Model United Nations Trip to Shanghai

Last week Eric and I, along with four of our high school students traveled to Shanghai to attend the 4^th annual Concordia International School Shanghai Model United Nations Conference. The conference was two and a half days long and was attended by over 450 students from around Asia and beyond. We left school at the bright and early hour of 5am in order to get to the airport on time. We flew three hours directly to Shanghai and took a van to the conference site. Upon arrival at the conference we attended an opening ceremony where all of the 24 schools were individually welcomed and asked to stand. We were publicly acknowledged to be the smallest delegation, but delegates were warned not to take us lightly. This was followed by a speech by Concordia’s MUN director, on the “Peace Imperative,” the theme of the conference. He stressed to the students that their generation played a vital role in furthering peace in our world.

After the opening ceremony the real work began. The students broke into their individual committees and prepared to give their opening speeches. There were three General Assembly Committees represented at CISSMUN, and three specialized Councils- Economic and Social Council, International Court of Justice, and Security Council. Each of the three General Assemblies specialized in specific topics. One student represented Philippines on the GA 1^st Committee and her issues all had to deal with Disarmament and International Security. Two students represented Philippines and Czech Republic on the GA 3^rd Committee dealing with Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural issues. The final student represented Cuba on the GA 4^th Committee and worked on Special Political and Decolonization issues. Each delegate gave an opening speech following a general format and briefly outlining their country’s stance on an issue important to them. All of our students did a fabulous job.

After opening speeches the Lobbying and Merging portion began. Each of our students prepared two written resolutions from their country’s perspective and it was their task to find other countries that agreed with these stances. They then either merged resolutions or agreed on one and all signed on to it. The agreed upon resolution then had to be submitted to one of the committee Chairpersons and approved. Upon approval the resolution then moved to a Director Approval Board. If approved there, the resolution was ready to be presented on Friday. This process lasted until 6pm on Thursday. At 6pm the committees broke and we had dinner together in the CISS cafeteria. 

That night we braved the bitter cold (really, it was freezing!)and took our four students to the Bund on Shanghai’s riverfront. The Bund is a walkway on the waterfront that was originally a towpath for dragging barges of rice and eventually was transformed into a Wall St. type area. The other side of the river features the ultra-modern buildings and skyscrapers of Pudong (a newer area of the city) while the walking side is lined with huge colonial era buildings in the neoclassical style. It is a beautiful walk at night watching the ferries go up and down the river against a backdrop of city lights. When we could no longer handle the cold on the riverfront we headed away from the water up Nanjing Lu- a walking street with shopping and restaurants. Ironically, we ended up having dessert at Haagen Dazs ice cream. 

 



Pudong

 

Colonial era side

 Friday morning began with a little more time for countries to get their resolutions approved and then the presentation of resolutions began. Resolutions were presented by the main contributing countries and then the floor was open to debate and questions. There is a very specific process that must be followed for this to work properly and our students did a good job of knowing when and how to speak. This process took the entire day. We broke in the late afternoon and that night we took our students to the French Concession area of Shanghai. The French Concession was formerly a neighborhood made up of prostitutes, old time gangsters, and revolutionaries, but now is an area of narrow brick alleyways filled with cafes and shops. We had a great time walking through the lantern lit pathways and looking in on different shops. We had dinner at a tiny Thai restaurant that I think had more vertical square footage than horizontal. We passed by miniscule dining spaces on each floor as we climbed the narrow staircase up to the top floor. Each floor we passed had room for about two tables.  



The French Concession



 

On Saturday morning all of the committees continued with their resolutions. In the early afternoon the committees broke and everyone attended a closing ceremony. We were treated to a traditional dragon dance and all of the delegates were given time to walk around with their country placards and have their new friends sign them and say goodbye. We had dinner in the neighborhood at a real Mexican restaurant (this is RARE) before leaving for the airport that night. We made it back to school at about 2:30am pretty much exhausted.



In front of CISS's living wall

 Going into the trip I had some reservations about how the students would interact with each other and wondered if we would spend three days in silence. But, despite the fact that we were a very random group of six (one Chinese, one Korean, one Russian, one Taiwanese, and two Americans) Eric and I felt like the group meshed well and we spent much of our free time laughing and getting to know each other in a more personal way than one usually does in a school setting. The students had a good time and told us as much which made me feel like the trip was a success.