Written by Nina, Mukaddas, Yuchen and Emma (“Frogs in the wonderland”)

Blog #1 - how we got to VCRS (our stories)

Nina, Poland:
Hi, I am Nina and my story with VCRS is nothing special but still, I believe it is cool to share.
I didn't really want to participate in anything like that – mostly because the application was during December and I wanted to chill out during Christmas Break. But let’s start from the beginning…
I have a friend, who was there a year ago. She is super smart as well as intelligent and I know I can rely on her, however when she offered me to apply for CRS I hadn’t been convinced so I talked to my parents and they said that it seems to be a great project and that I should at least try. And I tried. I wrote an essay about youth’s movements and actually I really enjoyed writing it because it was related to my hobby, which is activism. It took me a few days to complete my application and then I finally clicked “submit”. I remember I had to wait some time as I received an answer in January 2022 (while I was in quarantine with covid; I did not suffer a lot because I had already been vaccinated but still it was hard). My first reaction was screaming to my mother “Mom, we are going to Cracov”, because that’s the city that I had to get to for the interview.
Interview
Interview was honestly a lot of fun
Here are the reasons:
1. Cracov (Kraków) is a city located quite far away from mine therefore I had a trip for an entire weekend! I had the interview on some Saturday in February and we arrived to this city on Friday and stayed until Sunday so three days of eating cool food in the hotel and restaurants <3.

2. I felt very confident during the recruitment because I got to speak and explain everything the way I wanted so it was even better than a written form for me.

3. I met amazing people (the group that also qualified for the interviews) and I am still in touch with some of them.

Anyways that is all about the interview. The next day I got a call that I was invited to the VCRS which excited me a lot though I have to admit I felt a bit disappointed because I wanted to go to the USA too. But, now,
I have no regrets. And I am extremely grateful to have a friend who introduced me to the CRS.

Mukaddas, Tajikistan:
I found out about CRS in December: the New Year was coming and I was full of excitement about the holidays. Once I first heard about it, the remindings started to come regularly. That only added up to my annoyance, as I had a tough term, and just wanted to relax during the holidays - surely not apply for some programs again.
A month passed. On January 22 I was lying and browsing through the Net, and had nothing to do. That’s when my best friend texted me, saying she had applied to the Camp:”You in?” Of course I was in - a month of doing nothing changed my attitude 180 degrees. I got a recommendation letter the next day, but then was distracted. So, next time I remembered I had 3-4 essays to write, it was the middle of the night, I didn't have any ideas, and the deadline was in 4 hours.
No need to say how surprised I was, when an email from VCRS came beholding congratulations on my selection. However, the last tour (interview) was yet to come, which wasn’t that bad in the end. Finally, I got here, and after a few days into the camp I can only regret I haven’t heard about it when I was 15!

drawings made by Mukaddas as illustration to her writing

Emma, Korea:
It was a few days after I was informed that I had been accepted as a student at my high school. I received a call from my school that they were giving the opportunity to participate in a camp to a few students based on the report cards we had been required to submit when we were registering. The fact that I was given a special opportunity really excited me, though because I was already too busy studying and getting ready for my first semester in highschool, which is very important for Korean students, I didn’t really consider participating in it. However, when the senior students from last year’s VCRS  gave a presentation about the VCRS they really changed my mind. They shared how exciting and fun it was to meet various friends from a LOT of different countries and how they learned a lot of meaningful things throughout the whole program. I decided to try out for the program and after two interviews, one with the school english teachers and some professors and the other final interview with the same teachers/professors and 7 people who had actually attended the CRS camp from 4to even 15 years ago, I was thankfully chosen as one of the two students for the camp. And that’s how I got to participate in the Virtual Camp Rising Sun program.

Yuchen, China:

My process of getting to VCRS was relatively simple and propitious,I think.At the end of last semester, my school teacher told me that I had the opportunity to apply for the Camp Raising Sun program,which only had two places in my city.I knew a lot about the summer program on the CRS official website, such as the introduction of the CRS, previous activities and the feelings of campers after participating.I found it was a good chance to improve my English ability and increase my knowledge.However, due to the epidemic situation, I was unable to participate in offline CRS in the United States.With the help of the school and teachers, I applied for Virtual CRS and filled in some forms about myself.And in March,I receive the email that told me accepted to VCRS for 2022 season.I was really cheerful to join the CRS community and study with teenagers from different countries!

Blog #2 - what kind of books do people from VCRS read?

