Nomad Project｜After studying abroad for a short period of time or living in a foreign country for more than ten years, can overseas Chinese have their own "local place"?

1. Introduce yourself

You can call me Zhan Feng. I am currently studying for a Master of Design for Change (MA Design for Change) at the University of Edinburgh in the UK. Four or five years ago, I started to pay attention to issues related to social innovation, community creation, social design , and sustainable development. Later, I gradually explored in depth, working in various fields such as charity foundations, large factories, consulting companies, and community design institutions. Organizational practical experience. These interests originate from a very instinctive starting point: I want everyone to be happier. I hope to create a more sustainable lifestyle for myself and then impact some communities/communities and even society.

As a member of Generation Z, I can strongly feel the impact of the times on my own and my colleagues’ concepts. People do not expect that the world will be better after 2050 or even 2030. They really live with the attitude of "we are the last generation." Although the world is very uncertain, people still have to live well and think about what they can do to make it more interesting.

I always feel like I'm going to be homeless. A "distributed" life may also be a very organic and supportive life. But I am still thinking about how to wander and what will happen after wandering. I especially like the sentence "traveling around the world and tending the land" , such a magical copywriting! Traveling around the world is not a matter of isolation. Mutual nourishment with various places and people is the meaning of traveling. Living a local life means understanding specific characters and stories, and knowing what I can do for this place and people, which is very important to me. I don’t have much financial ability now, so I still need to try how to make money.

Studying in a foreign country now is actually a kind of nomadic life. I have a preliminary understanding of what life will be like when the territory of exploration expands into an unfamiliar cultural environment. Moreover, studying abroad also provides convenient opportunities to travel to more places for nomadism. I hope to seize it and get a glimpse of possible lifestyles in the future.

2. Where do you want to go and why?

I want to continue walking more in Edinburgh, where I live now ; at the same time, I want to visit Europe, the United States, Japan and other places where Fujian people have lived for a long time from near to far.

There are two reasons:

1. In communicating with friends studying in the UK, there is an obvious common feeling, that is, it is difficult to make friends with locals and integrate into a local group (maybe this is only true in the UK)... I am participating in local social networks During the party, I found that there were very few students and other "temporary local residents" around. However, as a tourist city with large comprehensive colleges and universities, there should be a large number of short- and medium-term floating people who live here for 1 to 5 years. Therefore, I wanted to explore the possibility for short-term residents (represented by international students) to connect with the local area and gain a sense of belonging.

2. After I went abroad, I suddenly realized that I was a "Fujian native" . People on the Internet would be ridiculed as a person from that "global visa-free" place. Within one semester, three waves of relatives came to visit me. I was flattered... They were basically... Twenty years ago, people traveled across the ocean to work hard to make money through various legal and illegal methods. I started by washing dishes and working as a waiter, and now have my own real estate store; I started from not speaking any foreign language, and now I have my own family, children and social network. Some of their children were born and raised abroad, and some went abroad after growing up to a certain age in China. Now they basically live overseas. I really want to get to know them more deeply, and want to know about their overseas experiences, various life decisions, their expectations for their future lives, the relationship between the first and second generation immigrants, and what their respective life challenges are like. And nomadic people don’t have to worry about accommodation when looking for relatives and friends⋯⋯

Research value that comes to mind so far:

• Among the "nomads" or people who "run" in article podcasts that we often see, many already have a relatively high vision and culture, and have their own speaking platform and narrative power. But my relatives and fellow villagers are more of "ordinary people" , perhaps this is the majority, and their experiences and insights deserve to be seen and referenced by more people .

• Twenty years ago and twenty years ago , people’s motives for going abroad, their ranking of values, and their expectations for their future life were different and different, which can be contrasted . This helps both generations understand each other and inspire solutions to challenges at different stages of life.

• Underlying this project is an exploration of Chinese identity . After learning about the immigration history of my hometown, experiencing the COVID-19 epidemic, and having the experience of studying abroad, I realized that the China I was interested in behind the idea of ​​"wanting to do social design in China" was not necessarily geographically and politically bounded, but people-centered. , can mean the community, community and society composed of people who grew up under the influence of Chinese culture.

3. What are your specific nomadic plans? (Suggestions include itinerary, theme, budget, etc.)

• The first month (beginning of school)

  • Read books, watch movies, and look up information related to diaspora, community, and identity.

  • Edinburgh local workshop｜Budget: 3 sessions*10 materials=30 pounds

• Second month (Flexible Learning Week)

  • Visiting Fujian people in the UK or Ireland | Budget: 70 transportation + 5 days * 20 meals + 10 workshop materials = 180 pounds

• Third month (spring break)

  • Fujian people in Europe | Budget: 100 transportation + 10 days * 20 meals + 2 sessions * 20 workshop materials = 340 pounds

• The fourth month (renovation)

• Fifth month (summer vacation)

  • Fujian people in the United States or Japan｜Budget: Air tickets are so expensive and I’m too lazy to calculate them now

If you have free time, you would like to visit the interesting Consensus Community Transformation Town.

4. If possible, how would you like to interact with the local area?

• Walk and chat : Walk through the streets and alleys, observe and record; listen to the stories and opinions of Chinese and other local people.

• Help with work : Participate in the production and life of the Chinese, such as eating and traveling together, doing housework, helping restaurants as waiters, cashiers, delivering takeaways, and integrating into the local area through labor.

• Organize co-creation workshops : for the Chinese, explore how to establish & maintain connections with new and old relatives and friends, and the original area; for the more diverse people in the local community, explore attitudes towards floating people or new immigrants and how to enhance community integration.

• You can even do some design prototype testing : for example, setting up interactive exhibition content in a Chinese restaurant.

5. How do you plan to document the entire trip? (It is recommended to include form and narrative perspective)

The topics I am currently focusing on are diaspora and identity, community building, kinship and multiple relationships, so my subsequent writing will focus on these, thinking about how overseas Chinese coexist/integrate into the local area, how to keep in touch with their homeland and distant relatives and friends, and thinking about immigrants. What would an ideal support system/community look like?

Regarding the narrative perspective, I will adopt the concept of problem-solving reporting . When describing the multi-faceted current situation, I will provide a reference for individuals on how to build their lives in this era.

As for the form, the Character Story and Life Observation Project uses oral history and non-fiction writing to record the story . If there are suitable people, we can also record podcasts; creative activities such as workshops may be shared in the form of online exhibitions and information visualization .

In fact, I have been staying with relatives in Ireland for two weeks during the Christmas holiday. I followed my relatives to deliver food and felt their family and work rhythm. I lamented that delivering food was really more tiring than I imagined. I listened to many complaints about employees and customers and observed Irish society. I also learned a little about their difficult migration journey. Through this experience, I got a lot of family stories and gossip; I heard their concerns about whether to return to China (feeling out of touch, and they don’t know what they can do when they go back) and what they want to do for their hometown (such as jointly investing in a nursing home); I heard about my descendants There is something surprising and concerning about them. You can see the impact of family environment on them from these next generations; I learned that many people have smuggled overseas in the past two years... It is this experience that makes me want to It’s time to enter more of their lives and experience the world from their perspective. They are part of the place!

We sincerely invite everyone to recommend reading materials, places and people to visit🥹🙇‍♀️!