Ni Hao, everyone!
While I have been living in China for five months, my Fulbright research project has focused on one big thing: community. A community can be a group of people that just happen to live in the same neighborhood or small town. However, people sometimes use the word "community" to describe the feeling you get when you share your ideas, beliefs, goals or attitudes with a group of people around you. Right now, your classroom is a type of community!
In China, community is extremely important. In fact, many people that study China say that this culture traditionally makes their community more important than everything else, even their own individual selves. The only thing more important than community is family.
In Shenzhen and Guangzhou, I have been studying the ways that communities in China have had to change as newer technology has arrived and more people look for jobs in cities far away from the farms they grew up on. When people move far from their hometown, it is easy for them to feel lonely in a big city. New types of charities, sports groups and other associations try to make people feel more "at home" and part of a new community.
