Nanjing, Day 22

His name is Zhang Laoshi, the most experienced hair stylist at Bingfei Modeling. He calls himself, “laoshi”, or teacher, because he teaches hair artistry. As we entered Bingfei Modeling this afternoon, we were handed a menu of hair services, listed from least to most expensive. For 50 Kuai, Zhang Laoshi, the most expensive of all his colleagues, washed, cut and blew dry our hair. Despite a difficult language barrier, Zhang Laoshi intuitively knew how to handle our hair.
 
Ming Li and I cut at least 3 inches off our hair and walked next door with our silky new cut to the Baozi Master. Zhu rou (pork), shu cai (veggie), and hong tou (red-bean paste). The baozi have become a daily meal for us.
 
After that we all parted to our different internships. First day back to campus from the host families and Anhui and first day of Internships. Internships vary from Map Magazine, Facilitators, Jiangsu Medical Center, and Nanjing Broadcast Company, among many others. Melissa and I are interning at the Facilitators Office in Nanjing. It’s a short subway ride from the university. It was founded in September 2007 and serves the migrant population from rural areas in Nanjing. They have four full-time staff members and various volunteers. They help the migrants by providing different services. One of them is to provide a quiet place for the kids to do their homework and study. Their library has a variety of donated books in Chinese and English that the kids can take home for a maximum of two weeks. We talked to the kids and the other volunteers there. After the kids finish their homework, they stay a little longer to play before going back home. Melissa and I were playing a card game with them and before we knew it was time to go back to our Language Partner Time on campus.
 
The facilitators is a great NGO that helps the migrants integrate into the urban communities, and they strongly believe that by one can help oneself by helping others. They strive for the basic social equity of the migrant workers. The Facilitators have been successfully filling in the gap of the migrants, whose needs the government has not been able to attend.
 
It was a great first day of internship. I’m also excited for tomorrow, which is “Children’s Day” in China, and there will be more kids attending the program.

- Alexandra S.