The 5th FK China Network meeting

Last weekend (25th-27th of April) we attended FK China's network meeting in Kunming, a beautiful city in the southern Chinese province of Yunnan. Saturday we had a social trip that involved former and new network members, and Sunday we had meetings where both FK partners and participants attended.

On Saturday we visited Jiu Xiang – some awesome caves south west of Kunming. These caves are on the UNESCO World Heritage list. The caves had underground rivers and waterfalls and the walk through them was fascinating.

After that we visited Shi Lin (The Stone Forest). In addition to enjoying the scenery all the participants had a meeting where we talked about what we had been working on since the last FK meeting in Beijing.

On Sunday we had meetings and discussions with all the partners. It was nice to meet the people we met on the last meeting, and to meet new participants and partners.

We had a great weekend in Yunnan. When we came Friday we visited a café that had western food, and we decided to try it. The pizza was good, but we especially liked the menu they had there.

Yunnan is known for its many minority groups, and beautiful clothing. These nicely dressed women we encountered at Jiu Xiang. We also saw people walking in Kunming city with colourful dresses.

It was a very interesting city, and the surroundings, with red iron-rich soil, rice patties, and water buffaloes was quite different from what we are used to from the northern part of China. Getting to know other FK people and exploring different areas of China are things we really will miss when we leave for home within a month.

The networks homepage;

http://www.fkchinanetwork.org

SYCNNO's Deaf Cafe

Saturday the 13th of December we attended the first SYCNNO, Shou(w) Y(o)u China Norway, Deaf Cafe in the old city in Yinchuan. This is a cafe where the deaf can meet, communicate together, play games and relax. In the future the cafe will be open to everyone who is interested in joining. It was really fun to see that so many could come. We were between 30-40 people and the ones who showed up seemed to have a great time. It was also a great opportunity for us to learn a few words in Chinese sign language (shou yu). The organizers of this cafe is Alexander Sløk Mjelde and Qin Wen. Both Alexander (2006-7) and Wen (2005-6) are former participants on the Sinonor project. They have together with Tora Hope (2006-7) formed the organization SYCNNO, which is a result of the Sinonorproject. If you are interested in learning more about this organization you could visit the website www.sycnno.no

The Sinonor project has during it's 6 years had different partners. The first 5 years the project partners were RCNUWC, Ningxia University, the CDPF (China's Disabled Persons' Federation) in Ningxia and Fredskorpset.
The cooperation meant approx half and half teaching for CDPF related schools and at the Ningxia University.
The places where the participants taught were The Ningxia Special Education School (for deaf students and also blind students), The Kindergarten for Hearing Impaired Children, The Mentally Disabled School and The Blind Massage Institute.

Welcome Party for freshmen students at Xinhua

Thursday 16th of October the teachers and students at Xinhua invited me (Chris) to attend the annual Welcome party for the freshmen at the college. I was there together with the rest of the freshmen's teachers. It was a 3hours lasting fun event, with singing, roleplays, acting and breakdancing. Many of my students attended the singing, acting and dancing on stage. One of the things I liked the most was when a group were doing tai chi with chinese fans while two famous calligrafers were painting on stage. The local TVstation was there, and my name was annonced in public together with the rest of the teachers, The concert hall at school was as full as could be, people were standing everywhere and all seats were taken.