Chinese Migrant School

These are some more pictures that have been sitting around for a while. A few months ago, the family did some volunteering at a migrant school. These are kids of migrant workers from around China, who are here in the wealthy east mostly as construction workers. The school wasn't purpose built for them. As I understood it, it was supposed to be a regular school (and may yet be). It was far too nice of a facility to have been built for migrant workers, despite the fact that it was shabby, and freezing cold.

We were there to just do some basic little English activities. Some of these kids were pretty sharp.


I made sure to get a good clear photo of the girl in the center of the photo on the right. One thing that a lot of people don't know about China is how much ethnic variety there really is. The culturally, politically, and numerically dominant group are the Han Chinese. 90% of the population is Han (although considering that many of the ethnic minorities are either exempt from, or ignore, the one-child policy, it is interesting to speculate how long that will last).

In any case, I don't know if these kids are Han or not. They did speak Mandarin, but just about everyone speaks it as at least a secondary dialect, and I certainly don't understand enough to distinguish accents (or ask kids detailed questions about their backgrounds).

My point all that goes back to the fact that there is a lot of variety in China. The stereotypical Chinese "look" is not at all universal. It is a very common experience for me to see people in the street who, for all the world, look exactly like the Latino and American Indian students I have had over the years. I thought the that girl in the middle was a good example of that. If I were to see her in a different context, I might have assumed she was Mexican.

Finally, a photo I took from a window of the school's front gate. Note the reception dish mounted on top of a chair on the roof. Scenes like this keep my earlier comment about being in "wealthy" China a little bit in perspective, no?