by CONNIE TABBERT
Editor
FORESTERS FALLS — A Foresters Falls woman spent four months in China and wants to go back.
“It was the most rewarding experience of my entire life,” said 20-year-old Emily McLaughlin. “I learned more than I ever imagined I would. In the four months, I’ve grown as a person. I want to learn and experience more cultures.”
To start her third year as a global development student at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ms. McLaughlin had opportunity to do a field research project while studying at Fudan University in Shanghai. There is a partnership between the two universities that allows students from each university to apply to do a research project and go to school in the other country, she explained.
To participate, Ms. McLaughlin had to come up with a proposal, do the research and then present her project to the class at semester’s end.
Ms. McLaughlin’s project focused on the social area of educating migrant children within Shanghai. In China, there is an education system set up called Hukou. It distinguishes between rural and urban children. Rural children, also known as migrant children, cannot access social services in urban areas, which include education.
The reason for this was when China was rapidly industrializing, it was important that those who lived in the agricultural sector, known as migrant workers, not compete with everyone else for the city jobs, she said.
In the last nine years, migrant children have been allowed to attend public schools in cities such as Shanghai. However, they are not the same public schools the city children are attending.
There are approximately 500,000 migrant children in Shanghai. In 2008, government officials decided migrant children could be educated in the public school system, she said. However, getting into the system required parents provide certain documents and have to pay into social security, she explained.
“Often, jobs migrant workers get are under the table, so it’s cash only, which means they are not paying social security, which meant their children could not access the public schools,” Ms. McLaughlin said.
“They had to establish their own schools, which were underfunded so they couldn’t compete with their Shanghai counterparts,” she added.
The migrant-only schools received one-third the funding that public schools received, so it was still a very unequal system, she said. And, even those students who were able to access the public schools were at a disadvantage, because they were not able to write the university entrance exam in Shanghai. They had to return to their home province, she said.
This usually meant if you didn’t write the university exam in Shanghai, you would most likely not be accepted into a university, she said.
Reviewing her research, Ms. McLaughlin said her research team was able to go into two public schools and one migrant school, which made it a very small research project.
“Overall, there are more challenges in the migrant school and most of them are structural, such as lack of funding, which leads to lack of books and classrooms being crowded,” she said. “In some classes there are 50 students to one teacher, which sometimes means the students are out of control.”
There is less heating and the students are wearing whatever they can to keep warm, she added.
She noted staff at Stepping Stones, a non-governmental organization, usually go in to teach English in the migrant schools because teachers are not able to speak English fluently and English proficiency is tested on the university entrance exam.
Ms. McLaughlin noted while there are two different schools, in some areas they are just on opposite sides of a street. In the migrant school she was in, the walls were painted white and the classroom lights were turned off. However, in the public schools, the classrooms were bright, the walls were painted green and blue, there was a music room where students had opportunity to try different instruments, and art rooms had canvasses on which the students could paint.
“There were a lot more resources and opportunities for students to learn in the public schools,” she said.
And even though they may just be on opposite sides of the street, they do not mingle, she added.
When she spoke to a parent of a public school student, Ms. McLaughlin found out the parents don’t want the migrant students attending school with their children.
There is a fear that if the migrant children are allowed into the public schools, the average for the students will be brought down, Ms. McLaughlin said.
“There is a lot of prejudice,” she said. “They don’t believe the migrant children are as smart as their children.
“Shanghai has one of the highest ranked school systems in the world. The BBC published an article, and it was quoted that Shanghai students are miles ahead of British students in science and math.”
And, if resources have to be shared, there won’t be as much for the students, she said.
“The public school parents are very reluctant to share benefits with the migrants because they fear funding would be cut,” Ms. McLaughlin said. “Shanghai gets a lot of funding, but if you were to add even 150,000 migrant students to the public school system, it would strain the funding and they are very worried about that.”
She noted that while public school children are currently provided with necessary school items such as crayons, pencils and books, with less funding, those may be taken away and they will have to be purchased, which migrant parents must do already.
