Many of the older
BOG members would remember Angela (Angie) Davis who was the early President of the club. Angie is now in the UK working and her husband Ivan is in China teaching English.
This is a copy of the email the Ivan sent this week and has a link to a utube clip about his environment work where he is teaching.
Brian
Dear Friends and Family,
Angela has pushed me to get this out so here it is.
Most of you would be aware I have taken on a task of picking up rubbish once a week for a few hours on a mountain path within walking distance from my home base here at the college where I work. This has been a consistent activity now for about 19 months or so except for when I was away on holidays. Someone here at the college organised a system of volunteers from the student body and most Sunday mornings I have a group of up to 30 students who join me. If it is raining or they have other activities then they don't come so then it is just me or me and a couple of other students who are particularly disciplined with wanting to practise English with me or who are genuinely concerned about the environment,
Over time my face has become fairly well know and to cut a long story short, someone nominated me to be amongst a group of people who were chosen because they 'moved the heart of Wenzhou', - and so it happened.
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Here is a link to a clip that was made from half a day's work in preparation for the presentation night for the top 10 people who had moved the heart of Wenzhou in the past year. I still don't know how or who nominated me for this thing but it seemed to be building its own momentum for some time leading up to this. It was certainly way outside any control I had. When I became aware that I had been nominated and there was a voting process it was all too late to make any difference.
Ivan Davis utube clip
On the night of the presentations I found I was sharing the stage with a very eclectic group. They included a girl who had done CPR on a bloke who had drowned and so she saved his life. There were a couple of police officers who had died in the performance of their duties and their immediate family and work comrades were represented. There were a few groups of people who had done odd things. Some I never worked out what they did but one lot had started a kitchen to feed the starving poor. There was a bloke born with brumby legs who had become a very good high school teacher and then was back studying for something else. Another teacher had dedicated himself to teaching in some poor area. A girl had looked after ailing grandparents all the time while getting herself to school and then there was one foreigner amongst them all who picked up rubbish. Amazing stuff.
Anyway, the next day it was back to the normal business of picking up rubbish on the mountain. There is now a bloke who is obviously paid to sweep the paths and keep the bins clear. I have no idea how often he goes but it is another thing that is making a difference. The biggest thing though is that there is a lot less litter being casually dropped. I personally believe that until people are willing to take care of this little thing, there will never be the political or general will in any society to take care of the bigger things such as air and water pollution nor the pollution that impacts on all the food that people have to eat. I learnt not long ago that when rich folk here become aware of how bad the food is, they buy imported food. In a country with a population of a billion people that becomes something pretty significant I think.
I'll finish this now. I hope you can see the youtube clip and I'll try to attach a photo or two from the ceremony. There were countless newspaper people and other media people at this 'live' TV ceremony but also my college here bussed in about 50 students from my department as well as their media bloke and a couple of teachers or whatever. I never really know what is going on.
I am sorry this is a bit haphazard but I seem to be a bit hurried these days. This thing took up a lot of my time and effort and so my administration fell a bit behind but the biggest thing that is taking up my time is ping pong. Here I am in ping pong paradise and I think one of the best coaches that could ever be, thinks I am something special, so I am spending far too much time learning to play this crazy game. My excuse would be that you have to make hay when the sun is shining but really I am just having fun.
I hope you are too.
Ivan Davis
English teacher
Wenzhou Vocational & Technical College.
Phone: (86China) (0577) 86680130
Mobile: (86China) 150 6785 8141
