Volunteering in China
 

I have a 2 month window opening up and I've always wanted to go volunteer at orphanages in China. I'm overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information when I search on this topic online, does anyone have any personal contacts or experiences that may lead to worthy organizations to spend my time with? I plan to be covering all of my own expenses.

Please PM me for personal contacts or post in this thread for links and resources. Thanks in advance.

my experience, don't volunteer in China. You hard work and good heart will be taken advantage of by some lowlife high rank scumbag in such organizations. Reality sucks but that's how things are in China

I agree with J generally, and it's a good idea that you're doing research beforehand. You WILL get scammed if you're not EXTREMELY cautious.

With that, sorry I can't help. Maybe try a larger resource like reddit or a big expat site.

Why not volunteer locally?

if your chinese u can ask if tze-chi

its a Buddhist temple but they do a lot of charity work, not sure if they will be going to china again (they have a vancouver division as well)

but i do agree with J as i live & work in china now, its hard as they try to take advantage of u especially when your a foreigner

just don't claim to be a ghostbuster

even monks are corrupt now. Ever see a monk drive a brand new 600k RMB E-class? I have. My friend who's a reseller of luxury items ie.Hermes, LV, Gucci, etc etc. says one of his clients is a monk and spent over 2 million RMB in the last 2 years on hand bags... Monks buying handbags, not for himself obviously but for a lady mistress :yuno:

that taiwanese female buddhist group that ae101 (tzu chi) mentioned is quite famed for being honest and actually trying to help people though i wouldn't know for sure but it seems like a good place to start

Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation

I did some volunteering in Yunnan and it was an amazing experience. Don't be jaded by the comments in this thread, just do your research and check out some Chinese expat forums to get a better idea of where to go/what to do.

u wanna come to guangzhou, we just had a typhoon & there a flood it lots of place in the guang dong problem

quite a lot of ppl need help here

also tzu chi is a big organization, they do a lot of charity for & to the point where most ppl (or Buddhist) classified them as a charity organization then a religious one

if you know any friends who are church goers as well you can see if their church is doing any missionary trips there. i've known friends that went on missionary trips and it ranges on what's required. 1 friend went to africa this summer and i think spent his time teaching kids how to read and stuff. another went to guatamala and did labourer work like digging ditches, moving rocks, helping build a house...

I've got some Chinese friends who tell me the propensity to screw you over is a direct result of the Cultural Revolution, when everyone snitched on everyone else for "counter-revoltionary" activities. The end result is that mistrust is high among Chinese people. (It's also responsible, I'm told, for the chase of the almighty Remnimbi, but that's for another thread)

How true is this?

I'd say that's somewhat accurate for some of the older people but maybe not so much for the newer generation. Also there were many chinese at the time of the communist revolution that did not support the commies.

I disagree with this. It's still very present if not more in the younger generation, they are just more clever about doing it. Unless you are an expat or foreign-raised Chinese, younger generations growing up in China will be surrounding by such ideas and environments making it a way of life for them. With more competition, higher education, and social/materialistic pressures nowadays, the whole country is run on mistrust. On the surface, you'll see an image of change as a westerner for "face", but if you are Chinese and people dealing with you can't tell that you are a foreigner, it's worse than ever. It's so sad to see but this is how China is and it'll be a long time before it ever changes. There is just too many people developing too fast to worry about morals and what others think in a society that's pretty much a free for all driven by greed and money with poverty nipping at your rear end.

:( thats sad to hear. I am chinese but I'm not from the mainland. Didn't know it was still that bad

Woman who gouged eyes of Chinese boy sought - World - CBC News

:badpokerface: