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)

Siqi – A Visit 798 – Artist Gallery in an Old Factory

My father drove me to 798 Art spot. I sat in the car with the windows rolled down. The sky was perfect, cloudless blue. 798 was used to be an old factory which is famous for its art in China nowadays. This picture below if of this moment.

I’m impressed by these artistic works’ connection with reality. And I have never seen a working factory where artists coexist and create with work. Here is a picture of graffiti on a wall at the factory.

It’s a space of freedom and creativity, which is a wonderful thing to have in this city. It locates in the Dashanzi area northeast of Chaoyang District. It was a state-owned facility, but in the past couple years has developed into a Soho-like area, bringing together contemporary art, architecture, and culture in a historically interesting setting.

During this activity, a photographic exhibition has deeply impressed me. They condradicted propaganda because the artists wanted to show us an alternative and lamentable way of life. All the photos in the exhibition open up before our eyes is an other living space called bottom world by me. human being talk, eat and do everything in the bottom world with a dive scuba.
When I saw the exhibit, I thought, “THINK ABOUT HOW WE ARE DESTROYING THE ECOSYSTEM…”
Take a look out of your window right now. It doesn’t matter where you live,the time of day,or the season.What do you see? Do you see skyscrapers and offices filled with computers? Do you see polluted rivers or gray dirty sky?

It always comes back to the one question we ask ourselves: What is our world coming to?Or you might be one of those few lucky people who sees crystal-clear lakes or wildflowers.If so,do you notice the clean blue sky and fresh air? Do you really see and appreciate the thick trees that are home to so many animals? How much of this land are we willing to destroy? Will we keep going and going until none of it is left because all we care about is profit?

What kind of world do you want your grandchildren to live in? If we don’t save the environment now there will be children in the future who will never see a forest or swim in a lake. These things are becoming destroyed and so polluted that it will take years to clean up.

This eye-opener is not for everyone. I do realize that there are some very helpful, caring organizations out there who are doing a wonderful job. But, unfortunately, this is not enough. Imagine how clean our world look if no one littered? If everyone cleaned up their own space,this world would have no problem. And if we all think about the answers then we will know what to teach the next generation

-SiQi