Linda – A Crazy Day of Interviewing and Running Around: Stopped by Mall Officials

“Ring ring ring”
I received a message, “Tomorrow 4:00 pm.  We will meet at Tous Les Jours cafe…”

I thought oh, I have a geography class at 6 pm. It’s far away from Tous Les Jours cafe. So I replied immediately, “I got it. But I have a class at 6:00 pm. I can get there earlier so that I can leave earlier because my school is far away from Tous Les Jours cafe.”

Then our teacher, Mrs Xu replied,  “Well, you can come here at 3:20, so that then you can leave when you finish your task.”

When I hurried there, i arrived at 3:30pm. I started doing my work, took photos and then delivered the photos I had taken. Then I noticed that Steven still hadn’t  turned up. At that moment, my teacher’s mobile phone was ringing. I thought it might be Steven.   It was Steven!  He said, “Hi, is that teacher? This is Steven. I’m lost. I forget the name of that bus station in front of Tous Les Jours cafe?”  Then our teacher explained quite clearly how to take the bus and where to change it.
…
10 minutes later, he appeared. We all started to tease him. We often met at this cafe but he could never remember the bus stop name…

Well. It’s time to do more interviewing.  Steven and I decided to go to the shopping mall, because we thought it was really convenient and cool. Unluckily, we still could not find a person who would agree to an interview.   So we wanted to go outside where there were more people.   But right as we got on the elevator we found two girls who looked like college students. We made our mind to try again so we asked,  “Excuse me. We are from What Kids Can Do and Adobe.  Can we ask you some questions about the Olympics? It won’t be very long.”   After looking our credentials they agreed.

The interview was relaxedness and funny. Right at that moment, a staff of the shopping mall came close to us…

“Excuse me, can you let me know what are you doing? Are you interviewing?”
He asked. “Yes, we are asking some questions about the Olympics. If you want, we can interview you too.”   “No. I mean… can you come to our manager’s office? We are told to pay more attention to the interviewers, you know. ” “Well, I know.” Steven followed him, I finished my interview then went to the office in a hurry.

“You know, here is close to the Olympic stadium. So we must pay attention to the interviewings.”
The manager said. “So, can I know the questions?”
“Of course. We showed them our question list of interviewing” They made a copy which took them a long time. Let me say, it should be about 20 minutes, I think. During that time, we called our teacher and told her details. She asked if she needed to talk to the maneger, we said: “it is fine here. Do not need her to be here. We will be back soon.”

20 minutes later we were back to the cafe.

“Oh my!” I looked my watch. It was 5:00pm. There’s no time to rest. I must go. Fortunately, teacher and other students could go with me.

First, we took a taxi. And we hurried to the line 5. It was 5:15pm. Then at the transfer station we took line10—a new subway line. It was 5:35. Finally, I took a taxi. when I got there , it was 5:55pm.

It was a hurried day that so many things happened. But it was more exciting, isn’t it?

(the photo above is a picture of Me, Steven and Kelen)

Kelen: Interview with a Music Teacher about the Olympics

Du Xiajiao is a music teacher I met in Beichen Shopping Mall. She is a nice lady. Before I met her, there were several people did not want to receive our interviewing. When we met her and talked to her about our interviewing. She said she would like to do it. I was super-happy. You will see my happy face in my picture.

Kelen: What’s your name?

Teacher: Du Xiajiao.

Kelen: What do you do for work?

Teacher: Music teacher.

Kelen: What is the great changes in Beijing Olympics?

Teacher: The environment of Beijing.

Kelen: You must be proud of our country hold the 29th Olympic Games?

Teacher: Of course. Beijing is my great hometown.

Kelen: Which sports will you follow most in the Beijing Olympics?

Teacher: Water sports are my favourite and I always go swimming with my friends.

Kelen: Which friendlies do you like best?

Teacher: Jing Jing(Panda) but all of them are lovely.

Kelen: Me too! I like panda best! Thank you. Goodbye~

Special Post from WKCD (What Kids Can Do)

After 6 months of the Beijing Youth Voices (BJV) blogging project , Dr. Barbara Cervone, Executive Director of WKCD, joined Tricia Wang, BJV Program Manager and Gloria Xu, BJV teacher, in China to work with the 6 BJV students for 1 week at the Adobe Beijing headquarters. Within 48 hours, Linda, Steve, E-mail, Kelen, Siqi and Iris produced amazing narrated, photos slideshows. You can find their six slideshows here, as they talk about the confluence of the Olympics and their daily lives. Before checking out their individual slideshows, we suggest that you listen and watch this special 5 minute audio slideshow on their thoughts around the Olympics. After following their lives for 6 months on this blog, we think you will be able to gain a new perspective when you hear their thoughts around this important event in their lives.

Hosting the 2008 Summer Olympics is a point of huge pride for Chinese of all ages. It is China’s debut on the world stage and they pray it is impeccable. For many Westerners and other non-Chinese, the Beijing Olympics offers a different—and no less urgent— storyline: about the suppression of dissent, the importance of human rights, the impact of environmental pollution, and more.

The Beijing youth whose voices and photos we share here speak from the first perspective. They love their country. They are smart and compassionate. They worked terrifically hard to produce these audio slideshows, and they offer them with open hearts. As outsiders, we may wish these six Beijing teenagers had taken up some of the issues that have stirred discussion and protest elsewhere in the world. But these are their stories—from youth who have big dreams for their country as well as for themselves.

We would like to give a special thank you to Adobe Beijing and Adobe Youth Voices for making this project possible. In particular, the Adobe Beijing staff was absolutely invaluable in empowering the students to tell their stories!

Enjoy!

Barbara Cervone, Tricia Wang and Gloria Xu

Welcome to our blog!

Hey! We are the six bloggers–Iris, Siqi, Steven, Linda, Kelan, and E-mail–of Adobe Youth Voice’s and What Kids Can Do’s Beijing Youth Voices! We are all high school students in Beijing, with a range of interests, talents, and personalities—like teenagers around the world. For the next few months, we will be posting bi-weekly blogs, giving you a peek into our lives and life in China. You can find our blogs listed on the right hand side of this page. We check this site regularly, so leave comments and we’ll promise to write back! We want to know what you think!know what you think! Click here to find out more about this Adobe Youth Voices and What Kids Can Do sponsored project.