From July 19 to 23, 2021, the city of Essen in Germany held an international youth meeting for its twin cities, themed “Media & Me – Life in the new normal”. It ran entirely on Zoom. Participants came from Essen’s twin cities: Grenoble, Sunderland, Tampere, Tel Aviv… Changzhou was one of them, and Jiangsu University of Technology sent three students: me from the School of Computer Engineering, Gao Yiwen from the Business School, and Li Chenglong from the School of Foreign Languages.
A day at the meeting
Mornings were workshops running in parallel, and you picked one:
- Media Literacy, “It’s Private!?” (privacy online);
- the creative space “Close(d)”;
- making music on your phone (Music with Smartphones, Wait for the Drop);
- Bodies and Diversities.
Afternoons were the “International Afternoon”: each city took turns introducing itself and running a game, like a quiz from Grenoble, or slime and stress-ball making from Sunderland. Thursday afternoon was Changzhou and Tampere’s turn. On Friday the mayor of Essen gave a speech and our photos were exhibited.
The game I designed: make a postcard
Changzhou’s game that afternoon was one I designed: make an e-postcard with Chinese elements in Canva.
I prepared a set of templates in advance: three of the Forbidden City in snow, the Great Wall, a city metro, and a night scene, each with its Canva link. Everyone picked a template and turned it into their own postcard in Canva.
What I wrote at the time: “During the event I made friends from other countries and shared Chinese culture with them.”
The photo exhibition and the music workshop
For the photo exhibition I submitted two photos, both of dishes I learned to cook from TikTok: blanched okra and sweet and sour ribs.
In the phone music workshop:
I made a little melody just by tapping around. I thought it was okay, but I told the teacher it wasn’t great and I was too shy to show it. He said it was really good, with a great sense of rhythm, haha.
Looking back
Years later: “That summer I also joined the Essen youth meeting and met some people my age. Those were good days.”