province. 54 years ago she and her husband moved to Beijing to work as a farmer at the Nanjiang farm. At that time, there were so many farmers that the farm could not provide enough accommodation in the dormitories. Thus, they built their own house in the field and settled down.

Now she and her husband, who stays in the house because of health problems, are retired. Together they receive a pension of 4,000 RMB per month.

Mrs. Li tells that there are many old people living in this village and a lot of them got ill due to the sanitary conditions and the worries about the future demolition of their houses. A few of them passed away in the past year.

When we leave the village we meet some people who live in the neighborhood. They explain that many of the residents in the village have spent all their lives living here, they invested a lot of money in their houses and feel it is hard to leave all their memories behind. Next to that, the compensation fees are too low.

They tell about an old lady from the village. Every night so goes to her daughter’s house to sleep and early the next day she returns to her old house in the village.

We also hear a lot of muttering about the rich people who drive poor people, who lived their whole life in this place, out of the city. They display a resentment against the rich and the preferential treatment of government officials that we have come across a lot lately.

Beijing, Legal proceedings

 

We walk in XiCheng district at a place were a few years ago you could walk through old hutongs. The residents have all been relocated to suburbs and the place is now a construction site of mid- to high-end apartments for retired government officials.

 

Mr. Huang Genhua approaches us. He asks if we are journalists. “No, we are not”. He likes to tell us his story anyway; for this blog. Knowing that a published story with his photo could cause him problems, we ask him again and he insists that is what he wants.

 

In 2005, Huang Genhua worked as a foreman at a construction site in Hebei. At a given moment the boss refused to pay the workers. Mr. Huang then paid the workers himself, but the boss still owns him 5,000 RMB.

 

According to Mr. Huang, he started a legal action against his boss in a local court. However, the court ruled before the scheduled proceedings without hearing him. The court ruled that his boss only needs to pay him 1,000 RMB. Mr. Huang appealed and when to an intermediate court. The judge in that court confirmed the ruling of the local court and asked Mr. Huang to apologize to his boss. When he attempted to continue legal proceedings, the court terminated the case.

 

Up to now he never received the 1,000 RMB his former boss should have paid him according to the court ruling.

 

Mr. Huang felt the treatment by the court was unfair. He claims that his former boss settled the matter with the judge by treating the judge with a dinner.  It is for this reason, he said, that the judge ruled before the scheduled proceedings that never took place. Now he has come to Beijing to start legal proceedings against the court.

 

Mr. Huang tells us that he needs exposure in the media and repeatedly stresses that he has all the evidence needed to confirm of what he said.

 

Finally, Mr. Huang and two of his friends show us some bruises and scratches. Mr. Huang says they were beaten up three days ago because he did not let go of the case.

 

 

 

Beijing, Tomb Sweeping Day

 

 

On Tomb Sweeping Day (Qingming Jie) Chinese people visit the graves or burial grounds of their ancestors. We visited the Wanan cemetery in the west of Beijing together with the Li family: Li Yaoming, a retired medical practitioner in the army, his wife Zhang Liping, a retired editor at a publishing house and Li Yu, their daughter, a student in Chinese language and also my (much appreciated) assistant.

 

Today’s post is written by Li Yu, photos and editing by Anton Hazewinkel.

 

 

The Wanan Cemetery was built in 1930 and is one of the oldest cemeteries in Beijing. It is located at the south side of Wanan mountain. The cemetery is divided into five main areas according to the five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, water). Each area again is divided into different sections based on Feng Shui, Taoist concepts of Heavenly stems and Earthly branches and the “Thousand Character” classic. Translation of the photo above, on the right: “Wan You Ping An”, which means “being blessed and peaceful”.

 

The cemetery is known for being the burial ground of many famous people, including the drama writer Cao Yu, the calligrapher Qi Gong and one of the founders of the Communist Party: Li Dazhao (a memorial museum dedicated to him is on the same premises).

 

 

We visit the grave of my grandmother, Wang Hui (she died in 2007 at the age of 84) and my grandfather, Xiang Ming (he died in 2008 at the age of 93). On the grave stone are engraved, according to Chinese customs, the names of all the descendants.

