A few reflections on my China days

A few reflections on my China days
一些我在中国的记忆

I spent nearly six of the happiest years of my life in China. From 2001 to 2007 I was a volunteer in China’s northwest, in Ningxia, Guyuan. My original remit was to be an oral English teacher, but gradually, with the collaboration with Guyuan Teachers College (Ningxia Teachers University) we set up China’s Experimental Centre for Educational Action Research in Foreign Languages Teaching.

我在中国渡过了生活中最快乐的六年。从2001年到2007年我是一名在中国西北宁夏固原地区的志愿者。我最初的责任只是做个口语老师，但渐渐地，随着和固原师专（宁夏师范大学）的合作，我们在外国语学院建立了中国教学行动研究试验中心。

I have been a teacher all my life. It is a vocation for me. I believe that it is only through education that we can improve the lot of the human race. I believe passionately that all peoples are equal, and that it is the responsibility for those who have a lot to know it and to take responsibility for it.

我一直从事教育工作。这是我的职业。我相信只有通过教育才能使人类的很多方面都得到提升。我热切地相信人是平等的，而且这是对很清楚这一点的人的责任，也就是来承担这一责任。

Before going to China I was a Middle School teacher of English, German and Psychology. I love teaching. I am passionate about it. Then, I realised that I wanted something more from my life than the very comfortable and sometimes stale processes of education here. I had spent 23 years as a teacher when I knew I wanted something more. I wanted to go to China because it was somewhere I had never dreamed of going to. I knew next to nothing about the country and its peoples. I knew that in the northwest and far west the country wanted to work with foreign teachers in order to update their methodologies. I joined VSO (Voluntary Services Overseas) because their motto: Sharing Skills, Changing Lives really moved me.

在来中国之前我是一名教授英语、德语和心理学的中学老师。我喜欢教书。我对教书充满着激情。然后，我意识到我想从生活中得到更多而不是安于舒适和有些陈旧的教学进程。我教了23年的书才明白自己想得到更多的东西。我想去中国因为这是我以前从未想过要去的地方。我差不多不知道这个国家与它的民族。我知道在西北和遥远的西部中国需要在那里工作以提高教学方法论的外国教师。我加入了VSO(英国海外志愿服务社)因为他们的座右铭是：分享技能，变化的生活真正打动了我。

Gradually, over the five years in Guyuan (and then 6 months in Beijing in VSO’s central office) the foreign languages department and I worked on our action research projects until we were able to publish our work on the internet: www.actionresearch.net/~edsajw/moira.shtml or www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/moira.shtml

渐渐地，在固原的五年中（之后的6个月在北京VSO中心办公室）外语部和我一起进行我们行动研究的计划直到能在因特网上发表我们的研究成果。

When people here ask me what was special about China, I say immediately, every time, it was the people. The generous people, who adopted me into their hearts. The people who treated me with nothing but kindness and consideration. The times I was invited into people’s homes and given their best food and drink, their most treasured photographs brought out to entertain me. Indeed, as far as food and drink were concerned, it didn’t matter if I’d eaten, I was overwhelmed with encouragements to eat still more and still more! Nothing was too much trouble for people. As I explored the countryside I would meet with people who perhaps had rarely if ever seen a foreigner, and yet I was ushered into homes as if I were a long-lost friend. There aren’t really words to describe how good it felt to be there.

当这里的人们问我中国的特别之处，每一次，我都很快说，是那里的人民。这些善良慷慨的人民，他们用诚心接纳我。他们是用友好和关心待我。每次我被邀请去这些人家里做客，他们用最好的食物和饮料招待我，用最珍贵的照片来招待我。确实，不管我还能不能吃，他们都担心我没有吃好，一遍遍得鼓励我再多吃些再多吃些！对他们来说没有觉得麻烦。当我考察乡下时我会碰到一些人即使是碰见一个外国人也不会像他们一般把我像是一个失散很久的朋友一样请到家中。很难用语言表达呆在这儿的感觉又多好。

And then there were the children. I maintain that Chinese children are the most beautiful in the world:

然后这是那儿的孩子。我坚持认为中国的儿童是世界上最漂亮的：

…and I don’t see how anyone could refute that! I gradually became accustomed to many cultural differences, as well as sometimes the sense of being a fish out of water. When I went to a village, the whole village came out to watch! If I went shopping, children would follow me, laughing, pointing out my strange clothes, and if I stopped and looked back, they’d be there in little troops of mischief, but it was all so delightful, so friendly. It was strange for me, though, to be such a centre of attention and sometimes, I found it hard. However, what I learnt was that the people weren’t being nosy – as I had at first felt – but simply curious. It was a fascinated and completely open curiosity. It was, what I believe to be, a huge desire to learn.

