Despite the abundant literatures on service learning case studies, it is rare to see cases related to Mainland China. Service-learning has become a very popular pedagogy in the United States and has been adopted in various areas in Asia in recent years. However the concept is still relatively new in Mainland China and comprehensive case studies are needed to provide practical guidance for practitioners and empirical data for theorist. This paper, based on a case study of service learning trip to a village in China, tries to demonstrate the social and political dynamics of doing service learning projects in Mainland China. It doesn’t focus on the dynamics of launching a service learning course in a university, rather it provides descriptions and analysis of executing a service learning project in a village. The paper attempts to explain the social and political dynamics and their impacts on the service learning project by addressing the following questions in detail: how to work with a local partner, how villagers response to outsiders coming to the village and doing the project, how the government and other local social organizations play their role in the project, and under those special social and political circumstances, what impacts the service learning project can bring to a village as well as to the students.