Hey, today’s blog is kind of simple as we decided to ask you - the campers about your favorite books as well as the authors.

Our first “speaker” was Spyros, from Greece. His favorite romance author is Colleen Hoover. He has already read 7 books written by her and for now his favorite  is “Variety”. The reason why he loves her books is that the vocabulary is easy and nice and  these books are simple to read therefore he reads them quickly. What’s more Colleens’ books are well-balanced - the romance is not too intense in most of them and they send a message. When it comes to horror, Stephen King is his definite favorite writer.
Spyros also told us that his favorite Greek author is Lena Manta :).

The second person that decided to share was Panos, who is also from Greece and he told us that his favorite book is “The Rest Of The Robots” by Issac Asimov.

The third person that was willing to answer our question was Sebastian, who lives in Germany. He said that his favorite books are “The Thrawn Trilogy'' from Timothy Zahn, which are Star Wars books as autobiographies of a fictional character.

And, when it comes to us:
Nina’s favorite author is Cassandra Clare who wrote “The Shadowhunters Chronicles” and she is not able to pick her favorite book though she loves “Hamlet”, “Catcher in the Rye”, “Looking for Alaska”, “Spin the Dawn” and “Pride and Prejudice” (yes, she is aware these books are completely different but she still loves them all).
Emma’s favorite book is “If we can't go at the speed of light” by Choyeop Kim. It is a collection of short science fiction stories. It was more realistic and interesting because the writer was actually an expert in science and she used her knowledge in setting the backgrounds of the stories. Reading it, it felt like those kinds of situations and stories might actually happen in the future pretty soon!
As for Mukaddas, she can't really pick a single book and call it favorite, although she enjoyed reading "The Crime and Punishment", "Martin Iden", and "Great Expectations". Talking about her favorite author, she's torn between Fedor Dostoevski and Agatha Christie. On one hand, the way Dostoevski can narrate about the characters' feelings, the way he dives so deep in their emotions is fascinating. On the other hand, though, Agatha Christie is undoubtedly the queen of the detective genre. Moreover, as she worked in a pharmacy, her descriptions of poisoning consequences are really detailed, and it just makes her stories more real. It's hard to choose for Mukaddas, but she'll probably settle on Fedor Dostoevski this time :)
And Yuchen said that their favorite book is 'Red Star Over China',once renamed 'Journey To The West'.It's a documentary work written by American journalist Edgar Snow.The book describes what Edgar Snow saw, heard and felt in the Northwest Revolutionary Base of China from June to October,1936.Through interviews, dialogues and on-the-spot investigations, the author reported the situation of China and the Chinese Red Army, as well as many Red Army leaders.

Blog #3 - why should we avoid buying from Shein?

Shein is a Chinese online fast fashion retailer. It sells a lot of things: clothes, shoes, accessories, school supplies and many more. It’s already kind of weird for a brand to be selling that many various different products, isn’t it? Now, the best part - everything is extremely cheap. It all sounds amazing, especially for us - teenagers, as we are often out of money and in need of new clothing. In the social media era that we happened to live in, Shein became a famous company so there’s no surprise that many of us got fooled.
In this short blog I would like to show you why Shein is not the best option.

Even though Shein is promoted by well-known people like influencers and bloggers, we shouldn't forget that there’s also a group of people that have always been against this brand. When it comes to me I’m going to be honest - I had been buying clothes from shein before I realized (a year ago) that I can live without another crop top and give Shein up. Here’s why I stopped:

1. Things from Shein are extremely harmful for the Earth.
   Yes, clothes from Shein are cheap. And being cheap also means that a lot of them are made from materials like polyester, which do not decay. What’s worth mentioning is also that Shein changes the styles very frequently - every day there are new models of specific things, new clothing lines etc.
   The company also revealed that it drops around 700-1000 new styles daily, which is causing a lot of harm because it really is a huge amount of new pieces.
   Look, if they drop 700 a day, then they drop 4900 new styles weekly and around 21000 monthly. That would give us 255,500 new styles per year (and I only focused on the smallest number, being 700).

2. The horrible treatment of employees.
   Apparently Shein employees work 12-to-14-hour days and often for 28 days per month under incredibly unsafe conditions, such as windowless rooms with no fire exits. Moreover, Shein as a company has been accused of child labor multiple times.

3. Lack of sustainability.
   As I have already mentioned, Shein uses a lot of “bad” materials(nylon, polyester etc.) and produces a lot of products. However that is not all because Shein is also using a lot of plastic bags for its products. While other clothing brands like for example H&M have already stopped sending their products in the plastic packaging (they’re using paper bags instead), Shein continues to use a lot of it and still has not shown any intention to stop.

