China Two - Text
Subject is Chinese male, born (1974) and raised in the An Hui Province in the Southeast of China. He is currently a Ph.D. student in Anthropology at Harvard University. He grew up in a small farming village with a population of around 300 people located about 350 miles west of Shanghai. His parents were also born and raised in the same village. The subject is the 3rd of 4 children. He left his village at the age of 17 to attend pre-college military training, in Shijiazhuang. He began his university studies at Peking University in Beijing at age 18. He is the first person in his family and possibly the first person in his village to attend college. After college he stayed at Peking University for three years of graduate study before coming to Harvard University in 1999. He talks about growing up in his village and the difficult path that led him to graduate studies in the United States. Recorded by Rebekah Maggor, September, 2005.
Running time 00:08:18.
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
(Uh) I was born in 1974 (um) in Chaohu city, An Hui Province. So, as you may know that China now has thirty provinces, so, An Hui is one of them. (Um) And Chaohu city is kind of a small city. So, but I, I grew up in the countryside and (uh) the place is (uh) about, I would say, 400 miles to Shanghai and (uh). When I was young I worked in a farm, so my parents, so actually (um) my family background is kind of pretty poor. For several generations, as I know, that they have all worked in a farm and the Chinese situation’s different from the American. Here, like for the farmers you have very, very large farm and you work…people farm by use (uh) by using machines, but in China we just use hands and we use plowers, so it’s very different situation, and the plowers in China’s very, very small compare – in comparison to here. So (uh) so, basically when I was young I had to go farming with my parents I think (uh) as I remember maybe from I was six or seven years old. So, so, like every summer it’s very, it was very, extremely hot in the, in, in the area where I grew up. I think if in the Fahrenheit? Fahrenheit (uh) it should be more than like 105 about that hot, that, that hot, you have to, you had to go to farm every day during the summer, so, (uh). I think (uh) I didn’t go to like any kindergarten (uh). I think in China, in China in the cities people are student, they go to, when they are young they go to kindergarten, but I never had that kind of a chance. I still, actually, the other day, about the past weekend, I went to visit a friend of mine. She has like four, she has two twins and they have a lot, a variety of toys and when I was there I tried to play with those small children because I think the toys were, to me it’s still the, kind of the first time for me to, like, to use, to, to play with those toys, because when I was young I didn’t have any toy to play with. So, and, I didn’t go to kindergarten. I think I remember that I went to the primary school when I was (uh) five years old? Cause 1979. So I started from the first grade and then it took me five years to finish the primary school and in 1984 I went to the middle school. I, I should say that when I was four I wanted to go to school – I don’t know why. I remember that, at that point I just wanted to study. And when I was (uh) at four I tried to persuade my parents to allow me to go to school and they led me to school and, but the, the head, the, the schoolmaster didn’t allow me to register because he said that I was too young, so (laughter), so, so I think then the schoolmaster actually he gave me a very small blackboard and some chalks. So then I went back to try and my mom, when she was young she worked as a primary school teacher for a couple years, so she taught me like (uh) the kind of basic calculation and like some very simple Chinese characters before I actually ended up in the primary school when I was five.
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY PETE CROSS, 14 JULY, 2008