A WAY OF LIFE - Notes from a Small Chinese Province E-Book

Maria Linnemann

• Herausgeber: tredition
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 284

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Whilst writing down these memories for the first time since leaving China I found myself immersed once more in the busy atmosphere of the lecture halls and classrooms, the canteen full of the chatter and clatter of noisy, cheerful students and the comparative quiet of the countryside where I visited my students and the farm of my little "Hope Project" daughter Cai Zheng. It is all as present and alive to me now as on that dull November day when I left my home in Nanyang for the last time.

Leseprobe

Maria Linnemann

A Way of Life

Notes from a Small Chinese Province

Copyright: © 2021 Maria Linnemann

Publisher:

tredition GmbH

Halenreie 40-44

22359 Hamburg

Germany

978-3-347-40739-8 (Paperback)

978-3-347-40740-4 (Hardcover)

978-3-347-40741-1 (eBook)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher and author.

CONTENTS

DOES IT HAVE TO BE CHINA?

CHAPTER ONE

An Early Letter Home

Our House and Residential Compound

CHAPTER TWO

First Teaching Days

An Early Letter to Hannover

CHAPTER THREE

My Students

English Names

Early Lessons

A Letter Home in June

The “Hope Project” and Family Cai

CHAPTER FOUR

Wàigórén

Qĭng Wèn

CHAPTER FIVE

Small Talk

Women and Their Role in Society

A Revealing Letter

“Our Changing Family Life”

Talking to Strangers

A Beijing Professor

In The Time of My Students’ Parents

To Be More Than One Of A Billion

CHAPTER SIX

Xi’an, a Celebration and Pancakes

One of: “Ten Women of the City”

Water, Electricity and Funeral Music

A Jade Festival

CHAPTER SEVEN

The VSO Film

Morning Wake-up Call

Beauty is Queen

Eye and Hair Colour

A Summer Letter

The Fried Sponge

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Tunnel near PingDingShan

A Letter to Hannover

Getting to Grips with the Vagaries of English

Pronunciation

A Piercing Episode

CHAPTER NINE

Speech Competitions

Daylight Robbery

Freshman Duty and a Discussion

CHAPTER TEN

A Propos Churches

The Music Faculty

An Advent Letter Home

Christmas Celebrations in College

Reflections After Two Years in Nanyang

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A Visit to Cai Zheng’s School

The Cai Zheng TV Film

CHAPTER TWELVE

In Zhengzhou

The Xiu Xiu

The Chalk Circles

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Cleaning Ladies

Unwelcome Visitors!

SARS

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A Prosthetic Limb for Cai Zheng

Cai Zheng’s Prosthetic Limb

A Song for Cai Zheng

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Xiao Shuang and a Family Story

Jordan

Lost And Found

Jenny

Xiao Shuang’s Second Story

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Ice, Snow, Rain, Wind and Sand

The Great Wall and a Beijing Doctor

The Monastery

My Hairdresser

Time out - Yunnan

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Chinese New Year

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Nanzhao

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Dean Hu, Jane Austin and a Decision

Breakfast and a Strange Poster

Cats and Dogs

An Unexpected Footbath

A Lecture, A Meal and a Winter’s Fire

CHAPTER TWENTY

Essays My Students Gave Me

“My Grandma”

“My Grandfather”

“My Grandmother”

“My Grandfather”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

A Farewell and: “Eight Honours and Eight Disgraces”214

Eight Honours and Eight Disgraces:

Love, do not harm the motherland

Final Days in Nanyang

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

DOES IT HAVE TO BE CHINA?

“Perhaps you think that I’m too old for this?”

I was sitting in my mum’s kitchen, sipping Earl Grey tea and eyeing my mother warily as I saw what I took to be a hint of worry in her expression. She put down her cup and sighed.

“Well, your life has been something like a film script often enough,” she said, straightening her placemat for something to do as she added:

“There would be enough to do that is closer to home, if you were to look, you know.”

I knew, but I had always had what some people impolitely call: “ants in my pants”, or as a German word more politely describes it: “Fernweh”: a hankering after far-away places. I felt it in my bones as had numerous ancestors of mine, and there had never been sufficient willpower to resist it.

