Monthly Archives: June 2013

Translations, Wetlands, and Beer, oh my! Weeks 2-4 at Roots & Shoots

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Now, I will update you as to my work at the NGO. In the past 3 weeks, I have done a lot. Let me break this posting into three sections: translations and office work, the wetlands field trip, and another beer festival.

Translation and Office work:

Concerning office work, where do I start? Since I have bilingual capabilities, I have been delegated lots of responsibility. My finished my first main translating task of the Clear Water Project’s English news briefing articles (from Chinese to English, not the other way). I have also finished (as of recently) translating a document on the flora and fauna of wetlands. Both of these will be posted on the project’s new webpage, that will be more interactive, since this project is new and in its test pilot year. I have also not quite finished translating the Organic Grow’s webpage’s background section, because it is quite detailed on farming techniques, and has been made a back burner project. I also translate small tidbits here and there that some of the staff have asked, or advice how to say things in English. This is sort of what the board can look like while I translate:

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This is what the white board looks like when I am translating a document. This is just maybe two paragraphs on the agriculture website. Lots of the words and documents have such specialized words, that I like to know most of the words, and then my translation can be liked putting pieces of a puzzle together.

Other than that, I have started researching and work on the shark fin brochure with another Chinese intern. We sort of have been working off a previous document, editing some parts to be more mainland centric. This pamphlet will be bilingual with simplified, so I have been writing some parts, while she writes the other in Chinese. Next week, we will assemble both into one long document, and then after comments, we hope to get the entire thing translated to be two separate documents, hopefully before July 12th. But, I think we can do it. The goal is before August, before the school season starts. We already are strong with our no shark-fin soup pledge campaign at schools, but the hope is to take that next step by getting companies on board as well as consumers. Some companies do have shark-free policies, but it is hard when there are many people in China, and it is a traditional wedding food at Chinese weddings. Hopefully, this helps to continue the dialogue Yao Ming and others have done with an organization called Wildaid. For those unfamiliar, you can learn more at: www.wildaid.org

Wetlands Field Trip

On Saturday June 15, I woke up early, with a Clear Water t-shirt, and lots of water, to go with different Roots & Shoots groups from throughout Beijing to a nearby wetlands park, the Wild Duck Lake National Park in Yanqing County, Beijing. While it was buggy and warm, it was nice to be outside of the city proper, and interact more with nature. We saw lots of ducks, reeds, cattails, geese, willows, poplars, and some plants I wish I knew what they were. After a long day of students somewhat listening, but not really because of the heat and many mosquitos, we drove the 2 hours back to Beijing. I was a little disappointed, because the promotional video I had watched about the lake was more beautiful than the place I visited.

However, I understand more about wetlands probably more from preparing translations for this program, and how they are the Earth’s kidneys, because of filtration, so we need them more than we realize. The rate we are destroying places like this is crazy, because of just pollution, or land conversion. We need to realize that without places like the Wild Duck Lake, cities like Beijing and its citizens would not really be around.

At Wild Duck Lake National Park on a field trip for the Clear Water Education Project.

At Wild Duck Lake National Park on a field trip for the Clear Water Education Project.

Wild Duck Lake National Park, at Yanqing County, Beijing. Although it is hard to see in the background, there are wind turbines here in China, just scattered in certain areas.

Wild Duck Lake National Park, at Yanqing County, Beijing. Although it is hard to see in the background, there are wind turbines here in China, just scattered in certain areas.

Beer, take 2

Yup, I did say beer again. But, before I get to the beer festival, I want to describe a small happening first. A few of us at the office went to a nearby bar after Friday for a couple of drinks and to hang out. Earlier in May, this bar had participated in a block-party’s chili cookoff, and had raised money they were going to donate to us at Roots & Shoots. So, we got together to hang out and to receive the donation check.

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Aura (Roots & Shoots staff) , Nina, Eve (another intern), Lei (Roots & Shoots Executive Director), and the two men who run Plan B, the Canadian Bar who donated this check for around $1400 USD.