Ms. McLaughlin said while this seems harsh, in areas further away from the city centre, migrant students have it much harder.
“There is a lot less funding and the schools are in very poor condition,” she said. “No student should have to learn like that.”
In the end, the research discovered that even though the school system was opened up to migrant children, there remains an inequality, Ms. McLaughlin said. It’s important and beneficial that this research project be expanded upon, she added.
The goal of the research project was not to come up with a solution to the migrant versus public schools, it was a descriptive research project, she said.
Ms. McLaughlin said the problem with the educational system is not just in Shanghai, but also in other cities, such as Quanzhou, which is where there is a higher migrant population because it’s one of the biggest industrialized cities in China.
A new direction
While mostly graduate students conduct field research work, Ms. McLaughlin wanted the experience of doing field work research and learning how to conduct it properly.
Prior to going on this research quest, Ms. McLaughlin was focused on graduate programs that were more about books and theory.
“Now I want to go in the direction of doing research, of being hands-on,” she said. “I was scared of that before.
“This program really opened me up. I never thought of myself as a creative person, so I thought I won’t be able to come up with a good question to answer. But, this program helped me to realize that and grow and yeah, you can. You have to go places and immerse yourself into it and come up with a ton of questions.”
She had the opportunity to listen to presentations on 10 field research projects and “all were unique and all were super interesting.”
As for her future, Ms. McLaughlin is hoping for an opportunity to take a year and learn the Chinese language . She has one more year in the global development program at Queen’s and has discovered there is a scholarship available that will pay for her residency, tuition and provide some money for food, to study Chinese for one year in China.
“I just think, I’m in global development, and with China becoming a major market and becoming like a powerful force, it would be beneficial to know Chinese,” she said.
She believes it will become one of the main languages in the future.
“Given that China is supposed to surpass the US as the #1 economy, I think in about five years, and with more and more Chinese travelling and becoming big business owners and Chinese businesses and industries are becoming more prevalent on the world market, anyone who can speak Chinese will have a job in the job market. You need to take any advantage you can now-a-days.”
While she doesn’t think she would be completely bilingual within a year, she would certainly have a very good grasp of the Chinese language. She’s already learned there are four different tones for every word spoken. She believes that will cause her the most grief to learn.
She did note when she arrived in China she could say hello in Chinese. However, by the time she left, she could order in a restaurant, get directions and negotiate bargaining in the market.
Ms. McLaughlin noted there are 24 million people in Shanghai, without counting the migrant population. After adding them in, it’s upwards of 30 million, which is almost equal to the population of Canada, she added.
While the city is crowded, Ms. McLaughlin wasn’t bothered by it as much as she thought she would be.
“On the subway, you are crammed up against each other,” she said. “But, the Chinese don’t sweat like we do and don’t have the same body odors, so I was happy a lot of the times.
“I didn’t actually find (being crowded) that bad, but some people did. I enjoyed that rush of having people around all the time.”
There are differences
Ms. McLaughlin noted there are many differences between Chinese and Canadian cultures. She believes anyone wanting to become familiar with the Chinese culture, Shanghai is the place to start. It’s more commercialized and it’s more open to western culture and English, she said.
She found the Chinese people are more relaxed regarding regulations. While it may seem that they are following the laws, it appears as though they internalize the rules for their own use.
Describing traffic in China as seen on television as being “organized chaos” is so true, however, people are much more aware of their surroundings, she said. In Canada, people believe they have the right to cross the road whenever and wherever they want believing the vehicles will stop for them, while in China, those walking and driving have consideration for each other even though it may not appear that way.
She admitted she did not try driving in Shanghai, but she did ride a bicycle, which at times, proved scary enough.
When she first arrived, Ms. McLaughlin found a huge language barrier, considering she could only say hello in Chinese. Getting a Sim card for her cell phone and getting the internet hooked up was quite a challenge. While you expect it to take about 30 minutes, it can take almost a day if you don’t follow the directions to a T.