Asia had fascinated me from my childhood, and a chance glimpse of a VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) advertisement offering two-year placement contracts in China came at a fortuitous moment in my professional career. After a selection process by that organisation and a number of preliminary courses, I found myself, together with a young colleague from London fresh from university, in Nanyang, a city of a million inhabitants in the central agricultural province of Henan. Roy and I had initially been destined for a northern town in Inner Mongolia, but at the last moment our organization had relocated us. Swallowing my disappointment I unpacked the “ready-for-anything” boots that some might have described as “Clodhoppers”, which I had invested in with a view to the demanding natural features of that far northern territory, and replaced them with ordinary winter boots.

This book is not a travel guide but a very personal account of the five years I spent as a teacher in “my small corner of China”, a many-facetted experience that became – as Vice-Dean Mr. Wang put it on my last morning in Nanyang – “A Way of Life”.

CHAPTER ONE

An Early Letter Home

Xi’an, February 2001

Dear Ma,

It was lovely to hear you on the phone – what a treat! I hope the email will work for us in Nanyang as it did for the previous volunteers.

The weeks here in Xi’an have been very full and busy, and the last days of preparation are now in sight. Tonight we’ll have drinks with the VSO programme officials who will come to visit us in our placement several times a year. There’ll also be a pub quiz this evening, whatever that is (I know they had one in the Archers!).

Well, it’s midnight, and I’ve just returned from the evening’s very enlightening entertainment (the quiz!). I don’t think I stopped eating all day today. We were invited to lunch at a Chinese family’s home, where we were fed almost to bursting. I had eaten some biscuits beforehand in case my chopstick technique let me down – but it didn’t. At six o’clock we had dinner in our hotel and snacks during the evening’s proceedings. Here on my return I’ve had a drink and biscuits because it’s what I do of an evening when I get home. A habit I intend to keep whatever the hour! I’ve already discovered some good vegetarian food, by the way – a marvellous aubergine dish, and brilliantly seasoned tofu, for example, so I’m sure I won’t go hungry here.

Today I managed to play a little South American piece from memory that I hadn’t played for years; it’ll make a good little contribution to the university concerts that we’ve been warned – I mean, told – about!

Have I mentioned that in some banks here one finds spectacles on the counters for the short-sighted, instead of the usual pens – isn’t that a great idea!

I asked today about cycling here, and was told that the cycles never have lights and that it is rather hair-raising to cross the road in the evening.

“Why haven’t they any lights?” I asked.

“They are not allowed to have lights in case they dazzle the motorists.”

The other volunteers looked as surprised as I felt, but that’s how it is. Mind you, with the large numbers of bicycles on the road, there is something in that reasoning! We have been practising the experience of crossing the road at dusk from time to time whilst here in Xi’an, but I’ve decided that it’s an undertaking to be avoided whenever possible.

Three of our group have suffered a foot or leg injury – some of the paths in this beautiful old city are very uneven and it’s quite easy to sprain an ankle. A few are down with flu; the hotel is fast becoming a clinic. Fingers crossed that the rest of us stay healthy!

Having just had lunch after our last Chinese lesson I’m enjoying a quiet break with Nescafe and digestives, and in a moment there’ll be the BBC World Service to listen to. Half the students were too tired to attend some of the lessons, or too ill to attend at all; it could be caused by the air pollution here that is pretty bad most days.

I have luck in the VSO partner who will join me in my placement. Roy is a very likeable young man from London, a SOAS graduate. He is a non-smoker, doesn’t drink and is a vegetarian like myself. So, some common failings there!

That last line was written yesterday, before the afternoon and evening became busy again. I’ll send this letter off tomorrow morning when I have the chance to get to the post office. This afternoon we are due to have a talk given by the VSO officials, which we think will be a mixture of: “Behave yourselves” and “You’ll be on your own from now on, except for when we visit you, and if you should need any help from the VSO with ‘communication’ ” – a kind of pep talk. Following that we’ll have a lesson in Chinese cooking, which should be enjoyable!

Time for lunch; I seem to be permanently hungry. Luckily, there seems to be an unending parade of meals!

My next missive will hail from Nanyang, and I’ve decided that now and then I’ll put a copy of my latest diary notes in with my letters to you, to keep you in touch with my goings on!. Hopefully I’ll find a post office in the university or the town very soon.

A big hug and love from Xi’an.

Our House and Residential Compound

We arrived today in our new home in Nanyang on a cold, misty February morning. The four-storey house is occupied by teaching staff of the university, two of the flats being reserved for foreign teachers. Roy’s flat is on the ground floor, mine on the first floor. The Waiban – the lady whose job it is to look after the welfare of the foreign teachers – felt that I would be safer upstairs. Very reassuring! All the windows of the house are fronted with thin, wrought iron bars, presumably against intruders. Doubly reassuring! This is to be my home for the next two years.

