Wujiang in Shaoguan city is just a stone’s throw away from Hong Kong but living conditions there may be outside the average Hongkonger’s comfort zone.
Roads in the northern Guangdong village, if any, are muddy and potholed. Wild ducks can be seen swimming in the puddles. Pollution is so bad no one dares to drink, cook or bathe with tap water.
Trees are seldom green because they are blanketed in the dust blowing in from a nearby mine on most days. Not that colour matters when the sun sets and the village goes pitch dark - dodgy power grids mean you get electricity only if you’re lucky.
Having to leave my friends and family to go to a place which I had, in the past, only seen on television, I was a bit of afraid at the beginning, but then I got used to it
With her Marc Jacobs watch, Paul Frank jumper and brand-new MacBook Air in hand, student Joanne Wong Yi-sin does not, at first glance, look like your typical volunteer worker.
After reading one too many stories of China’s left-behind children – the millions of young left in rural areas by parents flocking to urban centres for work – Wong packed her bags after Form Seven and journeyed north to see how she could help. This was two years ago.
Wong, now 22, was one of the first batch of participants to sign up for the Home Affairs Bureau’s Service Corps programme launched in 2011. The project is meant to promote understanding of the motherland amongst Hong Kong youths, but critics have labelled it a “brainwashing tour” akin to national education.
Now, the bureau is calling for volunteers for its fourth phase, which may take place in eastern Guangdong’s Meizhou prefecture.
