Now Online: the Beijinger November 2015 Issue!
While the giving season in Beijing is traditionally December, specifically the time around Christmas, the departure for home by so many members of the international community during that time has shifted charitable activities into November.
Most prominent among the annual events designed to generate support for worthy causes is Chi Fan For Charity, held each year on the first weekend of November. It’s a simple formula that has so far raised over RMB 3 million for various organizations. Choose a restaurant. Donate at the level indicated for the restaurant. Have a good time.
All the proceeds collected from participants’ fees goes directly to the year’s designated charity partners. This year, those partners are Bethel China and Educating Girls of Rural China (EGRC), both of which are featured in our cover story about Beijing-born organizations dedicated to doing good works in and around China.
Our cover model this month, Tien Ching, founder of EGRC, was born and raised a Beijinger until the Cultural Revolution sent her and her mother, a doctor, to rural Gansu province, where she saw first-hand the lack of opportunities for women, and the need for education.
Read more about EGRC and Bethel China inside. We also look at homegrown fundraising effort Maovember, which generated over RMB 100,000 for life-changing cataract surgery for men, also in rural China; and we offer a few options for people looking to volunteer their skills or time right here in Beijing.
In this issue, we also sat down with our old friend, William “Wild Wall” Lindesay, a man who has dedicated his life to researching and preserving the Great Wall. With the publication this month of his new book, The Great Wall in 50 Objects, Lindesay finds yet another way to tell the history of the Wall, and show us again that we don’t know as much about our nearby Wonder of the World as we think we do.
Also inside, Kipp Whittaker sits down with another old friend, DJ Zhang Youdai, once China’s first rock n’ roll radio rebel, who has since moved on to DJing (the kind done in a club, not a broadcasting booth), with a whole lot of other musical knowledge gathered and shared in between. Margaux Schreurs interviews director Fan Popo about the lawsuit over his documentary, Mama Rainbow.
We hope that you enjoy the November issue of the Beijinger. Hard copies will be distributed across the capital later this week.
More stories by this author here.
Email: stevenschwankert@thebeijinger.com
Twitter: @greatwriteshark
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Images: the Beijinger
