The Diary of Ma Yan
This book is not new, but I’ve just learned about it today on a column in local daily newspaper. The article was written in Mandarin so I went on some google-ings, and Wow! How did I miss this? This girl Ma Yan should be 19 by now, this book contains daily entries of her in year 2001.
Background
Ma Yan was 13 when writing her stunning diary, during that time she and her brother were studying in a boarding school 12.5 miles away from her home, Zhangjiashu Village, NingXia, China. The only transportation available was farm tractor, which charged RMB$ 1 per trip at that time. They did not have the money to travel by it so they took 5 hours to walk back to home during weekends.
Her mother gave them RMB$ 4 per week to spend on meals in the school. RMB$ 4 equals to MYR$ 2, and roughly USD$ 0.60. They could only afford Mantou(a kind of bread for Chinese which flour is the only ingredient), and plain rice.
Some excerpts of the book below are taken from various sources.
#1
We have a week off. Mum said, ‘Honey, there is something I want to tell you…. I’m afraid this is your last time to go to school. You know we cannot afford it if you three kids go to school, because only your father works in other places.’
I said, ‘Then I have to stay at home?’
‘Yes,’ Mum said.
‘What about my brothers?’ I asked.
‘They must continue studying.’
I asked mum why boys can go to school but girls cannot.
‘You are not grown up enough to understand all these until one day you are a mother,’ Mum explained.
This year, I cannot go to school, I’m back to do farm work to support my brothers. I felt like was at school each time I recalled the laughter of my classmates. If only I could go.
#2
This afternoon, when I want to start writing my diary, I can’t find my pen…. I’m distraught
You’re probably going to start laughing. “A pen. What a minor thing to get so distressed about!”
If only you knew the trouble I had to [go through] to get that pen. I saved up my pocket money for two weeks. Some of my comrades have two or three pens, but I had none, and I couldn’t resist buying one.
The difficulties I confronted in getting this pen mirror all my other problems. My mother had given me some money with which to buy bread. For days, I had only eaten yellow rice. I preferred going hungry and economizing so that I could buy the pen. How I suffered for that pen!
A fund has been raised in order to help other kids in NingXia to go to school. The site is at http://enfantsduningxia.uk.over-blog.com/. As of today, Ma Yan is entitled to 25% of the book’s royalties. She’s withdrawing RMB$ 500 per month for her education and family every month.
Ma Yan is just one girl that got lucky, among millions of other kids in the world that can’t afford to go to school.
Sources
http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20041213_1.htm
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/04/19/005503.php
http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=32750&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
This book can be purchased at Amazon.com
