SocEnt

China was supposed to be a land of passage. It ended up being the final destination of our trip. We were supposed to spend two-three weeks three. We ended up spending one full month. We had planned to go to Beijing, Shanghai and then all the way to Lhasa. We ended up visiting Beijing and Shanghai as well as very rural areas in Hunan province, multicultural Gansu province, historical Xi’an in Shanxi province, and enchanting Jiangsu province.
If you have followed us so far, you will have expected this post with an attempt of a summary of our Chinese experience in seven questions as we did for Russia and Mongolia. So here we go:

Light bulb - what we have learnt
Ale: China is much more (and much more diverse) than any Chinatown in Europe. And Chinese people do actually eat dogs!
Fra: I learnt a lot. My understanding of the world is wider now, from so many points of view - geographical, photographic, cultural, etc.

Heart - what we have loved
Ale: on the very last day of our journey, our Couchsurfing hosts gave us a mini Chinese language class - that was lovely and so much eye-opening! And I loved walking the inner and then the outer kora around the Labrang monastery. 
Fra: warm water. And feeling welcomed when people offered it to us, or when we found it at the railway station. It’s a simple thing that makes one feel at home. 

Smile - what made us laugh
Ale: at Beijing station, after going through the security controls, Fra was stopped by a police officer for carrying a portable knife in his backpack. We were starting to explain that we carried it for preparing our food, when another police officer offered to us: “Oh but you use it for shaving, right?”...
Fra: ...Of course, I do - it’s exactly for shaving! [last time I shaved was possibly three years ago - check my picture below!]

Pointing finger - what we take away
Ale: the energy of the people - to set up the most exciting new technology-based innovation in Shanghai, to carry on when life is hard, to look after you when you make them the gift of your visit...
Fra: a deeper and more nuanced understanding of ‘communism’ and its various ways of implementation.

Shaking hands - what connections we have made
Ale: a third of the world’s population live in China, right? Well, no doubt, it was the place where we met the largest number of people. They ranged from our hosts on Couchsurfing to social entrepreneurs and innovators like the founders of Rainbow of Hope, Green Initiatives, Feiy, Impact Hub Shanghai, POSUL (in Chinese), to the inspiring members of the Fresh Start Rotary Club, to the full-of-energy youth from Serve for China, to a philosopher of herbal food, a very hospitable and knowledgeable eco-lodge owner. As well as travellers on long, slow trains. Bakers and restaurant owners in Tibet.
Fra: and besides all of these lovely people, a very special person - a young Chinese man who learnt Italian by listening to the Zecchino d’Oro!

Rooted foot - what we had known already and was important to remember
Ale: China is a continent. We heard young volunteers working on rural development projects saying: “We came here, to this new province, and we didn't know the language, the customs, etc. We had to adapt”. It was great, in our travelling, to get the chance to experience China’s largeness, diversity and very long history.
Fra: Asia is the Far East, it's exotic and its extreme - in its distance from our home, in its richness and its vastity. 

Bin - what we’d kick away (didn’t like that much…) 
Ale: the smell of cigarette everywhere all the time - on the trains, on the buses, at the restaurant. Non-stop. It is not only unpleasant for non-smokers like me but also a reason for concern! Smoking cigarettes is really not good :-)
Fra: struggling to use the internet as normal. When we arrived and could not access my Gmail, we were advised to open a new email account. Really?! Luckily,we soon signed up on WeChat!

Does anything resonate with you? Whether you have travelled to China or to somewhere else, whether you had similar or completely different experiences, feel free to use the comment box below or email us :)

Can you think of a better way to end your trip and exploration than giving a talk about your experience and learnings? We couldn't. When we realised that we could have this opportunity, we got super-excited, shafted plans around and got all sorted for our speech at the Fresh Start Rotary Club.

We will not repeat here what we said last Friday. There will be other opportunities for this:

• Specific blog posts on social impact per country (coming up in January, so watch this space!);
• A photo gallery of the social entrepreneurs and innovators we have met;
• The documentary we are working on; and 
• (we hope!) Other speeches!
   

But we thought we should share some of the questions we were asked at the end and our answers:
 

1. How have you found and selected the social enterprises and initiatives you visited during your journey?
   
   First, research on the internet during the months before the trip. Then word of mouth, both at a distance and in country - for example through the Impact Hub network. Two directories were also very helpful - one in Russia and one in China. And this website is full of inspiring social enterprises too!
   
    
2. What are the main causes social entrepreneurs are trying to tackle? Did you see any pattern?
   
   Our exploration focussed on three main areas: radical food, urban innovation and sport for transport. So most of the initiatives we visited work in these sectors. However, these are mainly our own interest areas, not really patterns that we could identify. Among these three sectors, it is true that we have seen more initiatives around food than on the other topics.
   
    
3. Did you ever felt that some causes are more important than others? Or that people are doing what they do because of their own interest and not for the cause?
   