 

 

Wanan Cemetery offers various kinds of services: a place in the cemetery wall, at the cemetery or in the Columbarium. Spending several thousands of RMB, you can put the cinerary casket in the wall with a tombstone sealing the cave for some time. However, the cinerary casket will be removed if nobody pays the management fee after a couple of years. Today, we met an unlucky guy who lost his family’s cinerary casket because his family failed to pay the management fee (he is not pictured). He was smoking quietly in front of the cemetery wall, sadly staring at the flowers he brought and placed in the empty cave. Sad as it is, he is still able to honor his family with an empty cave; if someone rents the cave, he will have nowhere to go when he misses his family.

 

 

Normal graves at the cemetery are like my grandparents’: 1 – 1.5 square meters with a tombstone. You can put four cinerary caskets inside the grave. On the front of the tombstone, there are names of dead people, the birth date and the date of their passing, the names of their children and grandchildren. If a child already passed away, workers would mark their name with a square (pictured 2nd to the left on the sixth photo below). Usually, Chinese will bury their parents together in the same grave and they will carve both of their names on the tombstone. If one of their parents is still alive, they will paint the name of the parent that did not pass away in red (the deceased name is in black and when his or her partner would die, his or her name will be changed from red to black). Before 1949, when the new republic of China was founded, many Chinese were still polygamous, thus you can see some tombstones with more than two names carved on it. In those cases the husband’s name has the biggest size, while his first wife’s name is smaller on the left, and the other wives’ names are even smaller on the right.

 

 

Some people won’t carve anything on the back of the tombstone, while others prefer to carve a brief biography, a poem or a few words to honor their families. Characters in small sizes for biography usually cost 4 RMB per character and big size characters for poems or single words cost 20 RMB per character. We met a worker carving a short biography today, he printed the article on the stone in red and then carved it according to the shape of characters. After that, he will paint all the characters in black or gold (see second picture second row below).

 

 

My grandparents’ grave costs 78,000 RMB for a lease of 20 years. We will need to repay the management fee for another 20 years.

 

 

There are some cemetery plots for big families at the entrance. They are usually as large as a private vegetable garden, thus it’s possible to set up quite a few tombstones there. Therefore, all the family members can be buried together. “Family” is the most important concept in China, one may spent his or her life somewhere away from family, however it’s comforting for Chinese to be buried together with all their relatives, who truly care about them. It’s like coming back home again.

 

 

We saw some people sitting around a table, with a cinerary casket on it, chatting with their families next to the Columbarium. They deposit the cinerary caskets inside this brick-made two-story building. People can only deposit cinerary caskets in the Columbarium for three years and the price varies from 90 RMB – 210 RMB. It’s the cheapest to deposit on the first and the 10th layer, while the middle layers are the most expensive ones. According to the website of Wanan Cemetery, the Columarium was fully occupied by March, 2008. In the middle of the photos above is the mailbox for sending letters to the deceased. Alternatively emails can be used as well to send messages to the beloved ones that are not with us anymore.

 

The management of the cemetery charges 3,000 RMB per year per square meter for cleaning. Families who don’t pay for this have to clean it themselves. Like many families, my family takes care of the tomb sweeping ourselves.

 

 

The normal procedure for tomb sweeping these days is to buy flowers at the flower store near the cemetery (the price for flowers varies from 20 RMB – 200 RMB), get some water in the cemetery at the taps that are placed around the tombs and clean the tombstone (visitors usually bring their own containers and cloths), place the flowers, desserts, drinks, or even alcohol and cigarettes in front of the tombstone. After that, people will talk with the dead for a while, about what happened recently（or just talk in silence）. Finally, all the families would bow for three times to show their honors (or pray with hands clasped together).In the past, many people would fire paper money for the dead; nowadays most people just put the paper money in front of the grave for an environment-friendly alternative. Nevertheless, in front of the entrance a truck of the fire brigade stands by in case something goes wrong with the burning of the paper money.

 

 

After sweeping the tomb of my grandparents, Anton asked my parents a few questions.

 

 

My father said that Tomb Sweeping Day is the second most important festival in China; for all the families are able to get together. That’s also the reason why it is so crowded everywhere. My father’s hometown is in Jiangxi, where people maintain the most traditional way for tomb sweeping. Usually we go with more people on the Tomb Sweeping Day, but the other relatives are out of town at the moment, we will repeat the ceremony of sweeping the tomb and honoring my grandparents in May this year.

