At a normal university where we delivered scholarships to poor students, the university leaders treated us with a fancy vegetarianbanquet—we informed them beforehand that some of us are vegetarians and we wanted a simple vegetarian meal instead of any banquet. After thanking the hospitality of the hosts, we tried to tell them we did not like to be treated this way and they should use their money ina more meaningful way. It was a difficult balancing act: we want to push them as hard as we can without souring the relationship.

The sign reads:”This conference room has been disinfected.” A leftover from the SARS epidemic several months before.

These college kids just received scholarship money. A senior volunteer was talking to them.

The home of Ms. Ban Li, showing a leaking heating system anddamaged floor. Ms. Ban is an official of women’s federation of Shaanxi province (陕西省妇联 ). She is one of the most impressive people I met, please see more of her story in next page.

In 2001, due to her work in organizing “Shaanxi Volunteer MothersAssociation for Environmental Protection”, Ms. Ban and another women official won Earth Award from Friends of Earth Hong Kong Chaptor. They donated the entire $20,000 prize money to print and distribute a book on biogas chamber(沼气池技术 )—a technology desperately needed in many rural areas. After seeing many not so positive things with government officials, all these sounded almost too good to be true. So I made the blunt and rather impolite request to see her home. When we walked in the apartment building, she first checked with the doorman to get her subscripted magazines—5 or 6 kinds, mostly on women’s issue and rural development. Her apartment is full of books and magazines, with very moderate decoration one normally sees in early 90s. Regarding the leaking water system and damaged floor, she said, “It got broken soon after we moved in 8 years ago. I haven’t find time to fix it yet.”All my doubts evaporated. Instead, I see real hope in people like her.Right now, Ms. Ban is also in charge of Red Phoenix Project (红凤计划 , www.hongfeng.org.cn), a program help poor young women to go through college education.

Skyscrapers in Shanghai. Big cities like Beijing and Shanghai areworld-class metropolitans now. While someone might be proud ofthem, I am deeply disturbed by the polarization I see.