Near the entrance and under the stairs is a store of round, black coal bricks used to provide heating in all the flats save those of Roy and myself. Our flats are fitted out with two small electric heaters.

My study is comfortably furnished with a sofa, a low table and low shelves on one of which stands a television and a DVD player. Beside the long window there’s a table with a computer and small printer.

Taking up much of the bedroom space are a double bed and roomy cupboard. Happily, the bed is wide enough for me to have my cassette recorder next to my pillow, and I think that the audio-cassettes of Jane Austin, Dickens and P.G.Woodhouse will provide the same pleasure and escapism before sleep as they have done in my ex-pat home in Europe.

My kitchen is simply and minimally equipped with two electric plates, a large wok and an electric kettle. Once I buy myself a microwave, I think I’ll have all I need. The large, low square sink is familiar to me from pictures of European kitchens in the 30s. Its sides become stained yellow within a day and I scrub it clean every evening, since this is my washbasin, my so-called bathroom having no basin. Actually, I did have the option of having a washbasin in there, but that would have meant having no room to dry myself after showering. The loo would deserve a chapter all of its own – I will not enlarge here; perhaps later. There’s a drinking water dispenser in a corner of the study. I have already developed the habit of boiling all the water again, just to be sure.

A paved courtyard separates our house from the building opposite, which we have discovered to be a recreation facility for retired employees of the university On the first Saturday morning I heard voices coming from the courtyard and left my computer to look out of my study window. A group of women of about my age was engaged in Tai Chi exercises, and as I looked I saw the Waiban, Zheng Ping, appearing from around the corner and making for our entrance. I went down to meet her.

“Would you like to join them in Tai Chi?” she asked.

Before I could answer, I noticed that one of the ladies, evidently the leader of the group, was looking at me with an expression of open scepticism. She spoke very quietly to Zheng Ping, who then turned to me and said rather quickly:

“But not today, I’m afraid. And perhaps you will have no time for that,” she pursued, leading me back into the house. I couldn’t help feeling that I had failed some sort of test out there on the courtyard. Had I looked like an old crock with stiff knees, I wondered? I didn’t think so, and repeated the mantra to myself that I had uttered so often since becoming a teacher: “Think positive, and smile!” I now silently added: “And try to look a little more sporty!”

The following day, I was enjoying a relaxed Sunday breakfast when the sound of unfamiliar music drew me to the window once more. Not being able to see from whence the music came, I went downstairs to investigate. Just around the corner from the courtyard, and seated under an awning erected against a wall of the recreation building, sat a group of musicians playing traditional Chinese instruments. I stood a little way off, listening. I recognised an erhu – the Chinese violin . and a paiban, the Chinese claves. As the music momentarily ceased, the Erhu teacher greeted me with a smile. He held out his instrument, inviting me to take it. Had he already heard on the university grapevine that I played an instrument? My years spent with the violin were distant enough to make me un-cautious, and I sat down, if somewhat gingerly, with the Erhu on my knees. Slowly, I scraped a pentatonic scale, giving an excellent imitation of a cat on heat. The erhu teacher reached hastily for a cigarette and lit it with a slightly shaky hand. I discovered that I can read smoke signals. I ceased plying the bow and stood up, feeling myself blushing. Instantly the teacher stubbed out the cigarette and reached for the mistreated instrument, this time with a slightly paler smile. Being forgiving and generous, however, the musicians allowed me to take photos whilst they continued their Sunday morning ritual.

As already mentioned, my flat was on the first floor, at the front of the house. In the flat below mine that was occupied by a couple and their two daughters, the front windows were permanently open regardless of the time of day and outside temperature. It appeared that the father was a chainsmoker whilst the mother and daughters were all for fresh air. The younger daughter, I also discovered, was learning to play the GuZheng, the Chinese equivalent of a cimbalom and a fiendishly difficult instrument to play. The young girl had a lot of problems with her instrument – as did the instrument with her, as I gathered from the sounds of battle that emanated daily from their front room. As I listened unwillingly to the dire struggle, I didn’t know whom or what to pity most, the student or the instrument. Or, come to that, myself.

To the right of our building and leading off from the courtyard was a path into the campus proper. This was practical, since it meant being able to avoid the loud and dusty street which ran past the main campus gate.

