Community Outreach

On Saturday I went with other volunteers to a migrant school on the outskirts of the city to do some community outreach work by painting a classroom with the primary school kids. The kids were so excited and some could speak a little bit of English. We sat with them in their classroom and had grapes and watermelon. Some of the kids were studying me quizzically then one little girl spoke to me in chinese and I said ‘I don’t understand’ and then I got asked by another little girl if “Are you Chinese?” in English. It was very cute. They also performed a little concert - playing harmonicas for us and singing and doing the actions to some songs.

We met with the principal who gave us a tour around the school which included seeing the playground, library and cookery and craft rooms. We were told that the migrant kids were sons and daughters of migrants who moved to Shanghai for work like construction, or in a restaurant or as ayis (maids) and one of the purposes of the craft rooms was to offer children who may have lost interest in formal education from moving around so much, a different way to learn a skill and engage in the learning process which is a very innovative form of education in China. We looked at some woodwork models of the Langpu bridge, which was the main bridge that enters the city for the world expo last year, that were made by Grade 5 students and the craftmanship was extremely impressive - I doubt even I could make a model that scale with so much detail! The principal also explained aside from formal education, the school programme puts emphasis on teaching life skills and self-confidence.

The children helped create murals and drawings on the walls and helped us paint the scenes which included an orchard with apple trees, flowers, bird and butterflies, sanrio cartoon characters and characters planting seeds in a garden and we all had lots of fun! Going outside of the main city and seeing a  small suburban neighbourhood people live in shows a very different way of life to the glittering big city life we live.

As for my time in city, I managed to get to see before it closes this week the JonOne (a New York graffiti artist) solo exhibition at Bund 18 gallery. Unfortunately the main installation piece was shipped to another country as it is nearing the end of the exhibit but it was very inspiring to see his paintings of tag signs and works inspired by chinese characters which he created after visiting Shanghai.
Shanghai has an extremely vibrant art scene and I like that artwork transcends any language barriers. As you blog readers will know I have an avid interest in street art and have learned that sadly one of the most anticipated sights I wanted to see the Moganshu Lu graffiti wall is being torn down to make way for property development. There is another famous graffiti art spot at Rucker Park which I hope I will have time to get to before the end of my trip.

I have tried a very different type of Chinese cuisine from a place called Xibo which specialises in Xinjiang cuisine which is very different from the usual ‘Chinese’ fare. I learned that traditionally cooked roast mutton from the region is as famous as Beijing duck.  Although I have had many Chinese cuisines within my time in Singapore and Malaysia I have never had this one before. Xinjiang borders Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan, Afganistan, Pakistan and India and incorporates the ‘Silk Road’ so the food is a bit more close to Arabian style with lots of hot spice and flavour. I had fried cumin seasoned lamb with onion, green and red bell peppers, garlic served with uygur bread (a flat bread similar to naan) and vegetable pancakes with kale and cowpeas.  It was extremely delicious.