Our service learning partner was Jisheng Yang. He is a former national basketball player. He used to live in Kunming when he played basketball and taught as a teacher. He has three children, two sons and a daughter who all live in Kunming. When my group and I interviewed Mr. Yang, we learned that his life when he was younger was very busy. He played basketball for the national team and after that he was also a PE teacher, a class teacher, a miner and a chemical engineer.

I learned that the older generation is more timid that the newer generation. I also learned that back in the older times, they found other ways to entertain themselves and they were a lot busier than we are in the newer generation. I did not really learn much about the 20th Century Chinese history because our service learning partner talked mostly about himself and his experience. When we asked how his life was around the time of the cultural revolution, he told us he was a miner. 

In my Day 26 Journal, I have written about his reaction to our final service learning presentation. 

A couple recommendations I would give other groups is find a service learning partner around day 12 or day 13 because even though that may seem like a lot of time with your service learning partner, it is better to get to know your service learning partner so they are more open to you. It is also a good idea to share a lot of information about yourself and share pictures because then they will be more open to sharing information and pictures. I would also suggest you introduce yourself the their family that is there because then you can make connections with their family as well and it is better to know as much as possible and have strong connections. To see the movie that my group and I produced of our service learning partner, here is the link to Rena's Service Learning page, where the service learning video is.