Southwest Forestry College is the fourth best college in Kunming which makes it comparable to the fourth best college in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It is not a college many Chinese teenagers dream of attending. While there are avid environmentalists and passionate horticulturists among the grad students, most of the undergraduates really wanted to get into a better school. The way in which this place may differ from Albuquerque's fourth best college is that the students are actually smart. They didn't end up here because they were lazy or just plain stupid; most of them ended up here because they were poor. Even in communist countries, poor children go to poor schools, and my students were the stars of their low-performing schools.
Among my 90 graduate students, only one is from an affluent family or a thriving eastern city. Not all are from this province; we have quite a few from Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia which are probably even less developed provinces. A significant number are ethnic minorities. The vast majority are the children of peasants in small villages, the first in their family to graduate high school, never mind attend college or graduate school. One student once wrote about her first day of school in 1985: "My teacher saw my new dress and asked if I was the child of workers. I was very excited because at that time, workers were honored and rich, but I was born to peasants. It was only because their eldest daughter started school that my parents took pains with my dress."
I recently asked them to write an essay that began, "If I could live in a different time or place, I would...." I'm not exactly sure what I expected, but 19th-century Paris comes to my own mind. I surely did not expect the essays I received.
One student wrote enthusiastically about the convenience of an imagined life in the year 3000: "When I wear a special cap, I find I sit in the plane. I say , 'OK,' and the plane automatically makes its way to my office in Shanghai Center."
My one yuppie student wrote wistfully about preferring to live in the major eastern city of Tianjin where shopping malls abounded and clothing prices were unbeatably low. While I had expected a greater leap of the imagination from her, I was less surprised than I was when I read the essay of GXL, a gangly young woman whose appearance reflects a childhood with insufficient food and no dental care whatsoever. Even among the other children of peasants, she stands out as one who missed the 20th century and arrived uneasily in the 21st. Yet she wrote, "I am living in Kunming now, so sometimes I couldn't got the informations about fashion. Therefore, I often thought if I could live in Paris or other place that these thing wouldn't be happen." Who ever guessed she was a fashion maven? I find myself eyeing her geeky white socks and cartoon-character emblazoned skirt and wondering what else I don't know about her.
One of my favorite students wished he had lived in the ancient Qin Dynasty so he could have advised the brutal and bloodthirsty first emperor about the importance of "liberating the people's thoughts, advocating science and technology and developing economics. I would also tell him about the importance of the people's satisfaction. If he rejected my advices, he would endanger losing control of his people. I would grasp the chance to organize an arms to defeat him, and I would rebuild a new country." I can't help thinking that my gentle and wise student would have been a more benevolent emperor than Qin Shihuang.
The vast majority of my students, however, did not write about past dynasties or future decades. One animal lover wanted to live in Africa. Only a few even wrote about wanting to live in America. Most of them never imagined living outside China. What most of them wanted a different childhood in China.
One student wrote: "When I was a child, my parents were poor, and they didn't have any money to offer my sister and me. Sometimes we didn't even have food to eat. Now, I can remember clearly that I was nearly starved to death but owing to my aunt, who came in time, she gave my mother some milk and I then drank it. I also remember clearly that at one time my dear sister nearly drowned. My parents were busy on the farm and because we were both too young to look after ourselves well, my sister fell in the river. I didn't know how to do, only cry....If I could live in that time again, I would deal with it carefully. I would look after my sister very well, and I would understand my parents deeply."
The class monitor, the equivalent of the class president for all the graduate students, also proved me wrong. He comes from the eastern province of Guangdong, where the wealthy city of Guangzhou is located. He seems more self-assured than most and I always attributed that to growing up in the more sophisticated east. Yet he wrote: "If I could live in another time, I would study hard and earn more money for my parents. I was born in countryside and my family was poor. Even worse, my parents hadn't chance to earn money because there wasn't a factory or company in my hometown. My parents had to plant rice and vegetables, which were enough for our lives but couldn't take them to market. In order to let me go to school, my family had a lot of debts....I want very much to make my parents live happy and healthy, not doing anything while I go to work."
For a few other students, time or place was not the thing that needed changing. One student put it bluntly: "If I could live in another time or place, I would not be myself." A painfully shy young woman wrote: "I would be a new person and and I could get to know others around me. I could start a brand new life there, not like the past one in which I was too shy to communicate with others. If it is possible, I think I could be a person who has important status. As do this, I can have enough confidence to talk to others."
Another young woman, the sweet one who has taken our one desperately homesick Vietnamese graduate student under her wing, wrote: "If I could live in another time or place, I thought I would be more optimistic and have open mind. I would be free to choose my life and living style. I would make friends and help more people." She went on to say that as a child, "I was a quiet girl in my parents' eyes. My thoughts was limited and my mind was closed. I thought my situation related with our country's traditional culture."
With 90 students writing weekly essays, I spend a huge amount of time going over their work. Although I complain about how many hours this consumes, the truth is, I'm fascinated. I also teach these students oral English, but very few are capable of verbally expressing most of the things they write. And would they say these things out loud, even if they could get the words off their tongues? I feel privileged to learn their thoughts and look forward to getting to know them better.
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