Eric's Beijing Diary

This evening, I was sitting in a small booth at the Hualian Supermarket near the University having an ear of corn and a cup of coffee, when a guy came over to my table and asked if he could sit down. This, of course, is not an unusual occurance in this country. Quite often I have had my study interrupted by someone who wants to practice his or her English. Just this morning, a nice little girl sat down at my table and introduced herself. After introductions, though, she ran out of things to say and rather sheepishly walked away. I had tried to help the situation by asking a couple simple questions, but that didn't help, because she couldn't understand me. I tried repeating one of the questions in Chinese, and she answered me in English, "yes!" But the conversation soon fell apart. She had reached the limit of her English competance. I waved to her as she left--the international language--and she waved back rather shyly. I admire her. If she keeps trying, she has great potential, because she is young.

This guy I was talking with this evening, though, was really quite conversational, and I was interested in talking with him because he is an elementary teacher in a village near where I am going on Monday. It's actually not that close, but it is in the same region, and the odds are I will be passing through it once or twice. I told him of my interest in rural education. I am concerned that many children in China do not have adequate education because there are not enough teachers. He told me that things had improved considerably in the last two years. He said that the real problem was not a lack of teachers, but a lack of good teachers. I am not surprised by this, because I know from my own research that many teachers in the countryside have only a middle school education. I asked him where he went to university. He told me that he had never been to college. He went to a four year teacher training program directly from middle school. This was interesting to me. He skipped highschool and went directly to teacher training. So he started the program when he was 16, and started teaching elementary school when he was twenty. His dream is to be a high school English teacher. I think he will go beyond that if he maintains such a positive attitude. He is constantly trying to improve his qualifications. This summer, he is attending a special training program here at the university. I am hoping to visit his village before the summer is over.