The warm scent of sandalwood and cloves filled the room at Dongming Community Center on March 10th. Narrow strings of smoke wafted towards the ceiling as people used incense sticks to burn through thin sheets of calligraphy paper. As the paper slowly disintegrated against the hot ash of the incense, the weight of their struggles and challenges vanished. At least that was the goal.
The event held on Sunday was the continuation of an ongoing project to use art as a way to decrease stress and foster intergenerational connection. On March 7th, NYU Shanghai Professors Yunzhen Yang and Yuanmo (Momo) Xie hosted a one hour workshop at the school's Qiantan campus. Students were encouraged to voice their worries, hopes, and dreams in a safe and creative way.
Danny Anurak, a Thai senior at NYU Shanghai, attended the March 7th event in hopes of gaining some clarity on his future. “In the four years I’ve been here, I’ve never attended a school event. But I’m sort of caught between a rock and a hard place and I just thought, fuck it, maybe putting this in someone else’s hands would be good for a change,” he said.
With graduation only two months away, Danny is in the process of deciding what he wants his future to look like. “Last year I had a sudden crisis about my future and I ended up switching my major. I was in a Global China Studies track and I was doing really well, but I convinced myself that wasn’t enough and transferred to finance,” he said. But with the graduation date looming, Danny was losing confidence in his choice, and hoped that the Dongming Community Center elders might have some guidance.
After the March 7th event, student’s responses were anonymously shared with older adults at the Dongming Community Center. The event consisted of about 25 adults from within the community who volunteered to give advice to the students.
Zhang Qian, 58, was one of the many adults participating in Sunday’s event. “Aged people are rich in life experiences, and young people in university have questions or worries about their future,” she said. “I think the event will bridge these two groups of people to exchange their thinking and hopefully help the young people.”
What participants in Sunday’s event did not know, is that the event would consist of another part. Before reading the confessions of students, the adults were asked to write down a worry of their own onto a piece of calligraphy paper. They were then given a stick of incense to burn through the paper, symbolizing putting an end to their current struggle.
Professor Yang, who has worked in the arts and culture sector in China for over 10 years, said, “We hope to use art as a reason for people to gather and open their hearts, and to create a safe space for people to support each other.” She noted that, through her work, she has found that supporting others begins with supporting oneself.
According to a 2020 Harvard Business Review article, “We can’t share with others a resource that we lack ourselves.” Sunday’s event intended to foster intergenerational support by first asking participants to reflect on their own worries.
Chenyu Chang, a 77 year old Shanghai resident who participated in the event said, “At first I thought the activity was silly. I went to help others deal with their worries, so why am I writing down my own?” Both of Chang’s children live in the US and only visit once every few years. Her only sense of community is at the Dongming Community Center.
“On the paper, I wrote that sometimes I feel lonely because I am here by myself, far from my family,” she said. “It was a little shameful to write that down on paper and I tried to make sure people next to me didn’t look, so it felt nice to burn it away with the fire.”
After the individual activity, Chang was given Danny’s concern. “The boy wanted to impress his parents and that made me sad. Parents support children no matter what,” she said. “I told the boy do what makes you happy because what makes you happy will make your parents happy.”
Professor Yang said , “In Shanghai, the aging population is getting more and more, but there are not a lot of services towards them.” A recent World Health Organization (WHO) report states that, as a result of the past one-child policy, “China has one of the fastest growing aging populations in the world.”
Professor Yang said, “They may feel abandoned because they retired, they have no job, or maybe their kids live in another city so maybe they have some ability to help young people to solve their life troubles.” She also added that Chinese society often puts pressure on the elderly community to provide guidance and support to the younger generation without making space for them to express their own needs for support. “That was the real aim of the event—not just to use art to support the youth, but to also support the elderly in the process.”
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