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Society

Expats do their part in fostering blending with local communities

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2018-01-18 09:23shine.cn Editor: Huang Mingrui ECNS App Download
Expat residents learns how to make Chinese noodle at the Ronghua neighborhood in Changning District as various activities are staged to get expats involved in community life. (Ti Gong)

Expat residents learns how to make Chinese noodle at the Ronghua neighborhood in Changning District as various activities are staged to get expats involved in community life. (Ti Gong)

Whoever says expatriates in Shanghai don't integrate with locals hasn't met Frenchwoman Coralie Debras.

She has been a resident of Yanlord Garden housing estate in Pudong since 2004 and a member of the local neighborhood committee in the two years since a channel was opened for expat participation.

About 60 percent of the 1,944 households in the estate are people from offshore. Coralie knows many of them through her work in the community.

Shanghai is home to nearly 200,000 foreign workers and students, and city officials are constantly trying to come up with new ways to encourage them to integrate into local life and culture.

"Communication is very important," Coralie said. "My aim is to foster harmony among people in the community."

When foreign residents encounter problems, they often turn to her for help. She is a good listener. The problems range from broken playground equipment to noise from renovation work. Some expats who were frightened by air defense sirens marking National Defense Education Day called Coralie to get reassurance that all was well.

Oddly perhaps, it is often animals, not humans, at the heart of disputes.

When Coralie came to Shanghai 14 years ago, there were only two dogs in the estate. Now, there are more than 100, she said, and that can lead to quarrels.

"Dogs bite. They leave droppings everyone. They run around unleashed. They scare some residents," she said.

She suggested to the neighborhood committee that it stage regular pet festivals to get the message across in a friendly way that residents have to be responsible for the behavior of their pets.

Free "pooper scooper" bags have been distributed to pet owners, and bins have been set up where the bags can be dropped.

"It is not easy job to stand in the middle of neighborhood disputes," said Coralie. "I need to listen to both sides and try to make everyone happy. We live together; we can find solutions together."

It took time for Chinese residents to get to know her and accept her as part of the community. Language is always a stumbling block to closer ties between expats and local Chinese, she said.

Coralie, who has picked up Mandarin and even some Shanghai dialect in her work, has suggested to the neighborhood committee that some communities events and information brochures be multilingual.

"Our foreign committee members are very active in representing the voices of expats living in the complex," said Tang Jia, Party secretary of the neighborhood.

Tang listed a litany of concerns that have been or will be addressed, including an upgrade of old barbecue pits, better management of school buses, help with domestic helper services, improved security, neutering services for stray cats and a resolution to the noise and traffic problems caused by tour buses parking outside the community to board tourists for night cruises on the Huangpu River.

  

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