By Shen Chunchen
This “May Day” holiday is an extraordinary experience and a frequent topic for Dong Julan, director of the Linyun Neighborhood, Quyang Road Sub-district. She dressed pretty and attended in a feast full of family atmosphere on that day.
On May 3, Zhu Lilun, the Chairman of the Kuomintang, led a team to participate in the 10th Cross-Strait Economic, Trade and Cultural Forum, and many famous entrepreneurs and politicians attended this culture communication event. As the representative of “Youth & Grass-roots” from China’s mainland, Dong Julan attended the forum and made a presentation.
Presentation Stroke A Chord
In the presentation, Dong Julan said “If the cross-strait economic and trade is hand in hand, culture communication is heart to heart, then the communication in the basic level would be roots connecting with roots.…..” It is known that, this is the first time to hear the voice of the community in the Cross-Strait Economic, Trade and Cultural Forum since its opening 10 years before.
“Residents committee in Taiwan called “Li” which is different from us, but we have many similarities in work philosophies and methods, all aim to build a harmonious community environment.” several interactions gave Dong Julan personal experience and feelings. She raised her voice, shared experience and methods of “maintaining security order, serving the aged, governing community environment, promoting garbage classification and developing workers and staff members” in the forum.
When talking about the past March’s communication activity, Hongkou District developed an exchange activity of Li Chief of Taipei Acting as Chief of Neighborhood Committee of Shanghai for One Day, Dong Julan’s words and phrases has left a deep impression for the guest speakers who get use to the “Economic and Culture” forum. “Communication between two sides has already developed further and well”, they said.
Won the Chance of Speaking
It’s reported that this district has communicated and exchanged visits with Shilin District and Beitou District in Taipei city for many times since 2007, based on the platform of grassroots community. The chief and his delegations from Shilin District and Beitou District come and visit Hongkou District every year, and Hongkou District also has sent visit delegations to Taipei for many times. This mutual communication and exchange activities have been going on for 9 years, and more than 200 grassroots community workers have become good friends in this activity.
Especially in recent two years, their grassroots exchanges become more and more frequent, and cooperation become deeper and deeper. Last year, Dong Julan and other 9 chiefs of Quyang Sub-district’s neighborhood committees visited Shilin District of Taipei and participated in the exchange activity “Acting as Li Chief for One Day”. In March this year, Hongkou District developed an exchange activity of Li Chief of Taipei “Acting as Chief of Neighborhood Committee of Shanghai for One Day”. Dong Julan said, “This is just like visiting relatives. That day was Arbor Day, we planted osmanthus fragrans, the symbol of friendship, to expect that our friendship will last as long as the universe.”
Dong Julan also told, “I feel I’m getting a lot from these two years’ exchange and communication. About 15 days ago, I began to prepare for the speech, which takes more than a week and has been modified for 4-5 times. The limited time for each one’s speech is 10 minutes, but almost all the speakers cannot finish the speech on time.” She was afraid that free talk time would be shortened as the time out of speech. So she put up high her hands quickly as soon as the host stopped to talk and finally got the precious chance to speak. In another words, Dong Julan did “win” the chance for herself.