 

 

When asked how they celebrated tomb sweeping day before my grandparents passed away, my mom said that since she’s not a native Beijinger and her relatives are in Shanghai, Beijing, Wuxi and other provinces, they didn’t visit each other very often because they are getting old. Thus, they never exercised tomb sweeping before her parents passed away.

 

 

According to my parents, an increasing number of people go to cemeteries since 2008, when the government announced it a three-day holiday.

 

My mom has volunteered for organ donation after her death. She says that there is a special tombstone for people who have donated their organs, but she does not want it because she has a family grave. She also emphasizes that more and more people are willing to plant trees in the cemetery to honor their dead families these days, which is a new and environment friendly way to honor the dead.

 

 

While walking around the cemetery we see some graves that were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution (at that time the government appealed the public to break old traditions, and graves were one of the four traditions that were to be destroyed). Some of the destroyed graves have been repaired by their offspring, some are still in ruins.

 

 

In recent years, the management of the cemetery has come up with new ideas to honor the dead in an environmental friendly way (as opposed to burning paper money). One of the new ways of honoring is to attach tags with personal messages held by red and yellow treads to bamboo stems.

 

 

 

Beijing Electrical Engineering School and the Raising of the Flag Ceremony

 

The Beijing Electrical Engineering School is a school for secondary vocational education. We attended the weekly raising of the flag ceremony, made a tour through the school and had an interview with Mrs. Zhang, the office manager of the school.

 

Suggestion: play this sound file while reading the transcript of the ceremony

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TRANSCRIPT RAISING OF THE FLAG CEREMONY

(not included in recording: music playing; a marching song for athletes)

(students are coming out of the building and position themselves in lines on the square)

 

 

(recording starts here)

P.E. teacher: Every class, stand into dense lines. Dense lines!

P.E. teacher: Don’t chat after u stand in dense lines, close your mouths.

P.E. teacher: Close your mouths! (polite way to say “shot up”)

P.E. teacher: I’ll say the name of your class (if you are still chatting  …; your class may get a lower score for behavior)

P.E. teacher: Now let’s start the drill. Everyone… At ease! Attention!

 

 

P.E. teacher: The weather today is nice, take out your hands. Don’t forget where and how to put your hands. Put them on the lines of each side of your pants.

P.E. teacher: At ease! Attention! Don’t move or shake your body. Everyone … At ease! Attention!

 

 

P.E. teacher: Now, the ceremony of raising the flag begins!

P.E. teacher: Please carry the flag!

 

(four girls carry the flag to the flagpole, walking the parade step)

(meanwhile, a student spokesman begins to introduce the four girls; carrying the flag is regarded as an honor)

 

 

 

Student spokesman: This week, our class, class five grade one (high school grade one), is on duty. The four girls for hoisting the flag are Pan Jiameng, Shi Yiqing, Ma Yangyang, Wei Jingjing. Pan Jiameng is the Group Secretary in our class, she leads us by example, being one of the top students, she has pretty good marks.  Under her leadership, the members of the Youth League work hard and we received lots of compliments from teachers and officials from the school’s Youth League. Ma Yangyang checks for the attendance in the class every day, she works seriously and  she likes to help others. Shi Yiqing is the Study Officer in our class. She manages the morning reading in the class and it works well. Now all the classmates treat the morning reading seriously and study pretty hard. Wei Jingjing is the class representative for Politics. She is hard-working and she accomplishes the tasks from the teacher well. She is a good helper to the teacher. Now they will hoist the flag.

 

 

P.E. teacher: Hoist the flag! Play the national anthem!

 

(the music plays the national anthem; the four students hoist the flag; the other students and the teachers are looking at the flag, showing courtesy)

 

P.E. teacher: The courtesy ends. Now welcome the monitor on duty to give us a speech (a tradition, called “the speech under the flag”)

 

 

Monitor: Teachers, students, good morning. Today my topic is promoting the spirit of Beijing and to be a qualified Beijinger. As a vocational student in Beijing, it’s necessary to know the city we are living in. The Beijing Spirit is patriotism, innovation, inclusiveness and virtue.

