Brief Summary of Winter School Expepriences

Brief Summary of Winter School Experiences
 

Liu Yuelin

I am very grateful to have the opportunity to participate in this winter school in Myanmar. Thank all the staff for their arrangement, which brought us perfect learning experience, comfortable accommodation, and delicious food. In this winter school, I not only learned the knowledge of different subjects but also was impressed deeply by the unique culture of Myanmar.

During this winter school, several essential topics were covered. What my group was focused on were production and consumption. I chose this topic because I thought it was directly related to my life. China's rapid economic development has not only brought me various kinds of conveniences, but also numerous disposable chopsticks for takeout, massive unnecessary packaging bags for online shopping, and piles of abandoned shared bicycles. These excessive production and resource waste are particularly disturbing especially when it is haze in Beijing. but due to laziness, it is impossible for me to completely abandon them.

But when I take a ‘winter school rewind’, what surprises me is that I think our final product can rectify my laziness. The Shifu app designed by my group works with three daily notifications. It includes spiritual mottos and detailed information about ecological circs or environmental tips. With pictures and videos, it can serve as a deterrent to warn me about the fragile earth and prevent me from environmental unfriendly shopping.

The course about design thinking is my favorite one. “Superman’ answer offered a new approach for problem-solving. Starting from a crazy and impossible plan and then modify it into a feasible one enable us to keep the craziness and be more creative. I even tried to solve the problem of paper waste in this way. Some of my colleagues preferred reading print-out articles, and a portion of printed essay end up in rubbish bins. Using the Superman answer technique, I first came to the solution that making writing on papers magically disappear after use. Then I realized maybe a special kind of ink is needed, which gradually faded within 2 weeks. With this feature, the ink can enable the recycling of papers and save a quantity of money.

Moreover，the interaction with other students also offered me chances to look into questions I had never thought about. The question I was frequently asked is whether China is a non-religious country. Personally, I'm inclined to say ‘no’.

Firstly, although China is currently led by the communist party and most people claim they believe in communism, this doesn’t mean the masses are not allowed to have their own religious beliefs. This is one of the reasons why you can see people in headscarves on the streets and people visiting the Buddha in temples. Secondly, historically, though China has rarely been a theocracy, the influence of religion is deeply rooted in Chinese culture. For the average Chinese, it is normal to have Buddha and Guanyin statues as a hanging pendant, and Feng Shui is also an important factor in home choices. But have to admit is that most people have received rather a folk oral knowledge than formal Buddhism education. Mostly, their personal belief system is a mixture of Taoism, Buddhism, and different kinds of local folk customs. This phenomenon did not start appearing in contemporary China, but as early as the Ming and Qing dynasties. This was reflected in the journey to the west, which is one of the four great ancient Chinese novels. In addition, the belief system most Chinese have built can be "profitable". Their worship the Buddha more for their own wishes. For example, there is a temple in Beijing that is popular among young people simply because its Chinese name "reclining Buddha(卧佛)" sounds similar to "offer". For this reason, it is popular to visit this temple for university and job applications. The profitable religion system is also one reason why some Chinese people are accused of believing in ghost instead of God. Their belief system is based on a fear of karma, and they do good out of a fear of retribution: the ghosts and the punishments they will face after doing bad things are their biggest motivation for doing good.

Last but not least, in my opinion, I don't think there is a significant difference between Confucianism or Laozi's doctrine and religions such as Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. Both of them include two parts: a knowledge system and a belief system. In the knowledge system, they all jointly include the exploration of the origin and development of the universe. For example, the universe advocated by Laozi is a process of natural generation and evolution (道生万物). Moreover, at least in the early days, this kind of exploration in Laozi and Confucian culture also lacked clarification and justification and was more about individual or partial believing. In the belief system, although Chinese schools all support "no ghosts and gods". But the removal of the gods does not necessarily mean the removal of ethical norms. Each school of thought has a strict system of ethics and morality for individuals, families, and states, and also requires a high degree of obedience, which is not substantially different from some religious rituals. For instance, the difference between Confucianism and other religions is that it is not the gods but the family that serve as a judge of good or bad behavior.

Another unforgettable experience happened after the winter school in a small town by the Inle lake. Walking through some nearby villages one afternoon, I came across a group of boys aged from 5 to 12 years old playing football together. I approached the uneven grass and watched them running barefoot between two goals made by a few wooden sticks. A little boy offered to invite me, so I took off my shoes and became one of them. The grass was tender, the sunshine was soft, the breeze was cozy and they are quite good football players. When I left, they stood at the fork in the road and shouted goodbye to me one by one, which made me almost sad to tears on the way back to my hotel. But the day after the afternoon, I suddenly realized that the farewell scene was more of a tender touch. The really sad memory was something happened during the play when the goal fell down to the ground. At first, we all burst into laughter, and the goalkeeper, who was close to the goal, turned back and started digging a hole to raise and supported the crooked bamboo stick. But the first attempt didn't work, and neither did the second. On the final third try, all the laughter changed into silence and several other children stepped forward to help the goalkeeper. Everyone turned around and faced the goal. Each boy stole a glance at the other. Finally, our play gradually returned to normal after the bamboo stick was erected again.

I had prepared myself for the difference in economic conditions before my journey, but this scene surprised me unexpectedly. It was a direct reminder to me that children who are qualified to be a world-class player can be buried by a lack of infrastructure, teachers and training systems. And I also felt that shifu's investment in education (both effort and money) was a definite right choice and would have a pervasive impact on Myanmar. The orphanages in the north and the future universities will provide numerous opportunities for Burmese children and adults to explore the world and themselves, which the same time equips them the knowledge to embark on their future work to repay the society.

As for the winter school project, the lectures and group discussion were all informative and thought- provoking. I really enjoyed that. But I think it could be better if more instructions had been given to all participants. I found most groups started and stuck at theoretical discussions. Clear definitions of our topic and lists of related phenomenon could be helpful under the condition that we know what the final product is about. Without information of the final target, while, too many discussions on the theory level could be vague and general and stop us from digging into a certain area because all group topics are not related to one detailed problem but included many aspects of our life. I think instructions on the final project, such as clarifying the target of this group discussion is to produce a new law, to change the education system or to produced daily supplies, can benefit participants to find a land point for theoretical discussions. Otherwise, in my opinion, it would be hard to make our group discussions practical within such a short period. I understand that most politicians get no instructions when confronted with all kinds of ecological issues. I think, however, politicians are more like decision makers, deciding what issues to prioritize. On the other hand, experts are those who develop products to solve problems based on their expertise. For example, educators are more likely to dig into changes in school systems, and advocacy teams are more likely to focus on designing public service advertisements. In my opinion, I guess the winter school students were playing the role of experts.

I also think it might be beneficial to offer more opportunities for students to communicate with local communities. Myanmar is a good example of developing countries, which account for most of the world countries. In our group's short field interview, the relatively low awareness of ecological crisis among the local people was out of our expectation. This finding helped us a lot in our final app, which focused on raising awareness of environmental protection. For this reason, I would recommend providing more interactions with local people to winter school students.

To summary, I enjoyed the winter school a lot. The lectures, group discussions, and social events are all unforgettable experience for me. Thank you all for your work again!