Eric's Beijing Diary

She is from a small village in rural Shanxi Province. Her parents were desperate to give her a good education. She had scored high on the National Entrance Examination, and the opportunity was there to give her a university education. Her father borrowed quite a bit of money--more than he could afford to pay back, but it wasn't enough. Finally, he sold the horse that he used to farm his small plot, and pulled the plow himself. With a horse, it took a few hours to a day. Now it was grueling four day job. She told me that he cried the day he sold his horse.

As I said, her test scores were good, so she could have gone to a very good school, but the tuition was quite a bit lower at the teacher's college, so she decided to go there. After graduation, she returned to her village to teach for a few years, and then was granted admission to the Second Foreign Language Institute in Beijing, where she completed her Bachelor's Degree.

I met an American English teacher on the train from Kunming to Shanghai. He told me about her. He said he had met a lady from Kunming who was trying to start a "crossstitch" business for her home community in Shanxi Province. He said that there were some people in her village who were very good at crossstitch, and she thought perhaps this talent could be used to alleviate the poverty in her home community. I got her email address from him.

It was quite some time before I heard back from her after I had written. She doesn't have a computer, so she is not able to do her email very often--only when she can get to an internet cafe. She sent me her cell phone number, and I gave her a call. I found, to my surprise, that she was now teaching at a small school east of Beijing. Her husband is still going to graduate school in Kunming, but pay is quite a bit lower there, so she came here. Her father is disabled now, so she has to support him, and of course, she also helps to support her husband's education.

I met her this morning at the KFC in Wudaoko. She was very willing to come and meet me, even though it took her three hours by bus. I told her that I am not a businessman, and I don't know what the chances are for starting a crossstitch business. I told her that my primary interest was in bringing volunteers to her community who could help to enhance the education for the young children there. I told her that it might be good if I could visit her home village. She told me that it would take about 10 hours by train, and another four or five hours by bus. I am not sure what I can accomplish by going to her village, but life is like that. Sometimes you don't know until you take a step and see what comes next. We walk by faith and not by sight.