She admitted the transition was hard, even though this is not her first foray from home or country, noting she lived in France for three months a few years ago.
“I was missing the normality of being home,” she said. “And, for the first week, I couldn’t talk to anyone at home.”
However, once her cell phone and internet connections were working properly, there were weekly online visits with her family back in Foresters Falls, catching up on the news in Whitewater township.
It was also important to remember to take her passport with her at all times.
“They always want a record of where you are travelling in the country,” she said. “When you check into a hotel or hostel, they always scan your passport.”
People are constantly under surveillance, if not by closed circuit television and cameras, then by the police, she said.
“The police presence is increased, especially in Beijing,” Ms. McLaughlin said. “The police are just standing on the street watching everyone, not doing anything but watching.”
While not a picky eater, Ms. McLaughlin said the cuisine was more spicy than she likes. Many times the food was a pleasant surprise.
“There were some things you really had to try for yourself and when you did, you found out it was quite delicious.”
As an example, she recalled eating pig fat in a sauce. It looked really greasy but once she tried it, “It was super duper good.” She did add with a laugh, “You could feel your arteries clogging with delicious.”
One thing she did miss was eating a lot of fresh vegetables.
But, since Shanghai is a port city, there was no shortage of fish dishes to try and pork is the main meat.
“I guess it takes less land to raise pigs than cattle, so they’re able to produce more pork,” she said.
Ms. McLaughlin noted for those who didn’t want to try different foods, they didn’t have to be concerned because there were all types of cuisines, including Middle Eastern, Italian and Western. She noted for those who enjoy the Chinese food in Renfrew County restaurants, that it isn’t the authentic Chinese food served in China, however, there are American Chinese-style foods.
“Our Chinese food is completely different,” she said. “They’ve never heard of (Chinese) chicken balls. I thought I was getting a chicken ball and it was fish.”
As for the pollution in Shanghai, Ms. McLaughlin admitted at times it may be horrific, but what’s portrayed in the news on television back home isn’t as bad as it appears.
“We do have a bias on how we portray China,” she believes. “We have an overall negative bias of China, especially to pollution.”
When a smog alert is made, half the cars are taken off the road right away, and it’s possible to see a decrease in the smog right away, she said.
“While pollution is an issue there, they are taking more of an initiative then we give them credit for,” Ms. McLaughlin said. “They do have the ability to clear up the air.”
When talking about smog alerts in China on the news, the clips show people wearing masks, which isn’t how it is there, she said.
“Masks aren’t that common,” Ms. McLaughlin said. “It’s hard to find someone wearing a mask in China. The majority (of those wearing masks) are foreigners and the wealthier Chinese. Masks are expensive, about $8 for each one.”
When the average person makes 70,000 kuai a year, spending 40,000 kuai on disposable masks just isn’t reasonable,” she explained.
Ms. McLaughlin wore a mask when she visited Beijing.
A different attitude
While in Shanghai, Ms. McLaughlin said she learned to be adventurous.
“Shanghai is known as the city of adventures because you can go somewhere one day and to a totally different place the next day,” she said.
Ms. McLaughlin recalled the negativity she received from people when she told them she was going to study in China. They told her it was dangerous, she said.
What she did learn was people should keep an open mind when going to a new country or experiencing a new culture.
The people, she said, would come up to her and ask to have their photo taken with her in it. When asked, people were quite helpful, she said.
“It’s important people keep an open mind,” Ms. McLaughlin said. “They don’t do things the same way we do here, but they still get by. There are things they do better than the way we do them here.”
She admitted because of what she heard and saw over the years, she went with a preconceived notion of what to expect during her time in China — but, it didn’t turn out that way.
“I went over with a lot of preconceived notions, like it’s going to be super duper communist and I’m going to get in trouble; that the people would be rude to me, because people don’t portray Chinese as welcoming, but really they are,” Ms. McLaughlin said.
She said, “I think it’s very interesting, now, to see the way China is portrayed in the media.
“Go over and experience it for yourself and you will come back with a different perspective,” Ms. McLaughlin stated.
