Article 15: I Want To Go To School

Illustrations by Ellora Reddy

Text by Ying Kong (translated and adapted from Zhangs Yawen’s Autobiography Battle for Life)

Yawen was born and raised in a poor and illiterate family in the mountains of Northeast China. There is no electricity, running water, or friends to play with. There is no school in her village. She can neither read nor write, but she always dreams of marrying a husband in a city like one of her sisters so that she can leave this mountain village.

At the age of ten, Yawen makes a trip to the city with her family. Her father wants to find a job in the city so that Yawen can go to school there. Coming to the city, she becomes curious about everything: “How are the streets lit without fire?” “How does water run out of a tap?” Yawen goes out to check who turns on the street light.

For the first time she is allowed to go to school. She loves school. Unfortunately, the family can’t continue to stay in the city because her father has no skills to survive in the city.

Yawen doesn’t want to leave the city because she wants to study at school. She begs her mother to let her stay with her relatives in the city but her mother drags her away.

Back in the mountains, Yawen feels sad and wonders when she can leave again to go to school like she did in the city.

Yawen’s father is determined to stay in the mountains. He builds a shack for the family to live in. It is only nine square meters. Their home is isolated from other villagers with mountains on three sides. Yawen even does not know how many households there are in the village. To get to the closest neighbor, the family has to go along a mountain path, through a forest of thick woods, and a stretch of shrubs.

The kang (a wall-to-wall mud bed) takes half of the living space. Yawen’s father, mother, sister, and Yawen herself all sleep on the same kang. During the day, a low table serves as a dining table for the family. Yawen uses it as her writing desk, reading the books she used at school in the city.

Yawen and her family go to a village gathering in the commune office building. It is her first time of seeing the village kids. The kids are idling, but when they see Yawen’s sister who was born with a hunchbacked, they start yelling and shouting: “Me-do-do-fa-me-la, what a funny hunchback your sister has! Going out and falling over, no way to get up. It serves the hunchback right!”

Little Yawen can’t bear the insults. She rushes at the boys. A boy punches her in the nose. It starts bleeding. Her sister drags her away from the kids. Seeing the bleeding nose, Yawen’s father feels losing his face and scolds her, “You’re the black sheep of the family. You think you’re great and can fight. I think you need more beatings. Wait until we get home.”

The mountain villagers believe in witches. One day Yawen’s father pays an old witch to come to their little shack. The witch looks at Yawen’s hunchbacked sister. Then she closes her eyes and murmurs something that Yawen can’t understand. Yawen hates witches.

That night, lying in bed beside her, Yawen hears a mysterious swishing sound. She quickly opens her eyes and finds the room very dark. She sees her parents sitting on the floor by the low table. There is a candle on it. She hears her father murmuring to the candle, “Fox Spirit, I need to ask you one more thing: I want you to help marry off my big daughter.”

“The night before her sister is about to leave to be married off to a person in another village, Yawen cries and cries. Her sister tries to calm her down, “My poor little sister, don’t worry about me. I can’t live off the family anymore. That is why Ba is marrying me off to someone I’ve never met. But you must go to school. If you go to school, you can change your life and not have to marry like me.”

After her sister leaves home, Yawen begs her parents to send her to school. Her mother sighs, “My silly girl, where do you think you can go to school with all the mountains around us?”
Yawen burst into tears, “But Ma I want to go to school.”
Wiping tears from her daughter’s face, the mother said, “In the mountains no child can go to school. Be a good girl!”

“Why can’t I go to school,” Yawen asks.
The mother tells her, “Once it gets dark, wolves start prowling. If you go to school beyond the mountains on your own, what if you are eaten by wolves? Ma will regret your death!”
“I’m not afraid of wolves. Please let me go to school. Otherwise I’ll go back to the city and continue my school there.” Yawen’s mother acquiesces and agrees to talk to her husband about the issue.

Yawen’s mother says to her husband, “We have to let Yawen continue her schooling. Otherwise she will try to go back to the city.”
Yawen’s father sighs, “I’m afraid that she might meet bad men in the woods. I must go with her in the morning before dawn.”
When she knows that her father lets her go to school, Yawen imagines herself playing on the swing at school. She says to herself, “I will go to school and I will leave the mountain for the city.”

