Mari Arnestad and Ida Kristin Johansen - Tianjin, China

During a class at our school this spring, we were informed about the AIESEC internships in China. The idea of a summer in China was too tempting, and we decided to take the chance, to apply a volunteer internship in China.

27^th of June was the day it all started. By coincidence we ended up flying first class to Beijing, having a pretty good start to a pretty good summer. We spent one week in Beijing, sightseeing like never before. After continuous walking from one attraction to another for seven straight days we did not manage to see all we had planned. However we did manage to see the places and things that were most important to us, and we were prepared to enter the non-tourist existence when heading towards Tianjin, where our internship would find place.

We went by train to Wuqing – in the suburbs of Tianjin where our school was located. Besides the school and an oddly placed, but very nice, outlet village, there was not much to see in Wuqing. However, when our internship started it turned out that we did not have a lot of time besides planning lessons and activities for school children in the age 14-18 years old. We had been informed that we were going to teach Chinese children English, so we were pretty surprised when finding out that we were actually a part of a Model UN summer camp. This information naturally lead to some more work for us, as we had not prepared material related to the UN. Luckily this worked out okay, and we had lessons with the kids discussing relevant topics. We told them how we experienced the issues, and they told us their view. This was very interesting, and we realized how big the differences in thinking and acting actually are.

It was the first time that Yinghua International School arranged a Model UN camp like this summer. Plans, sets of organizing and rules changed almost everyday. It was challenging keeping up to date what was actually happening, and what the leaders of the camp wanted us to learn the students. In some way we normally knew what we were going to do a day or so in advance, which made the camp work out okay. Besides the actual lessons of the day, we also arranged sporting activities for the students during the evening. This time we spent playing football, basketball, dancing, and mainly letting the children choose what kind of activity they wanted to do. We thought this was a nice way to let them have a say, in a camp that was very strict on the children in Norwegian standards. The students stayed in dorms at the school and had a number of rules to follow. As Norwegians we reacted to this as a very strict way of organizing a volunteer summer camp, but the students did not seem to mind all that much. They are used to walking in lines when going to the canteen, to be ranged after their skills in front of the class and to have restrictions between interacting with other students. One of the rules we thought was the strangest was the rule about falling in love with other students as this could lead to direct suspension from the camp!

 The Model UN camp kept us occupied for entire days in the two weeks it was arranged. It was fun tough, having a job to do, and deadlines to work towards. Of course we had some free time as well, where we often chose to go for a workout in the gym that was located inside (!) the nearest supermarket. It was nice getting away from the school area. It was an enormous school, with a sporting fields, basketball courses, dorms, swimming pool and a big cafeteria. But the fence around it, and guards sitting by the gates made it feel like a prison. We were of course welcome to leave the school whenever, and we also saw the need of this because you went crazy being the same place all the time.

After the first camp ended, we had a couple of days off. The rest of the group of volunteers had some arranged trips to Beijing to do some sightseeing. However, we had already seen what they were going to see, and decided to travel by our selves. We wanted to go to a different Chinese city, and ended up on the train to Taian. This is a city by the foot of one of the five holy mountains of China – Mount Tai. This was also the purpose of our trip, to climb the mountain. The mountain hike consisted solely of steps – but there were 12 000 of them so we felt tired enough. A nice trip, despite of fog and just tourist shops on top of the mountain. We treated ourselves to a stay at a nice hotel and enjoyed mattresses and clean baths for the first time since Beijing. The feeling was indescribable.

 Back in Wuqing we were ready for the next summer camp. This was a shorter summer camp for younger children, about 10-12 years old. We had little information about what our role in this camp was, but we thought we would function as sort of assistants in an Oral English camp. When the camp started we were suddenly leading the classes, and the Chinese English teachers were the ones assisting. Improvising class activities and language games made it all work out. However this camp had very different rules from the Model UN camp, and we now had a lot of free time as four or five volunteers were in charge of one class.

The second camp ended early because of the bad weather in the North West area of China. The rain would never stop, and this lead to parents coming to pick up their kids before the camp was finished, and so the project was not completely finished. We were okay with this, as we felt ready to leave Wuqing, to go to Shanghai.

We took the bullet train to Shanghai, ready to live a more urban life. Bringing with us a cold – which probably came because of all the rain, the sightseeing was not at the same speed as in Beijing. Or maybe it was the Chinese culture that had affected us more than we would admit? Anyways, our couple of days in Shanghai was great. Shanghai is often illustrated as the Chinese New York, and seeing the urban way of living mixed with poor housing and living condition left impressions on us both.

Our flight back to Norway was booked from Beijing, and so we took our last night there, having a pleasant reunion with our previous Beijing hotel. At this point we were kind of tired, ready to come back to Norway, but not ready to leave China. Strange feeling, but I guess we just have to come back. There are so many places and things we did not get to see. The distances are just too big, and you really need a lot of time if you are going to experience China to the fullest. We are happy to be back in Norway so that we can let the impressions of a world so different from our own sink in, and are already looking forward to our next trip to China.