But, yes, now to the beer part of this posting (not that I drink or like to drink beer). Beijing had its Second Annual Craft Beer Festival, and gave us a booth so we could sell some of our merchandise, as well as get pledges for our “No-shark fin Campaign.” On Friday, we managed to get over 83 pledges. But, because Saturday morning was raining and gross,  we only got maybe 40 pledges (also, because we shared the tent with a popsicle and juice vendor), and we raised a total of about 700 RMB. Once again, everybody liked the hats, and wanted to take pictures, and they helped us gain attention.

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Heather (Roots & Shoots volunteer), Nina, and Zach (Roots & Shoots volunteer) at the Craft Beer Festival in Chaoyangmen, Beijing.

So, I think this is my list of assignments for the next week:

1. Finish outline of Half-year report for Clear Water Project. I already got started, but will get some kinks worked out on Monday with this program’s interns and head staff (as she comes back from a business trip).

2. Finish research and try to compile the rough running draft of the “No-shark fin project company” brochure.

3. If these don’t take all my free time and I have free time at work, get back to translating the Organic Grow’s Background section (I have one more big tab on seeding, which might go quicker, just maybe).

And this is just my list in case nothing comes up. But, at an NGO, something always comes up. This week, it was everybody’s last day, so lots of pictures together.

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This was a fellow intern’s last day. This is in the Jane Goodall Institute China’s office, right next to my office, called the meeting room.

But hopefully, I can accomplish the above three things in the next two weeks so I can feel like I got something done this summer. And then maybe, teacher training in the next couple of weeks? Like I said, I stay flexible, so when I get assigned new projects, my priorities jumble so I stay on top of things. That’s it for now. Zaijian!

 

Chinese Dragon Boat Festival and Exploring Beijing

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Howdy all. I know I haven’t written in a while, but just settling down after the holiday. But, a quick story before I get to my holiday time. While coming home from the Jaws movie event, I was figuring out my way home from the subway, since it was my first time riding the subway home, and had to figure out my way home from the subway. I befriended another guy who also was lost and figuring out how to get to the same area. As soon as I started talking, he seemed surprised, and said “Oh,” and we conversed in Chinese. I asked him, and he said that he didn’t think I was a foreigner, but a Chinese boy. So, I see this somewhat as an accomplishment. This is the first time someone hasn’t seen me as a foreigner, but somewhat Chinese, which makes me happy. Most of the people assume foreigner, which they have every right to assume when taking one look at me. However, it was nice not having someone assume right away and just speak English based on that assumption.

So, now I will tell you a little about the Dragon Boat Festival. It is a festival that occurs on different days, usually in June, because holidays are observed on the lunar calendar. The Dragon Boat Festival may have dragon boat races like they have in the US, and people eat zongzi, sort of like a Chinese tamale, but instead of corn husks, they are bamboo leaves and the filling is rice and usually meat or red beans.

But let me describe how Chinese holidays are really like. For Chinese holidays, everybody gets the same days off, but they have to make up the holiday time off. For example, the Dragon Boat Festival this year was June 10-12, but people had to go to work on the weekend, June 8 and 9. So, its sort of like having time off, but not really. Most people traveled, but I spent the time catching up with friends I have in Beijing from when I studied abroad here.

June 8 and 9 Beijing had bad thunderstorms and was sort of cold, wet, and miserable, so I just relaxed a bit, and caught up with a Russian classmate. On Monday June 10, I went to a touristy hutong (back alley ways in the center of Beijing, within the second ring, and sort of traditional of Beijing). On June 11, I met up with a family friend to go to the new Garden Expo. For those of you who don’t know what Chinese expos are, they are big exhibitions that take hours to go and see almost the whole thing. This one was an international expo, and this time, it was held in Beijing. They were basically mini-models of famous gardens from every single province throughout China, and some regions in the world. My friend and I almost saw it all, but walked through it in about 8 hours and still didn’t see it all.

Jiangxi province mini-garden, with stones leading to the bridge as its famous Jingdezhen blue-and white porcelain.

Jiangxi province mini-garden, with stones leading to the bridge as its famous Jingdezhen blue-and white porcelain.

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Qingdao’s garden.

