Beijing – China and Human Rights

8 September, by Christine Bühler

Beijing I’ll remember as the ‘human rights part’ of our IFIL Trip to China. Even if this wasn’t the only topic we were talking about in the capital city, it – probably because of my background – interested me the most.
The first meeting we had was with the ‘China Society for Human Right Studies’. We met six – seven people and one interpreter from the society in a quite nice hotel meeting room. It was impressive what type of people the society sent to speak with us. Among them there were five professors. They really took our meeting seriously: in their eyes we weren’t just some Swiss students making a trip to China for having fun! After a short speak by the vice-president of the society we were able to ask a lot of questions on whatever topic we wanted. Actually, we were kind of forced to word the questions carefully since they all were representatives of the government and we’ve heard quite a lot of negative reports about Chinese human rights in the media back home. However, no topic was omitted. We just did not always get the answer we wanted to hear. They knew exactly how to answer our delicate questions or how not to respond to certain aspects of our question. Sometimes they just evaded certain issues altogether and instead spoke about some positive aspects related to the topic. They also knew quite well how to defend and justify the government’s actions and how to make comparisons with Switzerland and the world. These were very good, but not always appropriate. Although I find that China still has a long way to go to meet human rights requirements, I was quite impressed with the improvements of the government and it’s justifications of certain actions and laws as well as its efforts to respect human rights, although the Chinese have their own understanding and interpretation, which differs slightly from ours.
The same afternoon we met the NGO ‘Bridges to Justice’ which deals with the improvement of Chinese penal and penal procedural law. We mainly heard about young foreigners carrying out information campaigns for Chinese citizens, round tables and think tanks primarily for Chinese experts etc.
One of the highlights for me was talking to Mrs. Bai, a law professor from Peking University, who spoke openly about many of the human rights challenges China is facing. Among other things she talked about the government and its efforts in developing and improving the law, the ‘underground’ or activist Chinese people fighting for more rights in China, the role of the University and the professors, and about the patience which is needed to achieve improvements in her country. She really gave us a good insight into human rights and even the general law situation in China! It was just too bad that we didn’t have more time to talk to her!
Also Peter Achten, a Swiss journalist working in Asia for quite some time now, was able to add some useful information on human rights in China, although this wasn’t the main topic we spoke to him about.

SOS Children’s Village Urumqi

5 September 2011 by Saskia Theile

After the first night in Urumqi we spent a very sunny day in the city. In the morning we visited the University of Urumqi and had an insight in how students in China do their work. In the afternoon we had the great opportunity to share some unforgettable moments with children living in a SOS Children’s Village. In the beginning we were welcomed by Assistant-director Mr. Wang, who was so kind as to pick us up with a bus at the hotel, and the Director of the SOS Children’s Village. Mr. Wang gave us an introduction of the whole situation of the Children’s Village with a little presentation. A lot of delicious melons were prepared for our comfort.
In the presentation I learned that this certain SOS Children Village is the only one in North-West China. It was founded in 1998, completed in 2000 and opened in 2001. 14 families with about 8 children per family live in the Children Village. There are also a kindergarten, a youth house, a small activity house and a mother’s house. The reason why children have to live there is that they are abandoned by their parents. Often because they don’t have enough money or that they are obliged to only have one child. Another reason is that they don’t have parents anymore because of desease or accidents.
After the presentation and after answering all our questions we had the chance to get in touch with the children. First we were very warmly welcomed by the children with some performances of the children themselves: A little girl sang for us, another girl played the guitar and a boy played an Uighur guitar for us. It was very touching how they showed us so openly what they do best. Of course we had to show as well what we can do best, so some of us sang a song or showed some acrobatic performance which the children liked very much.
After that we all went to the gym and played basketball or just had a good time. It was very emotional to me to see those children enjoying our presence. I tried to imagine how they feel and how they deal with the fact that they will never know where they come from because their parents decided against them or because they don’t have parents anymore. I remember the moment when a little boy just took my hand and asked to take some pictures with my camera. I have to confess that these pictures are some of the best of the whole trip. It gave me the opportunity to see the world through the eyes of a little child. I remember also the moment when I saw how grateful the little boys were to play with the boys of our group. I think that they miss very deeply their own fathers – very touching.
I also had the chance to see how these kids live in the SOS Children Village. They live in separated little houses. It was impressive how openly they presented their rooms.
All in all the afternoon in the SOS Children’s village was one of the most emotional experiences of the trip. I hope that all of these children will have a good life. I also hope that all of the other orphans who don’t have this kind of help at the moment will get support soon.