These are just a few reasons to stop buying from Shein. I know it can be hard because their items are actually very pretty however it’s good to sometimes ask ourselves a question “Is this t-shirt worth it? Like, is it worth the child’s suffering in a fabric? Is it worth harming the Earth?”.

Obviously, other brands are considered fast fashion too. But the point is that we can pick “the best from the worst”. There’s no doubt that every clothing brand has been/is harmful in some specific ways though Shein seems to be a cumulation of it all therefore I believe that it is better to buy at other stores.
I am not saying that people that buy from Shein are bad - I have done that too. But I truly believe that we can fight for a better environment and give up this one little thing, being Sheins’ items.
- Nina

Blog#4 - Quantum computers

Imagine a coin lying on a table. It’s obvious if it’s turned by heads or tails to you at the moment, as the coin is static. Now let’s get the coin and flip it, so it’s now spinning in the air, and, consequently, you can’t actually tell what it’s showing.

You can think of usual and quantum computer’s bits as lying and spinning coins. Classical computers carry out logical operations using the definite position of a physical state. These are usually binary, meaning its operations are based on one of two positions. A single state - such as on or off, up or down, 1 or 0 - is called a bit.

But this logic doesn’t apply to quantum bits, which are used for operations in quantum computing. Qubit is a bit made out of a system, like an electron or photon, put into a quantum state.

Qubit can be represented by what looks like a lollipop moving around inside a sphere, its stick anchored in the center (picture to the left).

This results in one of the strengths of qubits: they do not have to be the all-or-nothing 1 or 0 of binary bits but can contain combinations of those values (70% for 1 and 30% for 0, for example). This quality of “superposition” allows each qubit to perform more than one calculation at a time, speeding up computation in a manner that seems almost miraculous. Although the final readout from a qubit is a 1 or 0, the existence of all of those intermediary steps means it can be difficult for a classical computer to do the same calculation.

Thus it’d be completely wrong to call quantum computers enhanced versions of those in our houses, the differences are fundamental. The comparison would be similar to comparing a candle and a light bolt.

The potentials of this new technology are mind-blowing, it can be applied to Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, Computational Chemistry, Drug Development, Financial Modeling, improve our Cybersecurity and Cryptography, and even help in Weather Forecasting. Simply saying, quantum computers will change our lives significantly. Besides, it can be in use for hacking your banking accounts, as it allows for breaking RSA encryption many banks use. However there’s nothing to fear and anticipate yet - although the advancements are happening quickly, we are years away from the devices capable of those things.

 IBM's current largest quantum computer, revealed this month, contains 65 qubits, nonetheless a 1000-qubit computer is promised to be invented by 2023 [3]. Furthermore, a launch of a quantum computer with a 4,000 qubit processor is planned for the year 2025 - by the same IBM company, as a matter of fact.

-Mukkadas

Blog #5 - something about the intensive “What is feminist about women’s health?”
As we talk about human rights we often get to the feminism movement’s topic. Usually what we mean by that is women in politics, the way the society treats their rights, eventually how equality works at different jobs. To sum up - we focus on the political, social as well as economical aspect of women’s rights, forgetting the medical one. During the intensive we divided into the science world to take a look how sex defines our place for example in medical research or drug testing.

A few things that we discussed were:

●      the difference between the two terms: “sex” and “gender”

●      the way that researchers treat “sex” when it comes to different scientific data

●      sex as a factor in drug testing

●      gender roles and their consequences

●      how the exclusion of women in drug testing etc affects their health

I’ve learnt quite a lot of things during these 6 hours and I was honestly shocked when I found out that in many cases women are excluded from drug testing and then, once the drug is ready, they get much more side effects than men. Because the testing is basically based on the results that men got, it’s pretty obvious that the medication will react differently with women. That is actually very sad as we should all have the same access to medical treatment. We should all have an equal right to cute ourselves therefore the drugs should be either suitable for everybody or made in different versions to fit every person. There’s honestly no other way. 

Another thing that I would also like to bring up is the gender roles. Gender roles is basically the way we are supposed to live based just on our sex. It’s how we “should'' dress and behave in certain situations. It’s who we “ought to be” once we grow up, it’s what we “should” like. For example: women are supposed to take care of the house and have children while men are supposed to work for their families. That’s a gender role. What else? A very basic one - girls should like pink, wear dresses and play with dolls while boys should be all about LEGO bricks or playing football. I think you’ve got the idea now. I personally find gender roles extremely harmful because it’s simply just assuming who we should be because of our biological sex. I find it very silly as well as old-fashioned therefore I believe we should all fight the gender roles and stereotypes which are only leading to problems in our society, violating human rights, discrimination and even destroying people’s mental health.

