Visiting Women's Watch China in Beijing

November 3, 2010

On October 18, I visited Women's Watch China to speak with its director, Wang Xiaobei, about their work, women's activism and the state of women in China. Women's Watch shares office space with the well-known NGO, Peking University Women's Law Studies and Legal Aid Center (hereafter "the Center").  (For some background on the Center and on NGOs dealing with women's issues in China, see my other blog, Women in Asia, www.womeninasia.blogspot.com)  The latter NGO was in the news recently because Peking University recently made a decision to cut ties with that NGO on the grounds that the Center wasn't really part of Peking University, did not use any Peking University faculty or staff and was not part of any Peking University programs. The Center claims that ties were cut for political reasons, because the Center takes on sensitive cases and Peking University was being pressured by government authorities to cut its ties. I discuss this issue in more depth in my other blog, NGOs in China, http://ngochina.blogspot.com/2010/04/peking-university-womens-legal-aid.html.

The Center has now registered under a dual identity and goes under two names: Beijing Zongze Women's Legal Counseling and Service Center, and Beijing Qianqian Law Firm. Women's Watch China is an organization that is "attached" to this Center, which means that it is not registered separately as a NGO, but is regarded as an affiliate of the Center. The Center, in other words, is incubating Women's Watch China until it can register as an independent NGO.  In part 2 of our podcast, Wang Xiaobei talks about the difficulty of registering their NGO.

The Center's office is located in a nondescript apartment building in the northeast part of Beijing. For political and financial reasons, many Chinese NGOs are based in residential buildings, working out of apartments, and do not have much of a public presence. They are sort of hidden away. The political reason is that Chinese NGOs sometimes do sensitive work or are not registered legally because of the difficulty of registering as a NGO, and so avoid attracting attention. The financial reason is that Chinese NGOs are often short of funding and lack the money to rent out space in office buildings.

 You can see though that the Center has not yet changed their name on the plaque outside their office.

When I went to the Center, I was welcomed by Wang Xiaobei whose title is General Secretary of Women's Watch China which is similar to being the Executive Director.  We sat in the main room (what would be the living room in this apartment) where they hold meetings, so every so often you hear one of the staff members walking through the room to get to their offices which are located in the 3 bedrooms.








 

Interviewing a Buddhist at Tongjiao temple in Beijing

September 13, 2010

Last Sunday, I went to Tongjiao temple to visit Vicky, a friend of my wife’s who regards herself as a devout or pious Buddhist. Vicky spends one morning a week volunteering her time at the temple. When I told her I wanted to interview her about Buddhism for the Traditional China class, she invited me to her temple to see where she volunteered and worshipped.

I went to the temple on bike and took some snapshots of my trip over. I live east of the East 3rd Ring Road, and the temple is located just inside the East 2nd Ring Road in the old city (the 2nd Ring Road marks the perimeter of Old Beijing), so my trip took me west.  Here are some pictures of the traffic circle which marks the 2nd Ring Road. 

 

It was a beautiful morning, and I saw two weddings on my route. One had an old fashioned wedding procession with dancing lions. The other was more of a modern day wedding with a limo waiting outside the restaurant.

There also some pictures of people getting ready for work -- restaurant workers lined up for the morning drill, chefs getting a last puff of their cigarette before heading back inside.

Some familiar signs....

This is the street the temple is on, and here is the main entrance to the temple which is under construction.

Below are pictures of the inner courtyard of the temple which was also under construction.
 

When I got to the temple, Vicky was waiting for me in the Bookstore (see left) where she was working that morning.

 She was also responsible for taking donations from visitors. In the front of her desk, you can see two red donation boxes marked in Chinese, gongde xiang, which literally means Box of merits and virtues. Visitors can put donations in these boxes for the upkeep of the temple. They can also make donations for specific purposes (see the first podcast). I made a donation on behalf of Marist of 200 yuan (about U.S.$30) to save animals from being killed.

To the right is a sign that tells you not to speak, which Vicky explained really means not to engage in idle talk, but only chant Buddhist texts and talk about Buddhism.  The volunteers at the temple were pretty good about ignoring this sign.

While I was talking to Vicky, various people would come through, some of them volunteers who -- yes, engaged in idle chatter -- others visitors, so you may hear talking in the background of the podcasts. One elderly gentleman who volunteered in the temple, had lived most of his life nearby and knew the history of the temple. He told me that there used to be 3 temples in this area, but two were torn down to make way for residential buildings. Of those two, one temple was for monks and the other was for nuns. Vicky explained that monks and nuns were segregated and could not live together in the same temple. The Tongjiao temple is for nuns.

To the right and below, you can see the nuns living quarters, and a room used to burn envelopes in memory of the dead.

The elderly man also told me that during the Maoist period, the Tongjiao temple was turned into a police station. He told me an interesting story of how police would detain suspected criminals in this temple, and every so often you'd walk in and see the police beating or kicking one of them.  During this time, the main entrance which you see above was closed and only the side entrance (see below) was used. I took some pictures of the cars parked by the side entrance and you can see a number of police cars and vans from the police station which is relocated next to the temple. The temple was reopened for use in the early 1980s when the Communist Party allowed religion to be practiced again.

Welcome to Marist in China

September 7, 2010

Ni hao!  (Chinese for hello)

You can view my earlier welcome to this blog at http://maristinchina.blogspot.com/2007/09/ni-hao-chinese-for-hello-this-is-shawn.html.  This is an update of that introduction which was written 3 years ago.  As you might guess, some things have changed, but some haven't.  We are still here in Beijing and plan to be here for another 4 more years.  My wife is still working for the foreign commercial office here at the U.S. embassy.   

Our son just graduated from high school and is doing a gap year here in Beijing.  He'll be teaching martial arts, volunteering at a NGO project in a village in Sichuan province that is rebuilding from the 2008 earthquake, and taking Chinese classes at a local university.  My daughter is now 15, in 10^th grade at the International School of Beijing, and playing rugby. 

I’ll be blogging and putting up podcasts for Professor Bayer’s Traditional China and Women in Asia class this semester, and hope to have a chance to participate in online discussions with you.  I also teach U.S. college students who are here at the International Education for Students (IES) Beijing center.  I teach classes on the Government and Politics of China, China’s Foreign Relations, and last but not least, Chinese martial art of tai chi.

I look forward to an exciting semester, and hope that the blogs, pictures, and podcasts further your understanding of China.