 

Patriotism; the most profound and remarkable spirit of Beijing, derived from long time ago, it’s enduring and timeless. It indicates that the world rises and falls with every man’s responsibility. It shows our political duties and how we care about the overall situation. It also shows the spirit of being upright and dedication. Beijingers are relevant to the destiny of the whole nation. We concern about the development of the country. It also shows our braveness to undertake the mission.

 

Innovation; that is to say, we need to break the routine and improve by innovation. Creativity is the soul of this city, as well as the source of making progress. It presents the state of active enterprising and pursuit of making progress. In recent years, Beijing has made progress in the economic development, science and technology, city construction as well as social management, which is the great proof of the spirit of creativity. Building a world-class city, Beijing is still going to win more opportunities and with its broad mind and innovations a bright future lies ahead.

 

Inclusiveness; which also means being tolerant and accommodating. In the long process of the growth of the unified multi-ethnic society, Beijing attracts different cultures of the world by its broad and open mind and at the same time makes it a combination of classic, modern, ethnic, and global elements. Cultures from all corners of the world are able to be on the stage. People from different countries, ethnic groups,or regions are enabled to seek the developing opportunities.

 

Virtue; Beijing is a historic city with a city building history of more than 3000 years and a capital history of 850 years, which not only gives Beijing the brilliant historical culture, but also makes people polite and educated. It gives birth to the unique quality of being kind to others and accommodating everything. In the progress of building a world-class city, Beijing is certainly going to maintain those good qualities and promote socialism’s traditional virtues, promote the spirit of friendship, mutual help and dedication and also present the good quality of humanistic care.

 

Patriotism, creativity, inclusiveness and virtue are a conclusion of the deep and heavy nationalism of Beijing. While the state of active enterprising indicates its fully inclusive and equitable cultural tradition, as well as the all-accommodated humanistic spirit. Let’s work together to carry forward the spirit of Beijing and try to be a qualified Beijinger.

 

 

P.E. teacher: The ceremony of raising the flag ends. Lets welcome the director of the P.E. department, he will announce an award.

 

Director: Everyone at ease. Good news keeps coming in the electronic invention competition from the primary school and high school students in the city and students in our school: Han Xinyang, Gao Wei, Wen Tong, Fu Qiang, Feng Enze, Zhao Simeng, Gao Yuting, Zhu Rongfei, Qin Yanan, Sun Nannan, Liu Yinan, Xue Dong and Luo Hongzhi got the certificate of second level for young technicians. Let’s congratulate them with the liveliest applause. Those who got the certificate please come to the stage, the leaders in the school will give them the certificate! Hurry!

 

(students running to the stage)

(march music playing; the kind of march music that is played when handing out awards)

 

P.E. teacher: Everyone… Attention! At ease! Because there is still some ice on the east and the south side of track of playground, the daily running would be paused for one day to avoid injuries.

 

 

P.E. teacher: Now, attention! Let’s leave in order, students on this side leave after the class seven grade one, that side leaves after class two grade two.  Class six! Who told that you can leave, leave in order please! Class ten please follow.

 

(students leaving in row by row order)

 

 

After the ceremony we walk around a bit. At the blue colored entrance hall of the school, we pass by students that grabbed a lunch at McDonald’s.

 

 

INTERVIEW WITH MRS. ZHANG

 

 

At a meeting room in the school we talk with Mrs. Zhang, the school’s office manager.

This school has around 1000 students at four campuses. 90% of them are boys. The campus we visit has over a hundred teachers.

 

The school was established in 1976 and offers 9 majors, with courses covering subjects from economic and legal affairs to engineering and maintenance. The best major of the school is the maintenance of refrigeration and air conditioning systems.

 

 

All students need to learn the basics of electronics, next to their major courses, and have to make several tests to get certificates. They will at least hold a diploma and be a certified electrician when they graduate from this school. Graduates can either further their study in a college or start working as an electrician for a company or for institutions like the National Airport, the National Museum and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

 

 

Enterprises such as Nokia, Philips, Panasonic, Lenovo and the Forbidden City have interviews with students every year. The students prepare themselves for these interviews with attending courses on etiquette. Next to her administration work, Mrs. Zhang is the teacher for the etiquette courses.