Some months after our arrival, however, a brick wall was erected and the path from the courtyard to the campus was blocked. Apparently there had been numerous thefts of computers and other expensive items from the university buildings, and the authorities decided that all entries save that of the main gate should be closed off. One morning, Roy and I heard unusual sounds coming from the right side of our house. Looking out of our respective front windows we saw two gentlemen dressed in suits and wearing gloves, who were quietly engaged in laying brick upon brick in a most dignified manner. Bemused, we watched as a wall arose, stretching from the side of our house to the corner of the recreation building opposite. Within a day, the edifice was completed and our convenient entrance onto the campus was no more. Our only way to work now lay along the noisy main road made dusty by the constant heavy traffic that roared by during the day and half of the night.

To get to the main road one walked along a wide path to the high, wrought iron double gate where two bored guards watched who came and went. On the way one could be sure to meet a granny or two with a babe in arms, and occasionally an elderly retired teacher. Now and then I passed a small child playing in a colourful toddler’s chair complete with table and a multitude of plastic toys. I remember one particular day when a stray leaf from goodness knows where fell onto the table of such a toddler’s chair. The little boy, abandoning all the toys, played with this fascinating thing that had fallen from nowhere with a great smile on his little face.

Along the short road to the campus, one passed a row of very small shops that leant against the campus garden wall. There were also one or two tiny eating places which Roy and I at first frequented. The dirt and dust from the road, however, evidently made the job of keeping the little places clean quite impossible; summer whites could not be worn there and more than once I found an atom of grit in my soup. After a short while we took to eating in the campus restaurant. Still, it was rather a shame to see the whole row of businesses disappear almost overnight, when the university leaders decided that the immediate surroundings should present a more worthy facade for their institution. About the road however, with its dirt and constant noise pollution, they could do nothing.

At the main gate of the campus there were also two uniformed guards, similarly bored but with somewhat more daily diversion. Behind them stood a small hut, which as I learned before long was the initial reception office for the daily post, before it was forwarded to the main office within the campus. These guards were evidently avid stamp collectors. Much of my welcome post from home was given into my hands minus the upper right hand corner, but I was usually too relieved that it had arrived at all to protest about its stampless state. I did once venture to mention the curious fact and even offered to cut off the envelope corners myself, but this was met with blank stares and I did not pursue the matter further. There’s a song in Strauss’s operetta: “Die Fledermaus” that goes something like: “Happy is he who can forget what he can’t change!” It is a ditty that I often found myself humming in Nanyang. Now and then, when there was a changing of the guard, the letters arrived intact, and that brought an added pleasure to the contents.

CHAPTER TWO

First Teaching Days

March 2001

Dear Ma,

Sorry about the inky pen! I haven’t managed to find any replacements yet.

Well, the first teaching days are behind us, and all went well. We have large classes: each of mine number about fifty students and I’m already thinking about splitting them into two. The classes, not the students. I found the lessons very enjoyable. This week Roy and I made a register of all our classes and spent the rest of the time introducing ourselves. I illustrated my account with photos from home, which the students were delighted to see. They were all thrilled to see your beautiful bungalow and garden.

“We don’t have gardens here,” one student told me, gazing at your front garden with its rose bush in full bloom. “There are so many people in China and we don’t have the space for gardens.”

When the students in my first class heard that you have ten children, there were screams of disbelief from the girls and gasps from the boys. Have I mentioned the fact that young people here are called boys and girls until they marry, as a student kindly informed me after I had greeted his class with: “Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen!” and earned a stifled giggle. The news of your long row of offspring (photo taken in your garden!) swiftly travelled from one class to the next, so that very soon I was asking the students to tell me about my family – that was fun!

Two parcels have just arrived – brilliant! Thank you so much! Please thank the post office ladies who put kind messages on the back of one of the packages, and tell them I’m doing fine and am well supplied with Chinese and English biscuits!

The Waiban, the lady whose job it is to make sure we have everything we need, is very kind and helpful and has made our first week a lot easier than it would otherwise have been. Roy and I were invited to tea in her home one afternoon and we met her husband and their lively little daughter, Wei Wei, whose English name is Bella. Most children and young people who are learning English give themselves an English name, or are given one by a parent. English is “in”!

We also had dinner with the Dean of our faculty and other dignitaries one day this week during which Roy firmly defended his non-drinking habit. After making a few pointed remarks, accompanied with a smile, about “a real man” and his drink, the Dean, somewhat disappointed but gracious, ceded the point. The fact that Roy is also a vegetarian brought brief looks of astonishment from some of the dignitaries, but there were no remarks about “a man and his meat”.

