Mid Autumn Festival is the time of year when you are meant to gather with family and admire the full moon. Unfortunately there was no moon in sight all weekend as the pollution index reached a new high.
To escape the smog I ran to the hills on Saturday and did the sort of hike that only attracts people born at altitude; Swiss, Austrians and Germans dominated. It was in the mountains a couple of hours outside the city. Total wilderness with broken rugged sections of the wall. No maps and much scrabbling on hands and knees. Back as base, a villager gave us some food. I was very happy that his fat cat sat on my knee acting as a kind of hot water bottle. We were soaked through and pretty scratched.
Back to Beijing on Monday (bank holiday) we edited the next edition of the magazine. Charity is in crisis in China. The Guo Meimei red cross scandal has reduced donations almost to nil. This issue is very much an attempt to try and profile the transparency pioneers trying to reduce the oxymoronic impact of Charity and trust.
Wang and I met at Stone-boat in Ritan Park where we tend to have our best ‘blue sky’ thinking ideas (despite inclement weather). He can edit very quickly because he has been doing this for seven years and understands the salient issues better than me (Being Chinese and working with Government).
Once the edit was over, I refilled my date and ginger tea, scoffed some moon-cake and we brainstormed Charitarians three main projects this year:
1) Charitarian Film
Wang has written a moving script on materialism versus volunteerism in modern China; the script has won him one of the ten general release licences to be made available in China this year. Called ‘passer by’ it stars the very famous TV heart-throb Chen Kun as a white collar working who gets double crossed by a colleague on a deal in Anhui.
Losing his wallet, he also nearly loses his life when he tries baking a sweet potato in a field that catches fire. Kidnapped by the local villagers he is made to pay back for his crime by working in a local school. Shocked that the children do not idolize him as a city success story, he begins to question his own morality and very raison d’etre. Unravelling he falls in love with a local teacher but meets a rival in the form of a foreign student. The story challenging assumptions of success in modern China is perfectly aligned with the 12th Five Year Plan’s focus on ‘happiness’. I love this film because of it’s touching dialogue and harsh questioning of the out of control capitalism ripping the heart out of shopping mall China. The film will be shot in Beijing/Anhui in October for general release in March 2012.
2) Rural Teacher Training Project
Charitarian are working with British School Beijing (BSB) to put 100 teachers through creative education training programs in BSB Beijing over the next year. The next group of teachers from Anhui, Shandong, Xinjiang and Hubei arrive on 4 December and we are currently working with the school to decide on their curriculum. We are building on the success of our April launch of the program which saw 25 teachers visit the school for eight days (for more information see Ed 6 of Charitarian). Since then we have been back to Shandong to receive honest feedback from Government, teachers and media.
3) Soul Fuel Centers
To counteract the pressures of living in rural China, Charitarian have a license to build 50 Soul Fuel Centers. To reduce rural isolation and attendant suicides we will build 50 modern centers focusing on a) Poetry and reading; b) Environmental projects and volunteering; and c) Inspiring Talks. There will also be a nurse available twice a week to provide front line check-ups for early diagnosis of curable illnesses. SFC’s will provide some food and a place to meet informally but essentially intellectual stimulation and a chance to volunteer. In the west we would call it a community center/library/Starbucks.
We are planning a launch party for the next Charitarian. It goes to iPad later this week and out in London on Thursday. The Chinese copy will come out on 25 October at the Charitarian party – likely guest speakers will be the Somalia Ambassador and two Chinese Film Producers in the development sector. More later.
Clare