When you tire of Princess Diaries...

Diaries of Chinese Girls

• Lady of Ch'iao Kuo: Warrior of the South, China 531 A.D.
By Lawrence Yep (Scholastic 2001)

• An Ocean Apart: The Gold Mountain Diary of Chin Mei-ling
By Gillian Chan (Scholastic Canada 2004)

• Ma Yan's Diary: The Daily Life of a Chinese Schoolgirl
By Ma Yan (Published in French as Le Journal de Ma Yan by Hachette Editions, France 2003)

Diaries are a popular means with which to tell a story these days; witness the success of the fictional likes of Adrian Mole and Bridget Jones, and, of course The Princess. Diaries can be used to not only to entertain, but to educate as well, and talented authors are now inventing fictional diaries of actual historical figures as a way of giving readers a history lesson. But non-fiction personal accounts in diary form are as popular as ever — who has not heard of the Diary of Anne Frank? These diaries of three young Chinese girls — both fiction and non-fiction — each bring to light, in dramatically different ways, part of the Chinese experience through the ages.

Lady of Ch'iao Kuo: Warrior of the South, China 531 A.D.
Well-known and much loved author Lawrence Yep, a third-generation Chinese American, has recreated the life of a Chinese heroine, Princess Red Bird of the Hsien people, in 6th century Southern China. Her diary covers four critical months of her life, when her father, the king of the Hsien people, is killed by the neighbouring enemy, called the Dog Heads. Princess Red Bird, only 16 years old, discovers she has a talent for diplomacy, and skillfully leads her people to success.

The author said that the most difficult thing about writing the story was the amount of research it took to authentically illustrate China at the time, and the life of a royal girl. In doing so, he developed a character that is feisty and brave — and although this kind of girl may be someone we are more familiar with in this day and age, it was not the norm in a time and place that told girls and women to stay silent. Princess Red Bird stepped up when she was needed, and is a deserving role model.

An Ocean Apart: The Gold Mountain Diary of Chin Mei-ling
This is the diary of Chin Mei-ling, a young girl, new immigrated to Canada and living with her father. She lives in Vancouver’s Chinatown district, and the time is 1922, when Chinese people were often discriminated against not only by neighbours, but by official Canadian government policies. Mei-ling is a hard worker, and much of her hard work is in response to her difficult and confusing life. She and her father both work in order to earn enough money to bring her mother and little brother to Canada. Not only must they try to earn the cost of passage, but they are worried about an impending act of parliament, a ‘head tax’ on Chinese immigrants which was meant to discourage Chinese immigration to Canada, and which threatens to split the family in two.

In her diary, Mei-Ling reveals all her feelings about the racism and the bullying at school, while at the same time trying to fit in a place that is between two cultures; that of her traditional Chinese family, and that of her new country, Canada. She must also deal with the fears and anxieties that her father holds, stemming from the disappointments and difficulties he, and all the other Chinese immigrants, have had to face in Canada. Mei-Ling tries to understand his suspicions of Miss MacDonald, from the local church, who wishes to help Mei-ling with tutoring and gifts of used clothing. As for herself, Mei-ling is simply grateful for her neighbour’s generosity. In the end, Mei-ling writes of her hopes for the future, and for the arrival of her mother and brother. But the conclusion of Mei-ling and her family’s story is not clear. Do her mother and brother come to Canada. Are the family reunited? Read it and see.

Ma Yan's Diary: The Daily Life of a Chinese Schoolgirl
This is the true diary of Ma Yan, a young girl living in a remote village called Zhang Jia Shu in Ningxia province in China. Ma Yam wrote in her diary how distraught she was because her parents did not have enough money to keep her in school. That was three years ago, when Ma Yan was 13 years old. She wrote the diary because it was a school assignment at the boarding school in Yuwang where she studied. In May of 2001, a group of visitors came to the school, and someone gave her diary to the visitors to read, along with a letter Ma Yan had written to her mother, pleading to stay in school.

Pierre Haski, Beijing correspondent for the French publication Liration read it, and wanted to help. He gave the Ma family a small gift of money and thought that would be the end of it. But after he wrote about their plight in Liration in January of 2002, people began to send money. Then Ma Yan’s diary was translated and published in France, to wide acclaim. This diary was originally published in French and has sold over 50,000 copies. After taking the Paris Book Fair by storm, it was soon translated into Italian Swedish, Dutch, Japanese, Greek, Spanish and Portuguese. It was also published in Taiwan. It will soon be published in England by Virago Press.