Yawen’s father knows that it takes Yawen at least two hours to walk there. He also hears the story about the bad man in the woods waiting for preys. He says to Yawen, “You must come home straight from school.”
The night before going to school, Yawen’s mother prepares her shoes, clothes, school bag, and lunch for her, and tells her to come home before dark.
The first day when Yawen leaves home for school, it is still dark. Her father follows her from far behind.

Remembering her father telling her about the school location, Yawen first goes along the mountain pass. After passing through a forest of woods, she sees a wide stretch of marsh.

Past the marsh is a gorge with a river beneath it. Above the gorge, there is a narrow footpath carved into the mountainside.

Two hours later, the girl finally comes to an old tumbledown thatched cottage on a hill. That is the one-room school.
When she arrives at school, she discovers that it is also a poor shack.

Little Yawen is happy again. She leaves home for school before dawn and comes home immediately after school.
However, one day she plays with her friends after school and forgets about the time.

Not long after she leaves school, it gets darker and darker. When it becomes very dark, the wolves’ howling makes Yawen’s hair stand on end. Any sound from the mountains terrifies her.

Suddenly a man comes to Yawen from the woods. She becomes horrified and shouts loudly, “Ma, I’m here.” Then she hears a wolf howling. Before she figures out what happens, the man disappears into the woods.

Yawen waits until she can’t hear anything. She runs to home to tell the story to her parents. They decide that she must stop going to school. Yawen cries more. Her sister’s words are ringing in her ears, “if you go to school, you can change your life.”

Yawen even imagines herself whispering to the candle as her parents do, “Fox Sprit, please ask my father and mother to let me go to school. I don’t want to marry any man in the mountain.”

After that incident, Yawen’s father sees her off to school and her mother waits for her at the entrance to the narrow mountain pass. But Yawen does not know that she is being watched over by her parents until one day she hears a pack of wolves howling.

Yawen is so scared that she tries to remember her sister’s words, “You must go to school. You won’t be an illiterate and have to be married off to someone you’ve never met, just like me.”

For the first time, she seems to believe the ghost stories from the old witch. Just before she comes to the narrow mountain path, she sees her mother waiting there.

When they get home, Yawen feels so relieved that she cries. Her mother tells her, “You’re always in my heart.”

For five winters, along the desolate mountain road covered with heavy snow is a string of lonely little footprints. They are left by little Yawen who has fought wild boars, wolves, and sometimes bad people. What do these footprints on this endless mountain road mean for the little Chinese girl?

Zhang Yawen, from a poor and illiterate family in the mountains of Northeast China, now has become a popular writer in China. Her stories have inspired many Chinese to achieve their dreams.

About the Artist: Ellora Reddy showed an interest in drawing from a young age. Throughout high school, Ellora practiced drawing on a new medium called digital art. Over the years, her skills have improved through the feedbacks she received from art competitions. In the 2018 edition of UCN sponsored Language and Arts Festival, she collaborated in a workshop session with Dr. Ying Kong. While Dr. Kong showed the students how to write a short poem to express emotions, Ellora demonstrated how to illustrate the emotional poems in pictures. During the festival, Ellora had the privilege of sharing her artistic talents with high school students. She hopes that her illustration of “I Want to Go to School” is an opportunity to further showcase her artistic talents.

Instructor’s Remarks: Ellora Reddy’s illustration of “I Want to Go to School” is based on an excerpt of my English translation of Zhang Yawen’s autobiography, “Willful and Determined” which was published in Chinese Literature and Culture. As a Canadian student living in Northern Manitoba, Ellora had rarely been exposed to Chinese culture except working part-time in a Chinese restaurant in Thompson. To illustrate a Chinese girl living in Northern China during the 1950s is a big challenge for her in terms of time and space. She started this project by first reading my English translation in December 2017. Two months later, she came up with 25 images based on the story of Yawen’s childhood. I was stunned by her talents, with her imagination and drawing skills. Meanwhile, I also see the Manga influence in her illustrations. Ellora and I worked together for another two months making her illustrations more Chinese than Japanese. In the revising process, Ellora has learnt more about Chinese culture and I learnt more about Canadian understanding of Chinese culture. In the end, I revised my text based on Ellora’s perception of a Chinese girl who is determined to go to school despite all the hardships she encountered during her childhood. (Dr. YIng Kong)