Wang Li
My story today is about traveling the backroads in China, about as far away as one can be from Tiffin, Ohio. It is the story of Wang Li, who was a twenty two year old university woman in my class in l989.
Early in l989 Mary and I had agreed to teach at Southwest China Teachers University in Beibei. I had been in the first group of Heidelberg professors to go to China to teach English at this University during the summer of l986. Now it was August of l989, just two months after the Tiannamen Square massacre on June 17 and we received several letters from the University “begging” us to come. We decided to go for a one year assignment.
Southwest China University, called Xi Shi by the students, is in Sichuan Province in southwestern China near the border with Tibet, and an hours bumpy bus ride from Changing, a very large city on the Yantze River. We were assigned to teach English to graduate students, fourth year English majors, young college professors and I had additional classes to upper class Biology majors and another biology class to the younger biology faculty members.
China, one of the oldest civilizations has a long history of feudalism and emperors. The 20th century has been filled with awful wars and devastation, including the revolution that ended with the communists gaining control. Their “July 4th” is October 1, l949.
Many changes occurred in the 25 year period when Mao reigned. Russian advisors were expelled. The Chinese people were encouraged to have more children. The Cultural Revolution from l967 – l977 threatened Chinese society with chaos. Finally, China opened to the world in l980 under the leadership of Deng Xio Ping.
Wang Li was born at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution to very poor peasant parents. She was very bright and, despite her origins, she managed to score very high on the numerous required tests and was one of the fortunate few to be admitted to Southwest China University under full government scholarship. She became an English major with the expectation of being a teacher of English
The rest of this article is taken from assignments she wrote for class and are all in her own words.
To a person, whether he changes or not after years of experience, it’s a rather complicated thing. There is something one cannot change forever. This is a kind of feeling, maybe, one can call it character, in the bottom of one’s mind. One’s way of belief, way of life, all can change.
For myself, I have changed a lot. Some things belong to my teenage or childhood are buried in my heart. It makes me shrink to myself while life draws me out. When I was I child, I didn’t know who I was. I only knew I was the same as my childhood pals; I hated and loved them, and I played with them. I thought little of myself.
When I was nine years old, I was taken away by my father into a town to study there. I was lonely and frightened by the circumstances. People around me were different. I was from the countryside; they looked down upon me; and my father often convinced me that I was different from city people. Really? I questioned. I began to recognize myself. I found that although I was anxious to know and play with these new pals, yet I was afraid to stay with them. I was always looking forward to my holidays when I returned to my hometown. I found then I was a little different with my old companions. As time went on, they didn’t want to play with me. I felt greatly sad, and yet in the bottom of my heart, I did want to contact with them. In the city, I dare not hate or love anybody though loneliness hovered over my head and sadness was sewed in my heart. ‘Til now, I have such a feeling. People may say I am not the fittest to the natural. How can I answer? Is it my fault? Many, many factors achieved this. And yet I cannot cha nge this. A friend is rare to me. I often feel I am not myself, and yet it is indeed myself. In the future, I imagine, whenever or how many years later, I cannot do away with this character. And yet, I might, I might marry, and work, and get pleasant. Can only death bring the end to my sad heart?
Another assignment: Some Thoughts on Dreams
Every person has dreams every night, every year. The dream seems to be most mysterious and yet most attractive. When we get in great troubles or are seized by despair, we wish this is just a nightmare, after which everything is relaxed. When we look into the future, imagine what would happen in our career, it’s just like a dream which is uncertain and unrealistic. The same, too, looking back into the past gives people an impression of a dream because we can catch nothing of it.
I believe that every thing in the world is a dream. In my childhood, I still remember night extremely because I always had nightmares. Nowadays, I still have nightmares frequently. But this makes me happy when I awake knowing this not true.
On the contrary, a bright and happy dream makes me shed tears, for the dream is out of my reach. However when I was in high school, someone said, “Life is a dream.” And I was greatly confused by this. How could it be? I exist in the world, smelling, hearing, singing and speaking like everybody else. Is this a dream? So conscious that I could sense everything? Now I reminisce my past time. So many things occurred, the joys and the sorrows in my childhood and then in my teenager. I can still remember, yet they are so much like a dream in my mind. How I wish I could live my own way without interference from the others. And how I wish at that time I can really sense my exist, treasure every minute. Where are my childhood pals who are so lovely and lively and where is my old dream about the sky, the earth, the future? Where is my dear grandma? Everything is gone. Nothing can be called back. Exactly a dream.
What makes me happy is that many people have the same feeling as I have. From ancient times at about 220 AD a great dictator and poet CaoCao said life is a dream. In the Song Dynasty, SuShi drank under the moon and meditated on the moonshine which had seen so much about the human being.
I am now writing and thinking in the future which is like a foreseeing dream. I can look back into my present time and the past, and I am just like a sleepwalker who has no real sense, but like a shadow on the earth and which would be wiped away so soon!
To be continued
- Percy