Young China scholars observe community life
Print Edition
A bus stopped at the Gubei Civic Center on a recent Tuesday afternoon. Its passengers were a group of young people from 26 countries and regions who were taking part in the Autumn Seminar of the 2016 Visiting Program for Young Sinologists, a program jointly held by China’s Ministry of Culture and Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.
The Gubei Civic Center, located at the Ronghua international community in Changning District, was just one stop along their tour of China and Chinese society.
“We hope the program is an opportunity for visiting scholars to see what happens here in China with their own eyes,” said Huang Renwei, vice president of SASS and the program’s leader.
As part of the three-week program, these young students went on field trips around the country to witness for themselves China’s economy, rule of law and cultural progress, according to Huang.
At the Gubei Civic Center, community workers gave the young research fellows a brief introduction to the first international community in Shanghai as well as the Gubei Residents’ Meeting Hall, a grassroots democratic self-governance platform for the management of the community.
The Sinologists learnt that every resident can have his or her voice heard at the meeting hall while a panel of 12 Chinese and foreign “councilors” made policies for the entire community.
Dina Turarova from Kazakhstan said that she was deeply impressed by the center. She also praised the “joint governance” fulfilled at the international community as local residents were more understanding about their own needs. “The international community helps expatriates merge into the life of local people,” she added.
Yaroslav Sokolovsky from Russia believes that the local government was very far-sighted in building such a center which help residents solve many issues and offers cultural education to foreign residents.
“This center is very important. Actually it’s very good this center exists in general,” he said.
These young “China hands” also noticed service counters on the first floor of the center offering information on topics like health care, community legal affairs, finance, tourism and psychology. Some even sat down at a counter offering traditional Chinese medicine consultations.
After lingering on the first floor for a while, the visitors went upstairs to the second floor where training courses were offered on subjects like folk music, fine arts, dancing, cooking and calligraphy.
A class on Kunqu Opera proved popular among the visitors. Kunqu artist Zhao Jinyu showed them a sleeve-shaking movement called shuixiu qingwu, or literally “light dancing with water sleeves.” Zhao also introduced them to the Kunqu Opera classic “Peony Pavilion” and deduced its famous arias with modern elements. Some of the young observers even got the chance to wear Kunqu costumes themselves.
Seeing for themselves
After leaving the center, next stop was the Hua-yang community, also in Changning.
When they arrived at the community service center, the touring scholars were welcomed by a dragon dance. The Party secretary of the community, Chen Ying, and her colleagues were among the welcoming crowd.
After the young Sinologists played table tennis with local residents and visited a grassroots Party Construction Museum at the center, Chen introduced them to the community’s latest achievements.
Huayang is a model for the Shanghai Cohesion Project and “almost all communities in Shanghai follow the Huangyang model,” Huang told the researchers.
According to Chen, the center mainly schedules events and activities for the elderly and children during weekdays, while weekend events are also arranged for younger people with jobs.
Polish Sinologist Aleksandra Maria Kolodziejczyk-Tanaka was particularly interested in Huayang’s dispute settlement mechanism. Chen told her that the neighborhood committee and other social organizations usually intervene at the early stages of disputes. As most Chinese value family and neighborhood ties, around 80 percent of conflicts are solved before being referring to the court.
Sema Gokenc from Turkey told Shanghai Daily that she had learnt about China’s culture and history in books but “to see something once is better than to hear about it 100 times.” She said efforts made by Huayang were good for locals while the community itself had gained much experience on grassroots management. “It’s no surprise why China develops so fast,” she concluded.
As part of the 2016 Visiting Program for Young Sinologists, the Autumn Seminar was held at the SASS on September 5.
The first three days of the seminar were spent at the SASS listening to lectures given by experts from various fields. Afterwards, the visitors went to their separate cooperating organizations — SASS’s sub-institutes, Fudan University, East China Normal University, and Shanghai Institutes for International Studies — and embarked on their research and report-writing with the help of scholars there.
The young scholars are currently on a journey to discover China’s history, art, philosophy, literature, economy, politics, religion, modern society and international relations.
The 2016 program encompassed three seminars in total, held in Beijing, Shanghai and Xi’an. The program aims to encourage and support foreign Sinologists, researchers and think-tank scholars of China studies.
Chinese authorities hope to nurture their own young Sinologists and think-tank analysts around the globe and build a platform to facilitate their work.
Furthermore, via their work, China’s research institutes and think-tanks are open to establish long-standing partnerships with corresponding overseas organizations, so as to conduct more exchanges and realize mutual benefit and win-win cooperation.
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