05 August 2008
Recently I was lucky enough to be part of a British Council delegation who undertook a study visit to China. The objectives of the study visit were to forge links between the UK and China, through which cultural exchanges involving young people from each country could be set up. This would be part of a programme entitled "China 400" , agreed by the British Prime Minister and the Chinese Premier, largely as a means to encouraging more commercial/economic exchange and cooperation between China and the UK.
I can sum up my trip to China by saying that it was an amazing experience for me. In relation to the learning, I feel that it was one of the most intellectually stimulating series of 10 days that I ever remember spending. As a youth worker, I found it useful and fascinating to get an insight into youth work in China, its principles, its model of engagement and the reasoning behind it. I found it very interesting to compare these with youth work in the UK, particularly in Northern Ireland. In China there is a different reasoning behind working with young people, but it aims for the same endgame, albeit for different apparent reasons. I often thought that those doing or administering youth work in China were simply more upfront about the aims.
For example, in China I was told that youth work is all about making young people:
1) fit into society; and
2) Become able to contribute economically to the progress of China.
In the UK, many youth work practitioners would baulk at the notion of this type of social control being at the heart of their practice. For government however, where the majority of the funds for youth work are sourced, this would be a perfectly acceptable objective, although it may well be worded differently. There would also be wide scale agreement by the voting public that this is what all youth work initiatives should strive for - making young people more "responsible", ensuring that they fit in to "decent" society. So while on the surface it may seem that there were big differences in the youth work in the UK and China, there are also many similarities, with the differences largely stemming from different cultural and political backdrops.
These comparisons and observations all took place while also gaining a brief insight into Chinese society and way of life, giving it a basis and providing a guide for helping to understand young people and youth work in China. Part of the impact of the experience was seeing all this, as well as learning more about Chinese history and its development.
Another of the insights was, fitting into the Chinese way of doing business, as a potential stepping stone to further developments. For example, wherever we went I was looking for Chinese young people who had been failed by the system or who chose to disengage from it and drop out, asking questions about how these young people are regarded or treated. However it was very hard to get answers about or access to such young people. After some days I learnt that these young people were often seen as "failures" and highlighting their existence, or the problems associated with them would have caused embarrassment to our Chinese hosts. So this was possibly an issue they would prefer we did not explore or highlight on our first visit, during which the All China Youth Federation who were hosting us, were keen to give what they saw as a good impression and experience of China. This they did, looking after us incredibly well, providing a variety of stimulating and informative visits and meetings for us, including a youth detention centre, two youth "palaces" and a school for migrant children, through which we could get some insight into a range of work with young people in China.
To sum up, I would say that this was an incredible 10 days for me. I hope it is an experience that can be built on and that will lead to further work between young people and youth workers in China and in Northern Ireland
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