I think that’s pretty much it about the intensive.
- Nina

Blog #6 - Polish recipe for dinner <3 (vegan!)

In Poland there’s a few traditional dishes - borsch, pork chop (like a schnitzel), sour soup,

meat jelly called "cold legs" (poultry meat in broth jelly) and dumplings with cabbage and mushrooms. When it comes to our cuisine most dishes are very simple and were made to be filling a long time ago, therefore, they’re mostly with meat and obviously potatoes or they’re flour products such as noodles, “potato dumplings”, or the aforementioned dumplings. In this blog I would like to describe one Polish dish that I really like - “pierogi” - dumplings.

Some of you probably know dumplings but I’ll explain anyway. They’re boiled semicircular dumplings made from a wheat-based dough (which is very easy to make as it contains basically just water and flour) that are filled with a variety of savory and sweet fillings. After boiling, they are often pan-fried in butter until crispy (I use olive oil) and served with fried onion on top (if they’re savory) or sour cream and sugar (if they’re sweet).

The dumplings that I am going to give you a recipe for are the most traditional ones. They’re filled with sauerkraut (fermented cabbage) and different mushrooms and I promise they taste delicious. They are mainly served during Christmas Eve however you can make them every day!

Ingredients:
for the dough:

●      two glasses of flour (it should be around 300-350g)

●      3/4 glass of water (around 170-200ml)

●      pinch of salt

●      4 spoons of oil (40g)

for the filling:

●      300g of the cabbage

●      30-40g of mushrooms (dried, soaked in a few hours earlier)

●      herbs/spices that you like (we use Bay leaf and allspice as well as salt with pepper)

●      2 spoons of oil (20g)

●      1 onion

preparation:

Honestly, in every household dumplings are prepared differently. Also, you should know that we never exactly measure the amount of water / flour for the dough so if during kneading you feel like the dough is too thick or thin, add more of one of the ingredients, it’ll be completely fine. 

Start from preparing the filling:
Cut the onion, mushrooms and cabbage into small parts. Fry the onion with some oil on the pan, add mushrooms, cabbage and spices/herbs. After 10-15 minutes put everything on a strainer to drain the water that would cause troubles while forming the dumplings.

Now, you can make your dough:
Start by boiling the water and leaving it for 2-5 minutes (the water should be around 80 - 90 ° C).

In the meantime, add flour, oil, salt and water to the bowl. Then mix thoroughly and knead the dough with your hands (yes, it may take a while but it’s totally worth it). The dough should be smooth, flexible and easy to come off your hands - if it’s not you should probably add more water or flour!

Once you’ve got your dough super smooth and the filling is ready you can start forming dumplings. Take a piece of dough, and then roll out the dough for dumplings quite thin (2-3 mm) on a floured surface. Using a glass, cut out circles. To every circle put a teaspoon of the filling, fold in half and carefully stick the edges. Be careful to not add too much filling - if you do so, the dumplings will be destroyed while cooking.
Make as many dumplings as possible and start boiling the water to cook them (it should be around 2-3l of salted water). When the water is boiled you can cook the 1st portion of dumplings. They’ll be ready after boiling for 5-6 minutes. Then, you can just do the same with the rest of your dumplings.

When it comes to serving you can either eat them cooked or fry them in oil (or butter if you don’t want the vegan version). Some people also add fried bacon/ham on top so feel free to try that option as well.

Enjoy!

-Nina

Blog#7 Another recipe here, the tajik one this time :DD

When it comes to tajik cuisine there is a lot to share! For all the tourists who come to Tajikistan I would recommend trying oshi palav and mantu - they are among my top favorites. But we already have a recipe for dumplings (mantu are big dumplings in its core) in our blog, so this time I opted to give you a recipe for a cold salad called Qurutob.

