Entries: Elizabeth Murray

Chinese Paper Boys Give Their American Counterparts a Run For Their Money

Today some of the students and myself were lucky enough to get the chance to visit Beijing Youth Daily, which is a newspaper aimed at...you guessed it...youth.  Although it is a youth based circulation, you might say their definition of youth clashes with that of the US.  The editors we met with today said their demographic is any Beijing Citizen ranging in age from 25-40, and while that is not old by any means, by American standards it would not be included in a “youth” category. 
Being from a broadcast background myself, I was a little out of my league when discussing graphics and placement, but to me news is news and therefore I loved getting the chance to meet with reporters and editors alike, and picking their brain a little bit about the business.  Either way, it was a very insightful tour, giving us all an inside look at what being a journalist in another country, especially one so politically different than our own, feels like. For example, all five of the major newspapers, all of which are circulated daily, are state owned...one can only imagine the amount of control our government and politicians might exercise in the US if such power over the press was granted.  State run or not, I still got the feeling that the employees were very passionate about journalism and their duty to the public.

On to a few tid-bits of information about the newspaper business here in Beijing… There are a total of 1,000 employees at the Beijing Youth Daily alone, 300 of them being journalists...the paper costs 1 yuan a day (which works out to be about 10 cents for us in America) with a circulation of 600,000.

And on a more interesting note...the male mannequins pictured below are not soccer players on a team the newspaper sponsors, but rather the paper boys who deliver the news every morning.  Our tour guide said all paper boys employed by the Beijing Youth Daily sport these uniforms while on the job.

Greetings from The Bund

Ten journalism students from the University of Illinois are visiting China as part of an international reporting class.  On May 18, in Shanghai, student reporter Lauren Thorbjornsen interviewed classmate Elizabeth Murray as they stood on The Bund.  The Bund is a pedestrian walkway along the Huangpu River, just across from the famous Pudong district of Shanghai.  Behind Lauren and Liz, you’ll see the famous Pudong skyline that features the 1,500 foot tall Oriental Pearl TV and radio tower, third tallest TV tower in the world. 

And the verdict is...."at least I didn't sink"

So as I mentioned in my last posting, today was a day of so called “sinking or swimming” and over all I would say I showed off a stroke or two.  Myself and some other students arose from our slumber pretty early to meet with Aisha, our student translator at 9AM in the lobby...where after a few small bumps in the road, so to speak, we hopped in a cab and headed over to Fudan University.  As soon as we arrived I would say all of us were a little taken back by the peacefulness of the campus.  It really was an oasis away from the hustle and bustle of the crazy Shanghai city life, a lot of greenery, peaceful gardens, waterfalls and beautiful buildings (if you would like to see pics I will make sure to post some under the Photos page of the Blog).  Of course after numerous ohhhs & ahhhs followed by photo-ops, Aisha reminded us of the purpose of our journey, the job at hand...reporting!

She introduced us to some great students, full of knowledge and enthusiasm to share.  There were five different students in total, each one with a different perspective and story to tell, luckily each one of them was very eager to talk to me about my topic of the One-Child Policy or as they would refer to it as, the family planning policy.  Of course, I will not tell you what they had to say...you will have to tune into the final two hour program on WILL this summer...BUT I will say that each student was so willing to talk about where they came from, what they believed in and their future plans for their own families.  Some females students wished to have a lot of children, because they themselves were lonely as a kid, some others did not wish to have any kids at all once they married, and one particular student said she didn’t even want to get married for fear it would jeopardize everything she has worked so hard for in her educational career.  As for the male students, “more is better.”

After talking to the students Aisha took us to go get lunch on “pedestrian street” on campus, and it was very good except I am still not use to the food, especially seeing my food looking back at me (this place had a dead duck hanging in the window, head and all).

Food aside, I would say one of the highlights of the day for me was getting the chance to talk to elders of the Shanghai community at what they call a “care home”, and what we would call a nursing home.  Aisha was nice enough to go to this particular state run facility the day before to warn them of my arrival, and negotiate for my interviews.  Keeping in mind this home is run by the state, the employees she talked to were not to keen on me talking to any residents that didn’t like being there, so it was three women who did or zilch...I kindly said three please.  I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to talk with these three older women in their 80’s, all who loved living there but were placed there for very different reasons, with very different family situations.  I, again, don’t want to spoil anything for you, so instead I will tell you what the placed looked like...it felt a lot like what an old hospital would, very hard, cold and echoey, nothing like the more homey nursing home versions of America.  The beds are smaller than a twin, and only called a bed in the technical definition that someone actually sleeps on it...it is more of a foam pad on top of a wood box.  Three sleep to a very small room that ironically has a pretty large TV.  Either way, all judging aside, these women were all very lively, alert, friendly and very insightful.  (pictured below)

Overall I would say today was a good day in the water...lots of swimming!

*Please excuse any errors...like grammar or random rambling...it has been a long day and I am VERY tired!!*

The Inner Monologue of Ms Murray

Hello fellow bloggers, family, friends and UIUC web surfers!  It will comfort you all to know that all twelve of us have arrived safely here in Shanghai...and it only took a day and a half to do it.  Although I would prefer to never see O’Hare airport again, I must admit having to wait around dealing with delay after delay brought us all a little closer as a group...for some of us we have Lauren’s trivia game to thank for that.  Either way we are here and that’s all that matters.
After a late night turning in, all of us seemed fairly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for our 9AM breakfast roll call...speaking of which, our first meal was interesting to say the least, in fact this “Chinese Diet” may be the cause for the final loss of Liz’s freshman-fifty, but lets face it we aren’t here to eat...we are here to report.  Today we are heading off to meet some experts for our stories at 1PM and then returning to the hotel to meet some students who will help us translating and finding sources.  I am especially looking forward to this meet and greet with our very gracious volunteer students because I will finally get to meet Aisha, the Chinese student from Fudan (the university here in Shanghai) whom I have been in close contact with via email for the past few weeks.  Aisha is a masters student here studying Chinese Literature with the hopes to come to the states to study Journalism, she seems like a very intelligent, driven and enthusiastic person to be working with...I am lucky to have her by my side. 

Needless to say today is a building day and tomorrow is what I would like to call, “heres your good ole push into the deep end, now lets see if you can swim” kind of day.  More later…