I was asked by Pr.Venn, my English writing teacher more than 24 years ago, to present my personal background. This , to me, had a profound significance. I answered as follows:
“I am from a teacher’s family , the second child of my parents. Upon
my birth to this world on the second day of the first month in 1958
my parents named me Xiao Ming as petname,for my full name,Yang Zhiming. My infancy days, my mother told me were spent in Tianjin city
though my family was located in a small town-Lutai 100 kilometers away from the city. The town started my childhood.
My memories then though dream-like, as far as I can remember I had a very good time. Like any other little kids, I once had my wonderful dream. I dreamed of becoming a scientist, a writer, a flyer … I felt no bound in enjoying myself. Everyday my elder brother and I would play together, naïve, lively, curious, no sorrow, no worry, no care.
When I was six my mother sent me to the primary school where she worked. My abecedarian was very kind. She treated me like her own child and taught me how to read and write .My understanding of things was developing in a regular and right way.
But ‘’The Big Turmoil’’ brought all this to ruin. And my sweet dream of the childhood was shattered into pieces completely. In this sense I was a child without childhood. Even now whenever I think about it, I always feel it is a great pity for me. My family was forced to do manual labor in a remote and poor village and settle there. I had to go with them because I was only eight then. Both my parents became peasants. Despite of food and money shortage particularly political discrimination my father urged me to continue my study in the mere school of the village, in which conditions were very poor, simple and crude. As a matter of fact the school was only a big house– classroom and teacher’s office all in one in which pupils of five different grades were taught together by solely one teacher . Due to such disadvantage and many others I did not learn much there except the life of poor peasants’ children with some of whom I made friends though my family was carrying a political stigma. We saw some light in late 1967. My father, one day received a paper from commune committee saying that we were seriously wronged and it was against government policy to send us to the countryside without ample reason. Therefore we were back to the town again.
.
I made a second start in my mother’s school. Stepping in my classroom my good early memories rushed into my mind with great passion. But the reality made me quite disappointed. The whole school, the teachers, and schoolmates all were beyond my recognition. Politics and class struggle occupied every corner. I was left perplexed with all around me. In those days I mechanically went to class and came back home without knowing what I was doing . However I had a feeling that it had been wrong somewhere.
I never understood why my life was so hard. After my graduation from primary school in 1969 I was classified as one of those who had no right to go to high school. The proper reason, later I learned, was that my father had serious problem in his own history. This is , by no means true but at that time when I realized that I would have no chance to continue my schooling I was filled with grief and indignation. I cried for the first time since my childhood.
As a child of 12 I began to lead a life of a grown-up. I learned how to cook. And every day I had to send meals cooked to my parents who were kept in a ‘’concentration camp ‘‘. Later they were out back home jobless. So as my elder brother I had to shoulder the task of supporting the family. I did odd jobs on a state farm, transplanting rice ,cutting grass. And I had experiences of an apprentice of mason, a carpenter and an electrician. This mobile life lasted more than two years. In the spring of 1972 things became a little better to the children like me. I had an opportunity to learn again. Passing a very simple exam I was enrolled in a high school.
The day I went to the school I felt delighted. My heart remained cheerful for a considerable period of time. Knowing the difficulty of obtaining the opportunity I worked hard at my lessons. Just as I finished my junior high school another political movement occurred. The peaceful and regular situation of teaching was disturbed again. Students, capable and incapable were both put in senior high school, in which most our time was wasted in some activities, which had nothing to do with teaching courses. While others were about their likings I became interested in English and took to Chinese boxing.
In 1976 as a so-called graduate, answering Chairman Mao’s call I volunteered to go to the countryside – a village near the town.
I became a new type peasant of socialism. I was doing fine there. Of ten my schoolmates I was the first to pick up the hardest farm work-
digging canal. The results of my endeavor honored me ‘’advanced youth’’.
Then I was recommended for teaching in a high school. The end of the year found my motherland taken on a new look. Great changes took place in the system of education . The changed system facilitated me sitting in the entrance examinations.
I succeeded in the exams. That made me a student of foreign languages department of Changsha railway institute in 1977. After the hard work of three years and a half , just before my entering the real society I am fortunate enough to be a student of Pr. Venn.
This is what came to me while being asked. Looking back my 24 year- travel in such a complicated world is always something inspiring to me, full of sorrow ,joy and confidence.”
And now as another 24 years passed I am no longer young but I still enjoy all little pleasures of life composing poems in both Chinese and English ……
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