Shanghai Sunrise

3 September

On our third day in Shanghai we visited the charity organization Shanghai Sunrise. This charity helps children from poor families to pay the school fee. First of all the executive director Mrs Yvonne Kimmann, an expat from the Netherlands, presented the organization to us. She explained us that Shanghai Sunrise is 100% run by volunteers and financed through donations from private persons and companies located in and around Shanghai. It was quite interesting to learn about the way they work and the criteria of how the students in need are chosen. Generally they only give support to families who have an income of less than 600 Chinese Yuan (~ 75 CHF) per capita per month. Furthermore family visits are an important part of the evaluation. After her presentation four of their students talked about their family’s situation and how the program of Shanghai Sunrise has improved their lives. This visit was quite moving especially as we were shown that Shanghai is not only as rich and glamorous as it seems but that some of its residents have to fight hard for their lives.
Later on we went to Yu-Garden which is one of the only renovated traditional parts of Shanghai. For sure it represents somehow the old Shanghai, but nowadays it is rather a huge tourist market than a part of traditional Shanghainese life. After having had some typical Dim Sum we relaxed a little bit and later on a few of us enjoyed a drink at the first Jazz Club in town.

Swissnex and Calligraphy

2 September

On the second day we have visited Swissnex China's headquarter in Shanghai. Swissnex is a small initiative by the Department of Inner Affairs of the Swiss Confederation. Its aim is to promote Switzerland as an excellence for research and science by strengthening relations between Academics or Academics and Business. Since no other country in the world is comparable to China, especially in terms of economical growth, the Swiss government decided to be present in this country. One of the main tasks of Swissnex is to help Swiss Academic institutions to find a suitable partner in China or vice versa.
We could get a brief insight into several cooperation programs between China and Switzerland and have learned about different ways of knowledge transfer between these two countries takes place.
Later on in the afternoon, we went to Luxun Park where we met Zhengfeng, a local girl from Shanghai, for a calligraphy workshop. We sat on tables under a huge tree and tried to paint our first signs. After a few minutes some curious Chinese people were gathering around us. They were quite amazed to find foreigners in a park painting Chinese characters. Some even gave us some hints in how holding the brush and in what order we are supposed to draw the strokes. We definitely had a lot of fun as well as our first real interactions with Chinese.

Siemens

1 September

On September 1 our 13-day IFIL study trip through China began in Shanghai. After every participant has checked in at the hotel, we started our study trip right away with the company visit of Siemens Shanghai Medical Ltd.
Arrived at a very modern building outside of Shanghai's city center, Ms. Shan Li from the marketing department of Siemens Shanghai Medical Ltd. welcomed us. We had a short tour in a show room, where Ms. Shan Li gave us a brief introduction to the products the company is producing at this headquarter.
Ms. Shan Li explained us that Siemens Shanghai Medical Ltd is specialized in producing devices for Computer Tomography and Magnetic Resonance. Three different classes of several devices are being sold to hospitals or private doctors, whereas the top class devices are produced in Erlangen/Germany, while all lower and middle class are being produced in Shanghai.
Later on we could get an insight into their production site. We could experience how every small sub-device is being produced as well as how the assembling procedure is being done. It was really surprising how modern and proper the production site is.
Before we left this very nice Siemens building, we could have a look into their call center. It was very interesting to see in which way Siemens provides support to its customers. Several technicians and engineers provide active and passive support. Active support means that Siemens employees observe the situation of their products through the Internet and can provide support directly. Passive support means that a user has to report a problem before Siemens can start their support procedure. Later on we had a city tour through Nanjing Road and along the Bund. As food is a very important part of Chinese life, we were also introduced into the culinary world of
China during our welcome dinner. We enjoyed a big traditional Chinese meal where all of us sat around a huge round turntable such that everyone could try of every dish.