<p>I need very sharp opinions.. this essay is obviously redundant, too long. I worked for few days but couldn't get a good revision.</p>
<p>I'm an international student from China.</p>
<p>You can say anything you like.. Just gave me any suggestions. My scores are very bad(you can tell from the essay), with strange ECs. (This is one of them). good grades(Chinese grades are often inflated).I don't know how to choose a school suits me.</p>
<p>Two months in handicapped childrens restoration center
Background</p>
<p>Having been socialized for many years in Hangzhou Foreign Language School with my classmates and teachers, I had regarded it, on one level, to be my home. On another level, however, I had been brought up in an intellectual family commited in great measure to academics and respective personal pursuits, even while quietly observing certain social affairs and practices. Throughout my middle schools days, I had gotten little chance to interact in other peoples life, because my family strongly opposed to this act, for them its only bring troubles. </p>
<p>Thus I was once more familiar with labels of books in library than events happened in my community. Althrough my friend and I had do some paper research work of rural migrated workers working conditions, it was a methodical summary instead of a real sense sociology project. We had only contacted a small range of migrated workers in the practice. The rich awards that I reaped from shared academic knowledge not only molded my growing up experiences, but also influenced me try to understand and improve the real world. When I heared my foreign teacher Hannah was in a compaign to raise funds for orphans in the restoration center, this consideration led me decided to do volunteer work in that place.</p>
<p>Insider/Outsider</p>
<p>Arriving in Zhejiang Love Happiness Hospital (the handicapped children restoration center), I knew Ive stepped in a new world. Although the corner southern portion of Hangzhou was virtually undeveloped, the facilities in the center were better than I had anticipated. I was allocated to a room of six kids. When I told the doctor I can do cleaning and cooking work, she smiled and said there were people doing these. My job was to teach them some basic school courses because they didnt have adequate trainning in school. They had intended to hire a teacher, but no one was willing to come.</p>
<p>The children saw me as an outsider. They were educated in a less rigorous but more liberal school atmosphere, and most of them came from the Lishui City orphanage to have surgery here. Because the center was in fact a hospital, they can not stay more than two months. Ruiyan, the little lovely girl, only spoke Lishui area dialect, which was very hard to understand. I could communicate freely with the elder boys as they had learned mandarin.</p>
<p>I had been telling stories and reading history books to them everyday. In the mean time I oberserved certain peculiarities as an outsider. Because its the first time they had been Hangzhou, I bought them daily newspapers and explained the complicated events in the news. However, it seemed that they were not at all interested. The two elder boys enjoyed the section of media stars and TV channel schedule most. They and another girl were also fond of watching soap opera series. When I tried to teach them some elementary Math material, their reply was advanced Math wont help them in practical work after they became adults. Instead of listening to my instructions, they urged me to help them solve summer Math home work. After I had pointed out that their misunderstandings in Math concepts were result from loose trainning, they told me their aim was just to pass the test.</p>
<p>They also surprised me by other means. My moblie phone was decoded by the two boys in five minutes, from that time they used it as a playstation. And they had used my digital camera to record the secret places in the center. Without my help, they had produced lots of interesting pictures. Noticed that they had not used any electronic devices like the cell phone before I came there, their intelligence and cuirosity were quite remarkable.</p>
<p>On the other hand, some factes of my life concerned them. What, for example, was my senior middle school experiences like? Why I was so emphasized of problems that meaningless in their eyes? My outsider status had made me somewhat an insider of the education and city life they imagined. Huanxi Ren, a tall boy, asked me whether its possible to learn Japanese at my school. He took the issue so seriously that I bought a Japanese language textbook for him. The nurses asked me for their daughters how to perform well in high school. Although the role of an volunteer had come to be accepted by the people in the center at large and the workers in particular, the problem was in the priorities this role took over what was perceived to be the more important aspect of a educated urban boy role, namely the knowledges that my education brought. According to both orphans and workers, it was this dimension of a educated person that are primary. In fact, given the fact of vast disparities in educational opportunities in Zhejiang province, and their deep roots in social economical relations, knowledge had served like a symbol of respectivity and individual ability. My fundamentals of a volunteer was therefore obscured to some extent.</p>
<p>Family care</p>
<p>When I squatted in the orphanages bed, I tried to behave like them, and to understand what they really concerns. Those who respected outside, who experience difficulties and hardships in rural areas were usually the easiest to communicate with, or to convince. But I doubt if its only an attitude of their innocence. Soon we had finished most of their summer home work, and my inventory of historic stories gradually diminished. I didnt notice their bodily challenged status anymore. To me they were just like my classmates. I can use gestures to communicate with Ruiyan. If I demanded Huanxi Ren to solve a simple Math problem, he would request a Chinese history story. Only if I had promised hell begin his work.</p>
<p>Virtually orphans were of few words. When I inquired about their living conditions, the eldest 19 old boy said its just the same. They had also gone to schools of education like me, in which their teachers were kind and approachable. Their classmates didnt know their identities, because their adoptive parents treated them like blood relatives. I was surprised when I heard this. The only sign I made was a smile. Thats the smile we had in our faces when we saw the climax of the TV series, when we finally solved a problem in their homework, and when they had used my mobile phone to contact their parents, telling funny storys I had brought to them.</p>
