Community Involvement＆Employability Skills

Community Involvement＆Employability Skills

Volunteer/Work Experience

I did volunteer work in the Wulaocun community as last term. I went the community twice and spent two afternoons to help the workers there to do some cleaning job and help them to draw the blackboard newspaper which is the same as the blackboard newspaper that we did in school.

I also did the volunteer work which is the reception of some Danish students. Joanne who is a student in 10-F admit 2 Danish students together. One of the Danish girls is called Karine , the other one is called Lena. At first, we took them to see our school following the orders on the paper which is given to us by Ms.Bartell.. We climb the stairs up and down for many times because we are not familiar with every place in the school. I think that I will learn to be familiar with the place first before I become the guide for this place. We took them to NFLS Cafeteria, Student dormitory, Library at GCA , NFLS and Foreign teacher dormitory, uniform shop, large theater on 3^rd floor of cafeteria building, clinic, large ping pong playing area, science labs ,computer labs, large lecture theater at GCA and new gym ,and some other rooms in GCA building. I think that one of the interesting things is that Ms.Bartell told us some foreigners are interested in squatting toilet because they never see it before. When we asked the two girls if they want to see squatting toilet, they smiled and said that they have seen that before.

After showing them all the places on the paper, Ms.Bartell said that we can go home or lead these Danish students to the place outside the school. Joanne and I took these two girls and some other Danish students to the Chinese market near the school because they told us that they want to see the Chinese market. I noticed that they felt very excited when they saw some vegetables or fruits that they never see before. I realized the difference between two cultures at that time.

At lunch time, these Danish students said that they want to go to skyway bread store, so we took them to go to the place. An accident happened on the way to skyway, when we went past the military area, Lena took a picture of the military, then some serviceman in the military area came and did not let Lena to go. They asked Lena to leave the camera there because it is not allowed to take picture of military in china. As a Danish student, Lena did not know this rule before, and she was not willing to leave her camera here, so we helped her to negotiate with these military people. Military is always strict, they did not let Lena go without leaving the camera .Then many Chinese people came here to see what happened. I noticed that these Danish students got nervous with so many Chinese people thought that I was not able to handle this situation on my own, so I called Ms.Bartell’s friend Ms.Hadley because I do not have Ms.Bartell’s phone number. Luckily I contacted Ms.Bartell successfully. She sent a Chinese teacher who can say both English and Chinese to handle this trouble.

Finally, this situation was handled successfully, the military just asked Lena to leave the memory card which is in the camera and have the picture of military ,and gave her the camera back. The Chinese teacher took his memory card to copy some meaningful picture on Lena’s memory card.

Lena is very thankful to Joanne and me, we left our e-mail address to each other.

Anyway, this accident impressed me a lot. I also learned a lot from this accident, I think that I may can not take picture of some special areas in foreign country.