Ingredients:

●      2 tomatoes

●      1 cucumber

●      1 onion

●      100g chakka (sour thick yogurt)

●      30-50 ml of water

●      fatir (flaky bread)

●      30 ml of oil

First, the bread and vegetables except the onion get chopped. The yogurt with water is added then,  after which you have to let it soak in. In 15 minutes you cover it with chopped onion and oil, mix everything together, add salt and pepper - as much as you’d like - and !Ta-Dam! The salad is ready to be consumed :)

-Mukaddas

Blog #8 - “Loveless” by Alice Oseman review

“Loveless'' is a story about a girl, Georgia, who is about to start studying at university/college. However, it’s also a story about self-love, learning about ourselves, being confused and searching for answers. It shows struggles of the LGBTQ+ community together with the consequences of the lack of knowledge about sexuality/gender in our society.
I do not want to accidentally give you spoilers so I’ll just stick to my feelings toward this book without really getting into the plot.
I read it a month ago and I was honestly surprised by many facts even though I’m a human rights activist. I’ve learned a lot about asexuality and aromaticity, this book actually opened my eyes at this part of the queer community - I am ashamed I didn’t have that knowledge before. On the other hand, it also shows how much we lack in our education (at least in Poland). So, to sum up - this book is very educational.

At the same time, it is a very charming story, full of amazing characters and interesting dialogues. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s extremely sad and reflective and sometimes it’s just a basic story about a group of friends - very simple and nice to read. This variety of emotions present in “Loveless” made it a very interesting book - I guarantee you will not feel bored at all. What’s more the writing is excellent and some lines are just… wow. I was so into the story that I read it in one day - that’s how much I got dragged into the story!
Highly recommend it,

Nina

Blog #9 - table tennis sport and Chinese table tennis

 Table tennis (ping pong) is a popular ball sport around the world. Table tennis originated in the United Kingdom.But it's very popular in China and it is known as China's ‘national ball’.And actually,table tennis is my favorite sport.

I first came into contact with table tennis when I was in primary school.My father taught me the basic methods of playing table tennis,such as how to grip on the racket exactly,serve and serve back the ball.I found table tennis a very interesting sport.And I began to enjoy watching some World Games.In junior high school, I joined the school's table tennis club.The community activities which were held once a week made me more interested in playing table tennis.Playing with my schoolmates not only enriched my after-school life,but also improved my table tennis skills while exercising.

In 1926, the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) was officially established and decided to hold the first World Table Tennis Championship.After the founding of new China in 1949,Chairman Mao Zedong called for "developing sports and strengthening people's physique".Table tennis began to develop in China.Since its establishment in 1952,the Chinese table tennis team has made many remarkable achievements through the unremitting efforts of generations of players.By December 2021, 116 Chinese table tennis players had become world champions.In 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, the Chinese table tennis team won the gold medal of men's and women's team competitions and the silver medal of mixed doubles.Besides that,Chinese athletes Ma Long, Fan Zhendong, Chen Meng and Sun Yingsha won gold and silver medals in men's and women's singles respectively.Ma Long became the first man's Double Slam and Grand Slam winner in the world table tennis history.And he is known as the 'Hexagonal Warrior' because his strength, speed, skills, service, defense and experience are all very strong.

Table tennis has a powerful influence in China.Many Chinese people are very interested in table tennis games and there are many people who love playing table tennis.For example,in Chinese communities, you can often see many elderly people playing table tennis, and their level may be comparable to that of athletes.Some communities have table tennis tables so that people can play there in their spare time.And believe it or not,there is a table tennis table and a pitching machine in my house.Table tennis is so popular in China because of its characteristics.Playing table tennis pays special attention to skills,so it is a very entertaining sport and it's not so dangerous like some other sports.Because the intensity can be controlled by yourself, the requirements for physical fitness are not high, so that the suitable population for table tennis is very wide.No matter how old people are, they can take table tennis as their hobby.Therefore, the development of Chinese table tennis has a broad mass basis.

-Yuchen

Blog#10 - Gender equality and Korea’s history

-Emma

 In today’s blog, I’m gonna talk about something most of you wouldn’t have heard about much before. Well many of you would have probably heard about gender equality because it is a very hot topic these days. But today I would like to talk about how gender equality has developed and changed throughout the history of my country, Korea.

Korea’s history can briefly be categorized as 5 timelines. The period of Gojoseon- The period of the three kingdoms- The period of Goryeo- The period of Josun- And the present age.

From the first two periods woman and man were both treated equally and gender equality was very general throughout the people. Women could also be representatives of their families, owned property, and had no discrimination in inheritance.  However, starting from Josun the main ideology changed to Confucianism which included a lot of ideas about women serving men and people actually made a lot of rules relating to that idea. Women were not able to remarry, own their own property, and most of the inheritance was inherited to only the men of the family.