Because of the publication of her diary, Ma Yan and her family now have enough money for her schooling and many other necessities of life that they could not afford before. Ma Yan and Haski, who edited the book, have given 25% of their royalties to the Association for the Children of Ningxia, which was set up to assist the children of Ma Yan’s home province continue their education.

Who is your most memorable teacher?

"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops."
--Henry Brooks Adams

This quotation, from well-known American historian and author Henry Brooks Adams, tells us that our teachers can have a major influence on our lives; almost as much--if not more--than our family members and close friends.

Have you ever had a teacher that had a long-lasting effect on you? Did they inspire you to follow a certain course of study? Did they influence your decision to enter into a career that you may not have otherwise considered? Maybe their warmth and encouragement, or their teaching or leadership skills, served as a model to you in how you act with others. Many people can tell wonderful stories about teachers they had, and the lessons they learned from them; lessons not only about the subject being studied, but life lessons as well. Maybe you have such a story, about a teacher who had a positive influence on you. I have such a story, although it may not seem like it at first.

Mr Smith was my social studies teacher in sixth grade. One day, we were talking about occupations. We were talking about the usual occupations, so easily segregated by gender, at least when I was a girl: doctor, nurse, teacher, fireman, policeman, etc. One student, a boy, said that only men can be doctors, and another student, a girl, disagreed. Yet another student piped in, saying, “But men are better at being doctors.”

Mr Smith listened to all this, then he asked us, “Name one thing a women can do better than men.”

The classroom became quiet then; the mumblings of all the students had stopped. Finally, one girl behind me spoke up.

“Cook?” she said, weakly. It sounded more like a question.

Mr Smith looked at the girl and smiled, but it was not a nice smile. He lifted his foot onto his chair in front of him and put his arm on his knee, leaning towards his students. “Who are the best chefs in the world?” he said. “Men. Who are the best cooks in the world? Men.” And then he said something that has stayed with me for all this time…

“Men are better than women at everything.”

* * *

There was a feeling deep inside me when I heard my teacher utter those seven words. It was a feeling that I can remember to this day; a jumble of hurt feelings and embarrassment, and also the sense that what I was hearing was wrong in a very basic way. The voice inside me was telling me that the information my teacher was trying to teach me that day was incorrect. And that, even though he was my teacher, it didn’t mean he was always right. Of course now, as an adult, I know that people in authority do not always do what is right, and that they may have personal or political reasons, or agendas, to try and tell us the things they do.

I have no idea why my sixth grade teacher felt compelled to tell his students that “men are better than women at everything”. When I think about the incident now (which isn’t often) I might ask myself “Hmmm, did he have a rocky marriage?” But more often, I will simply dismiss his speech as a bit of unprofessionalism; he probably didn’t think what he was saying was such a big deal. But to me, an impressionable 11-year-old girl, the impact was profound. In an instant I knew he was wrong to have said it. It my heart I knew it wasn’t true. I also knew that my teacher lost my respect that day.

That sixth grade teacher taught me an important life lesson, that’s for sure. He taught me that I do not have to accept the idea that women cannot do things as well as men. I have told this to my two daughters, and even though they are only 5 years old and 2 years old, they know they can grow up to be astronauts, doctors, dancers…whatever they want to be.

I don’t automatically believe what I am told by people in influential positions, either. And even though my oldest daughter is only five-years-old, I have already told her more than once to “question authority” (except my own parental authority, of course!). She knows she should listen to what people have to say, of course, but then she needs to think about things and decide for herself. Maybe she is the only child in her class who knows what that means. It makes me very proud.

I have Mr Smith, my inadvertent “most memorable teacher”, to thank for that.

Are YOU a Global Nomad?

Hello there. I've written this article about today's fastest-growing youth sub-culture — Third Cuture 'Kids' -- or Global Nomads. This is about my friend Emily. I'm sure you can relate...

Third Culture Kids: Coming of age in a global society

Seventeen-year-old former DB resident Emily St Denny can be forgiven for being a little unsure of ‘who’ she is; the chronology of her life reads like a flip through an atlas. “Born in Beijing, two years in Yugoslavia (where my sister was born), then three years in Kenya. At the age of eight we moved to Hong Kong where I spent seven years of my life. Two-and-a-half years ago we moved back to France and this is where we still are. There are plans to study in England next year, or maybe Scotland...” And there’s more: her mother is French, her father is American, and she has one more sister who hasn’t had a peripatetic life, and often wonders what her oldest sister’s concerns about identity are all about. Welcome to the world of a ‘Third Culture Kid’.