You would like the campus gardens. There are many trees along the paths that weave through the grounds; a group of gardeners tend to the areas planted with shrubs and bushes, and one finds little places where one can sit and relax of an evening. I haven’t seen any blue skies yet, but in the late evening the darkness up above can grant one the impression that there has been a blue hue earlier in the day, and it’s pleasant to walk and chat together in the calm of those surroundings. The air pollution, it cannot be denied, is a problem. Although this is an agricultural province there are a number of factory buildings close by, some of them constantly billowing black smoke from their chimneys that can be seen from our university. One of the first things I discovered in a small shop on the main street was a shelf displaying packets of wet wipes, and these will become a regular purchase I fear, over the next weeks and months. The classroom desks need a daily wiping down and the wipes are coal-black after one use. Many students wear specially made short sleeves that are worn from wrist to elbow, in order to protect their clothes. It reminds me of the black-capped newspaper office characters who sported such sleeve protectors, in the old John Wayne films. I’ve already been promised a pair of ‘pretty’ sleeves by one of my students, who wishes to go shopping with me in town to find me some “beautiful clothes”. Have I brought the wrong outfits with me? Help!

As I’ve mentioned, Roy and I live in two flats in a fourstory house situated in the residential compound of the university. Roy’s on the ground floor; I’m on the first in one of three flats on that level. There’s a long, narrow balcony on two sides of my flat, which will be useful for hanging out the clothes to dry. Though perhaps not the whites.

I must mention again the number of babies and small children who are to be seen with their grannies walking about the residential area during the day whilst the parents are at work. The little one are gorgeous. They walk about at a very early age, and climb any steps quite fearlessly and with great agility. I assume they are potty-trained – even the babies on their grannies’ arms wear no nappies. There’s a gaping hole in their little trousers that speaks volumes. The “toughening up” starts early and at the bottom… Grannies have already approached me and asked me to speak English to their little ones. The old ladies love it when I oblige, but the babies always look singularly unimpressed. My students are rather more encouraging, thank goodness!

On our street there are many interesting sights to be seen: the small pavement stands are occupied by shoemakers, umbrella repairers and a knife-grinder. I hope I will be able to send you some photos, when I’ve become more of a familiar sight on the street. There’s a milkman who visits our compound daily. I’ve ordered a bottle of milk and two yogurts for every day and he leaves them in the house entrance when I’m out teaching. The milk is a must for my Nescafe. One of the little shops sells Nescafe as well as everything from toothpaste to bread and biscuits – hurray for the latter! I miss the rye bread, by the way. The white bread looks like English white bread until you cut it open and find a strange yellow sweet stuff in the middle. No cheese here and no butter. I’m told that these may be bought from a supermarket in Zhengzhou, the capital city of Henan province, but it’ll be a while before there is time to make the six-hour journey there by train.

We had a fun-filled afternoon the day before yesterday, to celebrate International Women’s Day. All kinds of games had been organised and Roy was invited to come along and join in. One could win wonderful things such as dishcloths and kitchen spoons. Roy had brought his camera and took photos of the proceedings, including one of me being beaten hands down in a strong-arm match against Zheng Ping, our Waiban. I’ll try to get a copy for you! Roy excelled in the game of volleyball played with enormous plastic blow-up hands, and also drew great applause when picking up marbles with chopsticks out of a bowl of water. I won second prize in the competition to see who could stand blindfolded and on one leg for longest. Considering that this was a discipline the VSO had neglected to include in their training programme, I couldn’t help feeling a tinge of pride – and it won me a dishcloth and a plastic thermometer. I now feel fully equipped to face anything that Nanyang Normal University may confront me with during the coming months.

I hope I can get to town today. The living room light can’t be turned off and the switch is too hot to touch. Zheng Ping has summoned the electrician to come and fix it, and he is due any time now – fingers crossed!

Before I close the letter to take to town, I must mention that I’ve already been invited to a dormitory party by some of the girls in one of my first-year classes. They are expecting me to sing – help! The Titanic-hit: “My Heart Will Go On” – HELP! Roy also has his work cut out for him, having to refuse the telephone numbers that are being pressed upon him by numerous girl students – poor Roy!

Here comes the electrician! Big hugs and much love to all!

An Early Letter to Hannover

May 2001

Hello my dears!

On a cool, windy day there’s a chance to recover from the heat of yesterday that made teaching quite exhausting.