<p>One day several cell phone calls waked me from dreams. It was 7:00, still quite early by Hangzhou peoples standards. The anxious man in the telephone was speaking in Lishui Dialect, finally I grasped that his daughter would have a surgery today, who usually contacted him through this number. Suddenly I knew he was Ruiyans father. When I hurried to the restoration center, she was still in the room waiting for surgery. So I handed the phone to her hands at once.</p>
<p>In the subsequent days, I often received such phone calls. When I was telling them that their children were fine, I can discern their emotions had relieved. Still they would want to speak to their kids directly. This led me to think the relationship of me and my family. I had not been awared that I was so cherished by my parents, just as Ruiyan and other children were cherished by their family before doing this volunteer work. More times than not, what I perceived were the spiritual values and requirements my parents emphasized rather than such intimate care. I realised how much my family used to be concerned about me. And the orphans, like I was, were living in a place full of tender care. </p>
<p>I took my clues from the vice chair of Lishui orphanage, who had arrived in the center one day after their surgery. She came with a huge bag of dainties for the children. The kids put it in the corner of the room and distributed the contents according to their respective needs. The vice chair echoed my point of view when I elaborated the story, because she had adopted one orphan as her son. The adoptive families nourished the orphans with their own kids, in the process they had grown up like real brothers and sisters. She told me that it would be an offense to ask them these aspects in their lives. What she had not anticipated was a sense of kinship formed between me and them in the two months. I had grown up as the only child in the family. This brief volunteer experience warmed me in a way I never felt before.</p>
<p>Freedom of choice</p>
<p>Once I asked the 19 year old boy why they all went to school at such a late age. He said because the government didnt have enough funds to provide their tuition at that time, he was postponed to enter primary school. Huanxi Ren and three other kidss conditions were almost the same. Ruiyan was mentally challenged, therefore she even couldnt enter normal primary school in future. His words made me silent for a long time. This was the first time in my life did I observed such contrast and disparity exist between different groups of people. Sometimes I felt the sad picture imlied by their words were more fundamental in my perceptions of them, which may be inevitable in doing volunteer work as an outsider.</p>
<p>Though I had donated piles of my books to them., I worried that these books may not be that helpful as they were not familar with the basics. Whenever I stepped across the corridors in the center, the slogan All for handicapped children depressed me,as I inevitably realized my limitations as a volunteer. Their education was like a kind of play and work rathan than a constant pursue of knowledge led by individual curiosity and perseverance. My instillation and hard work did not inspire them to seek independence in study. This situation made me tried to look it in another way. </p>
<p>As I retrospected what I did from their perspective. I found in fact I was posing my values on them. My instructions in academics did not naturally be the help they need at such a stage. Everyone should have his own choices, and what I can do was to bring them to more liberal atmosphere. If they were exposed to a broader range of people and resources, they would not have been watching soap opera to spend the most precious time in their life. I thought I need some guidance, or help from others. </p>
<p>My foreign teacher Simon contacted me in that time. Seeing my posts on the school forum, he and his girlfriend intended to donate a computer. I inducted them to the center and translate orphans talk for them. This brief experience made Simon decided to teach them English in the weekends. Later his friend Linda also joined us. She was from Miami, USA.</p>
<p>Since that time more and more people had become volunteers in the center, many of them I didnt know their names. I was surprised when they contacted me to inquire its location. Though my job has finished, they will continue to help other handicapped children in various ways. </p>
<p>Things lagged behind - Discussions</p>
<p>Chinese temporary welfare system is mainly organized by provincial governments. The central government in Beijing doesnt have the willingness or the financial aid available for uniformed welfare practice. Though its wide accepted that welfare must be provided to save people in need, in reality we still cannot erect a reliable welfare system, especially to the elders and the disabled people. We used lottery money to provide aid for disabled children, but the totall amount was still scanty in comparison with the amount of needs. The wealthier the state, the more advanced their welfare system is. So the poor places usually dont possess a welfare system. Parents either abandoned their kids directly after they discovered his or her deficiency or gave up after several years without apporiate medical care. Lishui is a poor city, therefore its not surprising to observe so many disabled children be collected by their orphanage. </p>
<p>The most important problem existed in our welfare system is: we are not changing the society, we are repairing the society. If were willing to give each family in financial trouble of disabled children with fair amount of money, or simply pay their medical expenses by the government, then there will be no severe problem of running orphanages. The doctors and nurses should be placed in their best apporiate tasks in stead of running 12 hours a day for nursing the disabled kids who missed the critical period of medical care. Calculations showed that the amout we need exceeded the money available now by 200 million RMB, which is scanty when compared with Zhejiangs GDP this year. The most important thing is, the orphans should be with their real family instead of in the orphanage, though in surface our adoption system is desirable, it can not hide the fact that theyre orphans. </p>
<p>People have called for new laws be erected for the orphans. Yet few representatives in national congress this year were willing to change. Go with the Dengs guidance is their motto. But we need to change because weve been lagged behind by developed countries. Building new orphanages cant solve our problem, but we can do something now to improve the situation, step by step. Thats what I think after the two months spent there. I hope when I came there next year, the orphanage will be almost empty because no more orphans are sent by the police. And Ill be a volunteer again.</p>