This term (shortened to TCK) was coined in the 1960s by Drs. Ruth and John Useem, who used it to define the experience of primarily immigrant children growing up between two cultures: their culture of ‘origin’ (or that of their parents), and the place they were currently living. In today’s global society, the TCK term also refers to children who have traveled a lot and who are ‘culturally blended’; familiar with many cultures and not as familiar with the culture of the parents. It has been said that Third-Culture Kids represent the single fastest growing population in the world today.

When asked how she views herself, in terms of culture, Emily replies, “No culture and all cultures at the same time. I have been influenced by the places I've known and the people I've met and come to love, still there isn't enough of one specific culture to give it a specific origin. I think there are two parts to what has built up my culture: the first is that I've traveled and thus have seen what else there is, that aspect of my life has broadened my mind; the second is that even when stationed for a long time (seven years in HK) I haven’t given up on what I know. Living in Asia doesn't make you forget Africa and now, even in Bordeaux, I'll never forget any of the places I've traveled to.”

Different times in the growing-up years of a TCK will have a different effect. For example, when talking about the problem TCKs can face ‘fitting in’, Emily describes her time in Hong Kong (and living in the expat enclave of Discovery Bay) with fondness. “Hong Kong is such an international city that where I came from didn't affect my ‘fitting in’, since after all, no one in my surroundings was entirely from Hong Kong. The fact I spoke both French and English made my integration a lot easier. Hong Kong is so full of foreigners makes it simpler to fit in. Living in DB especially makes fitting in for an English-speaking person easy as pie.”

But returning to her mother’s home country of France, which Emily knew would probably be her ‘last stop’ before adulthood, brought up real concerns. Even after two years in Bordeaux, Emily says “I am a stranger in France, I speak the language, eat the food and pay in Euros but France is simply an intermediate place I have to be simply because I'm not old enough to leave yet. I said that fitting in Hong Kong was easy and I believe that was so because I was inserted at a young age and my friends where still with me as the years went by. Now I realise that at every important age, every important stage of socialisation I ever had was cut short by either my moving to another country or even simply changing schools. Now at the age of 17, I must have the social capacity of a 10 year old. I don't fit in because what ever ‘me’ had worked in HK doesn’t work here…There are simply certain aspects of the French that I cannot comprehend and that sometimes gets the wires crossed.” On the surface, this last remark seems remarkable given that Emily’s mother is French!

Leslie Lewis, a Hong Kong-based psychologist and counselor who has made TCK study her passion, says that it quite common for parents to minimize their children’s sense of confusion regarding where they fit in. “Expat parents assume that their own culture is their children’s culture. They make a huge mistake in calling, for example, the UK ‘home’. They make plans to spend each summer at ‘home’. They don’t understand that their children have different ideas about what ‘home’ is.” Lewis says this problem comes up in different ways. For example, when it is time to leave a place, parents will often minimize the present place of residence in order to have their children look forward to a new beginning. In doing so, the parents are weakening their child’s sense of identity since so many formative experiences will have happened to that child in the place the parents are now trying to play down.

Emily explains her sense of home thus: ‘Moving around has taken away any chance of a stable home. When I was told we were moving again, I was told it was to settle down, that the house we'd live in would probably be the last house my parents would have. Now only three years into our stay not only am I probably going to move, but my parents too are itching to leave to a warmer place. I have no home. I move to a place and live there only in wait for a new one. I know France isn't the place I want to be ‘home’, at least Bordeaux isn't. That is why I believe moving to the UK might help, simply because I keep moving in hope that one day, I'll find the place I'll never want to leave completely again. However I cannot deny that my parents have given me such a love for traveling that even when I'm older, autonomous, I'll probably take nice long vacations in places I've not yet seen.”

“It is not hard to understand the downside of being a TCK,” says Lewis, referring to the common anxieties that any child would face when moving homes, even simply to a different neighbourhood. But these issues are compounded when a child is put into a different culture, and must deal with language issues and cultural differences, and finding themselves in a new place in society. These things are a consideration, regardless of the size of the familiar expat enclave. Lewis suggests that there are various things parents can do to minimize these issues, such as visiting the place ahead of time for a ‘look-see’, or moving a month before school starts, so the children can familiarize themselves with the new place. Perhaps the new school can provide an email ‘buddy’ to correspond with before departure, so the child will have a friend waiting for them.