So, that summarizes my Dragon Boat Festival. But, I have done some other exploring of Beijing. I took a fellow intern across town to a local tea market, that sells wholesale tea, Maliandao tea market. I had been there my first months in Beijing, and not back since, but I needed to buy tea. So, I went, and I found a stand, and asked if they happened to know my professor, and my college, Dickinson. She knew her, and said she remembered me, and we sampled her teas, especially their jasmine tea, which is amazing. For those of you who want to ask the question “How much does the tea in China cost?” I can answer that. I paid $15USD for 500g of the best jasmine tea I’ve ever had (and I’ve had lots). I also know they sell tea, and some people will pay over $1000USD for some green teas in summer. Also, tea buying means sampling teas in little tea stands until you find the right one, and buy it. Which can either mean lots of bathroom trips or a heavily caffeinated person, or both.

Nina with the tea stand lady.

Nina with the tea stand lady.

On another day off, I needed to make a bookstore run, and knew of a good selection at the biggest bookstore complex close to Peking University, where I studied before. So, I commuted over an hour and a half to the bookstore. Because it is a close walk, and a nice day, I decided to also take a stroll at the nearby No Name Lake (Wei Ming Hu) on campus. My old school ID works, which is awesome, because it got me in twice at Peking University (once for a ballet, then this time) as well as foreign-exchange student discount tickets at places. I had to take a picture of the water tower, because as you can see, this doesn’t seem like a place on a university campus, and it was blue sky. I mean, up until recently, the air quality was good, and either cloudy, rainy, and blah, or blue, and I mean true blue, which is rare in Beijing.

No Name Lake at Peking University. Note how blue the sky was that day.

No Name Lake at Peking University. Note how blue the sky was that day.

Lastly, I took another classmate to explore Beijing, including a night visit to Tiananmen square.

Nina at Tiananmen Square at night in the central most point in Beijing.

Nina at Tiananmen Square at night in the central most point in Beijing.

This post was just describing my down time in Beijing, what I have been up to besides working hard at my internship. My next post will describe what I’ve been up to at Roots & Shoots. For now, Zaijian!

First week at Roots and Shoots: Sharks, translations, and beer, oh my!

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So, I survived my first week! Yay! Here is what I learned in my first week:

1. Roots and Shoots is a cool organization that has very few staff, but most staff usually have a single project, and that is their primary focus. For example, some of the staff are concerned about organic agriculture, educating migrant children about environmental issues, no shark finning, and more.

2. Each day at work is different. My first day, we made origami sharks to write messages and questions for student groups about shark finning and pledging not to eat it. I am proud to have signed this petition.

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3. The Roots and Shoots website doesn’t really show the awesome work this organization does. What I mean by this is that they have a Chinese and English webpage, but the Chinese one is more up to date and user friendly and slightly more interactive than their English webpage. But, this program has groups not only at Chinese local schools, but also at International Schools, and usually the leaders at these schools are foreigners, most of whom can’t read the Chinese webpage to understand the awesome environmental education and activist work Roots and Shoots does.

The following is a link for the English for the Clear Water Project page: (Click on the left most tab)

http://www.genyuya.org.cn/en/?page_id=3989

But the Chinese for the same tabs has more information: (Click on the left most tab)

http://www.genyuya.org.cn/cn/?page_id=3900

This leads me to Point 4. My purpose for the summer is overall, to help translate materials for all the programs, so as to hopefully help more international schools to become involved in Roots and Shoots. I started with the Agricultural project, and am taking a detour to help on the Clear Water project. My side projects include, but are not limited to the following:

  • Participate in a middle school  field trip to see a nearby wetlands park 2 hours from the city and see waterfowl and wetland plants
  • Trying to update the English pamphlet for the No Shark Fin Project in order to give out to schools and organizations in the autumn semester
  • Attend teacher training three day session outside Beijing
  • Attend short two day summer camp for children
  • And lastly, any fundraising activities. This past week, for example, we held a fundraiser with a bar in a hutong (alleyway in the more central part of Beijing) where 15RMB of each beer sold went to our organization’s No shark fin project. This bar shows a movie each week, and this week was Jaws, so we worked together on this fundraiser. We made over 1200 RMB with the beers and donations, as well as selling some merchandise, like the shark hat  I am modeling.

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    Nina modeling the shark hat on the Beijing subway

Because of the Chinese Dragon Boat  festival this upcoming week, I currently have a 5 day weekend to relax, and see some friends in Beijing. However, I know some weeks, I will be working 6 day work weeks, in which case, I can take off a weekday. That is all for now.