Ni hao from Xi’an!
Today we arose bright and early in order to have breakfast and check out of our hotel before 7:30am. For some this was a struggle but with great effort we all got through it. After bidding goodbye to Terry, our much loved Beijing tour guide, we boarded our plane for the ancient Chinese capital of Xi’an. After a short lunch stop, we got on our bus for the one and a half hour bus ride to the orphanage for children with convict parents.
We were shocked to see the change of scenery compared to Beijing. After Beijing’s modern layout and architecture, we were surprised to see the dead and empty outskirts of Xi’an, with the tall, empty high rise buildings closely followed by the bustling city centre. The bus trip in allowed us to observe the strong sense of local community in the middle of the city; many of us were expecting a city similar to Beijing, where everybody keeps to themselves, but we were greeted by lots of small communities full of crowds of locals playing board games, dancing with fans to music and selling their wares by the side of the street. Unlike Beijing and Melbourne, where the shops are inside of buildings the streets of Xi’an are sprawled with small blankets covered in shop holders products ranging from socks all the way to bok choi.
On our way to the orphanage our bus travelled up onto a large hill and travelled along it for some time. We thought that it was just a natural mountain but our tour guide then told us that it was actually a man made tomb from thousands of years ago where an emperor of China was buried, and that the entire mountain was made by hand.
The ‘orphanage’ that we visited is aimed to help youth up to university age, but is most commonly for primary school aged children. These children are not technically orphans because their parents are in prison, and therefore unable to support them. The money that we have raised was used to purchase and entire van full of flour, 1000 kilograms of flour to be precise along with rice and oil. Even after buying this, we still had 5000 yuan left over which we donated to this non for profit organisation which will enable to children to visit their parents. The amount of food that we bought was so large that we emptied out the supermarket and had to wait an hour while it was loaded into the van.
When we arrived at the village we were shepherded into a hall where we were given a short introduction by the principal of the orphanage, who told us how this program got started and why. The Sun Village organisation was founded by a police officer who had worked in prisons all her life and in 1996 she finally took action on the growing problem of orphaned children who’s parents were in prison. In the past 15 years over 1000 children have been taken into the orphanage and then returned home. This orphanage helps these children a chance to “step out of the shadow of their parents’ criminal convictions” and gives them a chance at a much brighter future. After this short introduction we were greeted with a dance performance by the younger members of the community. We then felt obliged to give them a performance in return, therefore we got up and performed the school hymn in what sounded more like a football song than a religious melody.
After all of these greetings we were allowed to start distributing the gifts among the children. They were quite excited to see us and even got told off for coming in to the gymnasium before they were allowed to. The kids were fascinated by such simple things such as the writing on the back of Paris’s school jacket and had so much fun just tracing the letters. The youngest ones came and sat on the empty chairs next to us and cuddled up to the people sitting on the edges. We had a great time handing out the presents and eventually everyone had so much that they couldn’t even hold it on their own anymore. They had huge smiles on their faces and were very interested in trying out their new things. But even though the presents made the children happy for a little while, you could see that that needed other things more desperately and that’s why we were glad about the food we donated. Interestingly, even though the buildings looked rather old and the paint was coming off the walls in some places, we noticed a few very modern appliances such as a flat screen TV and air conditioners. This was because the orphanage gets most of its donations in the form of materialistic gifts instead of money. Sadly, while these donations were made with the best intentions, the orphanage isn’t able to use these appliances as the large amounts of power they require is too expensive. This experience helped us all to realise just how lucky we are, and how much ability we have to help the less fortunate.
Our day ended with a night time walk along the Muslim Street Market, a bustling relic of the old Silk Road trade that used to support this city. We weaved our way through crowds of people and everything was decorated with bright flashing lights. The main street was filled with little stands selling interesting food such as nut slices, shish-kebabs and sticky sweet rice cakes, while the side streets sold various artworks, souvenirs and clothing. It was a lively place and a great way to end the day.
It was a very busy and long day but it gave us a great first impression of how different the life and culture of this country is like outside Beijing.
By Simon Rodgers and Inga Steenblock