In every classroom there’s at least one ceiling fan resembling a helicopter propeller. I was nearly blown off course yesterday and spent a lot of effort trying to dodge its furious activity. Today I have the beginnings of a cold – the second since arriving here – and blue packets of tissues adorned with smiling yellow half-moons accompany me everywhere. There is something comforting about that smiley half-moon when one has sneezed for the umpteenth time whilst attempting to explain a complex phonetic phenomenon. The psychology of packaging?!

Yesterday I bought myself an electric dictionary. It has a thousand functions which I have yet to understand, but I like the fact that the Chinese words are given in pinyin. Pinyin is the Chinese writing system that uses our alphabet letters. It is the first reading system that schoolchildren here learn to use, since learning to read with Chinese characters alone would make early reading progress too slow. One later advantage is that our alphabet presents no problems for students when learning English.

I am told that there is a river not far from the university that one can get to by a short taxi ride. It’s called the “Bai He”, I believe – the White River. It would be nice to go there for a walk on a Sunday afternoon. The mosquitoes might be a problem, though. They abound here in the warm months and I would rather avoid contact with the little beasts, even though we take our malaria tablets. At night there is the troublesome ritual of drawing the nets over the bed in such a fashion that not even the wiliest of them can find a way through to my nose or elbow. You know me, I have two left hands in such matters. Every morning the net is sprinkled with mosquitoes who have succumbed to the anti-brumm that was sprayed over the drape the night before. Without the nets, sleep would be impossible.

Today I was given a new telephone, to be used with an IP card that can be bought at the post office. I bought a super one today that has a Beijing opera character’s face on it. At last I can ring England and Germany without having to ask Roy if I can use his phone. Slowly, I’m feeling settled!

My chopstick technique, however, progresses erratically; sometimes it’s up, sometimes it’s down – today it was down. The rice was not as sticky as usual – well, that’s my excuse. The rice that is grown in this province is delicious. Most of my students seem to prefer noodles, but I will stick to rice. The art of mastering the “noodle slurp”, as I call it, is not on my list of desired accomplishments. I know you will say that I’m too fastidious, but I say that it’s my musician’s ear that can’t discern a redeeming note in the sound, or should I say: redeeming sound in the slurp!

The colleagues I have met in the staffroom are very friendly, but we are all too busy to have much time to chat. One pleasant feature there is the ping -pong table. The young teachers enjoy a few minutes of playing during the short morning break and it’s relaxing to watch them. Pingpong is immensely popular in China and players are very successful in international tournaments. I hope I get to have a go at playing with a colleague some time!

It’s a pleasant thing to be able to walk about the campus gardens for a while in the evenings with Roy or one of my new friends. The gardeners work hard to maintain them, and there are some lovely green plants that you would enjoy identifying – I haven’t a clue, of course. I just take pleasure in them!

This letter has been such a ramble; I shall stop and try to get it to the college post office before it closes!

Hope to speak to you on the phone soon!

Love to all!

CHAPTER THREE

My Students

June 2001

The majority of my students in the English faculty were girls. I use the term ‘girls’ advisedly. As already mentioned, a prolonged giggle of embarrassment met my first greeting of “Good Morning, Ladies and Gentlemen” ,after which I was kindly informed by Michael, an earnest, highly intelligent student who was to enlighten me now and then on similar significant issues, that until young people married they were called girls and boys. I thanked him, but found myself inexplicably unable to open my lessons with a “Good Morning, boys and girls” when faced with a class of anything up to seventy serious young adult faces. So, a “Good morning” had to suffice. I may use the terms: ‘girls and boys’ when speaking of them here, however. I was old enough to be their mum, after all.

Many of the girl students had a brother who worked and supported the family as well as his sister’s studies. This, I learned, was not uncommon if a girl had achieved better exam results at school and was able to take the entrance exam to university. She would find better-paid employment later and contribute to further improving the family fortunes.

The one-child policy has not applied to ethnic minorities. Besides this there has been the practice, particularly in the farming communities, that if the first child is a girl, having another child after five years has provided an additional chance to produce a male heir to the farm. For some years now it has also been the national policy that if an only child marries another only child, they may have two children. This is to alleviate the problem of caring for elderly parents. I am sure there will be more changes in the future, since people are now living longer here, as elsewhere in the world. And in fact as I write, the Chinese government has announced that families will be allowed to have an additional child. This measure, it is hoped, will help to solve the growing problem of an ageing population and the decline in numbers of the younger generations in employment.