Shanghai, China – 16July, 2014 –When 13-year-old Yunxiang Jia saw her superstar Bingbing Fan stands there in Madame Tussauds Shanghai, she screamed and laughed in her heart at the loudest voice. Though rationally she knew it was just a wax figure, the young girl smiled and waved her hand as hard as she can at the image because it looks so real. "It is amazing! Sometimes I can't even tell whether the person stands around me is a human or a wax," Jia said.
It is one of the most exciting moments Jia had during her five-day travel in Shanghai. For the first time, she and her 39 friends came from remote areas of China to Shanghai and visited famous local universities, museums, aquariums and other places of interests in a trip organized byMicroPort from July 8 to July 13. They are primary students of two MicroPort Hope Schools in Chishui of Guizhou Province and Wulian of Shandong Province, which the company built to provide educational opportunities for children in improvised places and have been put into use in 2013 and 2010 respectively.
"The trip brings me so much surprise and fun," Jia said. "Even now, two days after I'm back at home, I often woke up in the midnight to relive the happy memories lingering in my head."
During their stay, the 40 students, aged between seven and 13, enjoyed music with iPod in Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Apple Campus Experience Centre, toured in the reading room of University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, took photos with celebrities' wax figures in Madame Tussauds Shanghai, watched sea lions' show in Changfeng Ocean World, experienced high technologies in Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, took bird-eye view of the city in the top of Oriental Pearl Tower and appreciated the night scene of Shanghai in the Bund.
"These children are full of curiosity,"said photographer Li Zhang who followed them during the whole journey. A case in point, Zhang added, is in the Science and Technology Museum. When he mentioned there is a static ball which would make one's hair stand once you put your hand on it, the young ones immediately dragged him to see it. "They were thrilled and played with it over and over again," Zhang said. "I think they would have learnt a lot from this trip."
"We hope that these activities would enlarge their horizons and let them see a different world," said Ling Yu, head of MicroPort Marketing Support Center which spent four months to organize the trip, including initiating donations to cover expenses, arranging tour schedules and accommodations as well as making souvenir postcards.
But for the Hope School students, most of whomare living without parents' care and love, thisjourney not just opened their eyes but would mature their hearts as well, according to Yunxian Dai, a teacher from Chishui Hope School who companied the children along the way.
"About two thirds of the students' parents are migrant workers who live and work in another city for most of the year. As they lack of parents' accompany, training and guidance, some children are unsociable, disobedient or have no goals in life," Dai said.
"But during this trip, I'm surprised to find some of them are growing a stronger sense of responsibility – the older ones learnt to take care of the younger ones. One 12-year-old boy even told me that his life is changed after he saw the outside world.I can see he was inspired to think about his life plan, very seriously - he said he would draft a list of target middle schools."
More importantly, these children learnt to love back from MicroPort's charity event, Dai said.
"In Madame Tussauds, we only saw celebrities. But I want to put wax figures of the MicroPort employees there because they have loving hearts," Jia said. "They gave us selfless care. They spare their leisure time to serve us. I'm very grateful."