   No, it's all about their passion. The people we met do what they do because they believe it is important. In some (perhaps most) cases, they are still ‘struggling’ in making their initiatives financially viable. Of course, social entrepreneurs want to make a living out of their businesses. But profit was not the motivating factor among those we interviewed. Plus, except the SocEnt we interviewed in Germany and the U.K., they receive no recognition from the government, so no tax release for example.
   
    
4. You mentioned the story of a social enterprise that was shut by government’s decision in Russia. This could happen in China too. What should be done in contexts where governments are not always supportive? What should the role of the Government be?
   
   This is a tricky question. We would go with a politically correct answer ;-)
   The legal and political environment is obviously an important influencing factor for any type of business to succeed. When the government supports social entrepreneurship, financial viability can be reached earlier and in an easier way. However, the social innovators we saw social innovators that did not give up in spite of their struggle. The ones behind the story you refer to opened a new social enterprise after their first one got shut down. Determination is crucial to make the world a better place and… lead by example!
   
    
5. In some cases, social enterprises now play the role that used to belong to religious organisations. Do you agree? Have you witnessed any of this?
   
   We have not… but this is an interesting question! In fact, we found it hard to speak about religion most of the time as if people were in denial of such a thing as ‘religion’. We think this is due to the recent history of the countries we have visited and the communist approach to religion. Instead, we were under the impression that social enterprises are coming in to fill gaps left by the state in countries where the state used to provide to society more than what it is now.
   
    
6. What was the most unexpected thing during your journey?
   
   Packing ‘eco-rice’ until late at night to help our hosts in the middle of the most rural China!
   Afterthought (not shared at the event but worth mentioning here): doing an interview via WeChat using the ‘translate’ function. That was brilliant!
   
    
7. What is coming next?
   
   Three main plans:
   • Sharing our learning more and more widely!
   • Keeping in touch with all the social entrepreneurs and social innovators we met, and providing services to them. We are developing a series of webinars with one of them, working on the visual identity of a couple of others. We are post-producing photos that we took to help their marketing activities, etc.
   • Developing our own products to tackle issues that we think should be solved. We have an idea related to eco-friendly transportation - as travellers, it’s pretty much obvious! And we are working on a website hosting service powered by green energy. We have introduced this in Italy a few months ago and are planning to scale it up!

We’ll be in Myanmar next year… and very keen to see what will happen there!

Were you at the Fresh Start Rotary on 1st December? Is there anything we have forgotten? 
Were you not there? Does anything of the above resonate with your experience of social entrepreneurship?
Please use the comments below!

Have you ever dreamt of living like a turtle? We have! Try to imagine it - no need to hunt for a flat, your house is already on your back. No need to pack your stuff when moving out, your stuff moves with you. No need to rent your place when being away for a long time or for good, your place comes with you. Wouldn't it great?! You don't need to be a nomad to agree. It's enough to have experienced home-hunting when you went to study in a new town. Or you relocated to follow family, a new job or your inspiration :-)

Well, a solution to live like a turtle while remaining human exists. It's called ‘tiny house’.

Tiny houses are small (usually the surface of a car park), mobile houses that one can make and move from one place to the next. They can contribute to solving the housing problem in cities by:

• Fighting over-crowding and extreme density - because they are tiny and compact.
• Reducing costs for hiring and, most exciting, building your own house! - because they are tiny and comparatively cheap.
• Saving space and reducing over-consumption & clutter - because they are tiny and challenge their inhabitants to have comfort with less.
• Making if fun - because the idea is that the owners build them, make them their own. Plus, born out of 1 same concept, they can be tailored to the owner’s tastes, needs and creativity. A great example of design, isn't it?

Tiny houses are the first urban innovation we came across in our travelling project. We were in Berlin, heading to the Bauhaus Archiv and we literally bumped into an open-air exhibition of lovely little houses fitted on wheels, just on the museum’s surrounding space. We then learnt that the exhibition has been on since March 2017 and will last for one year. We learnt that it is not only an exhibition but actually a learning space - the Tiny House University. Designers, architects, urban activists, innovators and other (ad)venturers from Germany and from abroad are studying, building and researching new and more equitable forms of interaction.

Tiny houses there are hosting social enterprises, testing a new cryptocurrency, practising food-sharing. They are providing co-working opportunities (and housing, of course!) to refugees. They are merging know-how and ideas of different nationalities. For aVOID tiny house, for example, Leonardo mixed and matched Italian design and German technology. 

Like ABCity.org, Tiny House U students are idea(l)s-driven and solution-focused. And do this by crossing borders - of disciplines, of status, of countries, of cultures. We were glad to spend some time with them!
We didn't have a chance to sleep in a tiny house, but this is only postponed… until we get our own :-)

Inspired by the tiny houses like us? Not convinced by their potential for a solution? Or simply having found another way to live like a turtle?
Please leave a comment in the space below!