而且我相信没人会反对。我逐渐得开始习惯于很多的文化差异，有时感觉就像是鱼儿离开了水一般。当我到一个村庄时，整个村里的人都出来看！如果我去买东西，孩子们会跟着我，笑着，指点我奇怪的衣服，如果我停下来转身看，他们就会站在一伙调皮捣蛋，但这一切都很愉快，很友好。但，这对我而言很奇怪，成为这样一个被观众的焦点，有时我也觉得很不自在。然而，我知道了这里的人们并不像我刚开始觉得那样爱管闲事，而只是出于一种简单的好奇。只是一种很感兴趣而或者说纯粹的公开的好奇。我想它应该是一种强烈的想要获知的渴望。

In Guyuan I learnt a lot about my Western assumptions – my sense of individualism coming always before the community. I saw how many people in China consider themselves in relationship to others, rather than the Western way of seeing oneself as an individual first and foremost. That was the most difficult and also most rewarding aspect of the experience for me. It has changed my outlook on life a lot. Instead of thinking so much as an individual, I find myself seeing things in terms of communities. I saw the loving care with which whole families contributed to the education of a single member of their family. I saw what people sacrificed so that their children could have it better than them.

在固原我意识到我对西部的臆断-是我的个人主义凌驾于了社会之上。我看到了中国的人们是怎样看待他们和别人的关系，是宁愿把别人放在第一位的西部的方式。这是我经历中最困难也是最值得的一方面。它改变了我对生活的很多见解。不再在把个人看得太重，我发现自己开始用大众的角度看问题。我看到了整个家庭带着关爱而为家族中的一员资助教育。我看到人们为了让自己的孩子过得比自己好而奉献自己。

On the day of writing this, the 29^th Olympic Games in Beijing finished. You can bet your life! I was glued to the television for those sixteen years. I felt so proud of China and what she had accomplished. And yesterday, when the Chinese national anthem played, I stood up. All the feelings of being in China, my friends there, my experiences and learning – all rushed back to me. I sang heartily along with the music, so glad that the Games had been so very successful both from a national and an international point of view.

当我写这些时，第29届奥运会在北京闭幕了。你可以打赌，我这十六天是电视机前渡过的。我为中国和她所做到的感到自豪。昨天，当中国国歌奏响时，我站起来了。所有在中国时的感情，那里的朋友，以及我的经历和感受-都涌向了我。我用心来随着音乐演唱，我很为这次的节目能在国内和国际都取得成功而感到高兴。

I love the written language. I never came to learn to speak: I blame this entirely on my own laziness and lack of determination. However, I am working on it now back in England, where I have been since the beginning of last year. I read Agatha Christie novels with relish in Chinese, and when I can hold of them, Tang Dynasty poetry. The first one I found is the one I always come back to:

我喜欢这种书面的语言。我从来没学会怎样朗诵：我将这全怪罪于我的懒惰和缺少坚定的决心。然而，从我去年初回到英国工作时我就一直忙乎这个。我读了阿加莎克里斯汀用中文津津有味写成的小说，当我能读懂它们时，我开始读唐诗。这是第一首也是我经常阅读的一首：

白日依山尽，

黄河入海流。

欲究千里目，

更上一层楼

I think it is because China helped me to see the world in different ways. It’s in my blood now.

我相信这是因为中国以不同方式让我看到了世界。她现在已经融入了我的血液。

One day I will return to China. I cannot at the moment due to personal reasons, but China has planted seeds of belonging in my heart. I must return.

有一天我会回到中国。不会因为目前我个人的原因，而是中国已在我的心中种下了归属的种子。我一定会回来。

Moira Laidlaw, August 2008.