 

In Europe more than 50% of students attend secondary vocational education and there are special schools for students with difficulties in social behavior. It’s quite different in China. In Beijing, nearly 70% of the students go to universities or colleges, while less than 30% of the students choose to go to a vocational school (there are fewer jobs for student with vocational training because most basic construction work is done by lower paid migrant workers). For students with difficulties to adjust to the system, there are a few special schools in China, but in most cases they have to attend normal schools.

 

Usually students in the vocational school system are pretty wild, especially in a science and engineering school with a majority of boys. However, students here are very obedient. Mrs. Zhang tells that the school puts emphasis on the moral education and constantly involves students in activities, preventing them from expressing their emotions in a radical way.

 

 

On our tour through the school we pass by the school’s workshop for the maintenance of refrigeration and air conditioning systems. Many of the machines are tailor made by teachers to anticipate on the students’ needs. The school’s major in the maintenance of refrigeration and air conditioning systems has a very good reputation in the country and for that reason the government has contributed around 20 million RMB for the construction of this workshop.

 

 

This school accepts students nationwide and is cooperating with vocational school in the Zhejiang province. Students spend one year in Zhejiang and two years in Beijing for their study. The tuition is 2200 RMB/year. Students with good marks can get a scholarship for 4000 RMB/year. Students from low-income families can get an additional 500 RMB/year.

 

After graduation a student can earn around 1500 RMB per month in the first job. Once they get a contract for a longer period, they will make 2000 RMB and this salary goes up when they get more experienced.  Although their wages aren’t very good, they usually have better secondary labour conditions than university graduates. For instance, graduates who are now working in the Jing Xi Hotel will get a room in an apartment.

 

Mrs. Zhang has been working in this school for five years and her basic salary is 4000 RMB. If the government would officially recognize the school as an example for other schools, her salary would go up to 6000RMB per month.

 

 

Most students in this school are between 16 and 18 years old. We watched a class creating electrical circuits to operating machines. According to Ms. Zhang, most students are good at hands-on practical work and have no interest in examination oriented courses. That’s why they choose to study in a vocational school.

 

A couple of years ago, the majority of parents were not willing to let their children study in a vocational school. As the education is developing in China, an increasing number of parents are willing to find a school for their children that best suits their abilities, as opposed to finding a school that matches the highest expectations of parents.  This has improved the perception of vocational schools and consequently it has become easier to find a job for graduates. Mrs. Zhang says that their students are more popular among employers than university graduates these days.

 

 

 

Beijing, Little Umbrella Kindergarten

 

There are three kindergartens in Huang Gang village, a poor residential area in the north of Beijing.

 

The Little Umbrella Kindergarten is located in a hutong and takes care of children from migrant workers who live in the village. The 300 square meter large kindergarten is, according to the teachers, positioned in the mid-range. Not as good as in the urban area, but better than average.

 

 

We talked with two teachers in this kindergarten: Mr. Gu Yunhe and Mrs. Gao Yanbo.

 

Little Umbrella, established 2.5 years ago, is a private kindergarten for children of parents who both work during the day. All of the parents are so called migrant workers, originating from other provinces. This means there is a high turnover as parents move between different cities for work.

 

 

The kindergarten functions more like a day care center than a school, although there is some basic education. The children learn songs, counting, Chinese language and some simple English words and sentences. The kindergarten does not keep student files.

 

 

We visited the kindergarten in February while many parents and children were still in their hometowns enjoying the yearly Spring Festival holiday with their families. At our time of visiting there were only 17 children, all in one class. The oldest kid among them is six, while the youngest is just 2. In March, when all the children have returned, the children will be divided into different classes, according to their age.

 

 

Parents don’t have to pay an extra fee to this private kindergarten for not having a Beijing residency permit (hukou). Because of the high turnover, the tuition fee is charged by month. The 200 RMB per month includes lunch, which is prepared by the teachers.

 

 

We see a little red bucket in the classroom. It’s for the young children, because they are too young to use the public toilet. Older children are accompanied by a teacher when they have to visit the public toilet (in villages like Huang Gang there are no toilets inside buildings because of a limited sewage network).

 

 

The children are wearing coats inside the classroom while an electric heating fan provides some warmth. When it gets colder, the air conditioner and coal fired stoves will be used for heating.

 

 

 

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