But Lewis and other TCK experts agree that the advantages of being a ‘child of the world’ outweigh the disadvantages, if the parents can help the children see the opportunity they’ve been given. “I think TCKs would make the best politicians in the world. We need more people like them.” When raised by open-minded parents who see for themselves the opportunities of a mobile lifestyle, TCKs “have a sensitivity; an awareness of cross-cultural issues. They are more accepting and more comfortable internationally. They are well-traveled and multi-lingual, astute and cross-culturally enriched.” Lewis points out that the overwhelming majority of TCKs continue the transient lifestyle as adults. And while it is reported that TCKs have a sense of making and losing friends quickly, Lewis’ studies show that TCKs stay in close contact with the friends they have made along the way. Today, more than ever, TCKs can be reminded that, while they may not identify with any one culture, they are a part of the growing ‘culture’ of people the world over, who feel at home in many places, and consider themselves a part of all of them.

Parents who may be going through the growing pains of their ’third culture’ child can take heart by the thoughts of Emily’s recollections about her final move into adulthood. “My family life is hectic. Since we moved around so much, my younger sister (aged 14) and I were moved up a grade. This made us both grow up faster... My youngest sister, has spent more time in French school that in the English system and can be considered a full-fledged French person. Also we have to take into account the fact that we moved when all three children were at a ‘tender’ age, not making us any easier to manage. My mother, who is French, is perfectly at home and although my dad speaks with an accent, he has made his place where we are.”

“We adapt. That is what we've always done. It's become the basic survival capacity of the family, so apart from maybe making our teenage crises worse than where they could have been, my family has survived the moving. Actually it has more than survived, my family has thrived on it. We know more than the usual person; we can take steps back and think about everything we've seen, every new place we moved to can be considered a blessing. The travel has largely broadened my sight, it has made me perhaps wiser than certain other children my age—different certainly—and perhaps that's what stops me from being the social ‘whatnot’ I once wished to become. It has helped me understand certain things and filled me with compassion because I've seen what goes on in Africa, the misery and the filth. It fills me with pride — childish perhaps—because I've seen a dragon dance and walked on the Great Wall. It has made me ‘me’ and even when I'm stationed somewhere for a while, my traveling still helps. It has sharpened my curiosity and unleashed my dreaming. I feel truly lucky to know what most others don’t. I think my life will forever be dictated by my memories of travel and shaped by future voyages.”

A “Rare” Find?

I have to tell you something! While browsing the shelves at my local bookseller, Paddyfield (in the ‘bricks-and-mortar’ shop on Hennessy Road, not the online shop) I came across a first edition copy of How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life.

This novel, you may recall, was recalled by the publisher Little, Brown, because it soon emerged that the author, a young Harvard Student named Kaavya Viswanathan, had ‘borrowed heavily’ several chunks of prose from another book by well-known ‘chic-lit’ author Megan McCafferty.

Viswanathan apologized wholeheartedly, saying that she read McCafferty voraciously and, in her teens, was a fan. What must also be considered is the fact that she was assisted in the creation of the manuscript by a ‘book packager’ which specialized in teen fiction. The book, as I say, was recalled, and rightly so. But we are left to wonder if the young promising author will ever be able to — or be given the chance to — make up for this transgression, whether or not it was intentional.

As for myself, I like to think I am not riding on another person’s misfortune. But, as I say, the book was recalled and those who had bought it were even asked to bring it back to shops for a refund … in the United States. Somehow, I came across one lone copy on a bookshop shelf way over here in Hong Kong. I snapped it up. It cost HKD 180, but I have checked the Internet and see that some people are already selling their copies for over USD 50. I recently read in the South China Morning Post about the burgeoning trade here in old and rare books. Now I know that a first edition of The Hobbit, printed in 1937, recently sold for USD 65,000 and a first edition of Orwell’s 1984 went for USD 26,500.

Such books are worth much more if they are in ‘like new’ condition. I left the shop, breathless with my rare find. I couldn’t wait to get home and put my new book on the shelf. I didn’t even crack the spine. When my two young daughters are grown up and need to start university, I’ll take down the story of Opal Mehta and see how much it is worth.