China Changing In My Eyes: People, Schools and Landscapes
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Chapter 1 My Grandma: last generation of “small-feet lady” and a role model of determination and perseverance
Going to China for the first time as a 3½-year-old girl was quite an arduous trip. I was very excited to finally visit my relatives after hearing so much about them, but of course, I was nervous, terribly nervous. Although I was yearning to see my Grandma and travel to all the places in my Mom’s childhood, as well as meet some of her old friends, I had no idea what to expect. I could not even speak a complete sentence in Chinese. I mixed the two languages — half English and half Chinese — at home when I spoke to my Mom. How in the world was I going to communicate with the ones I loved?
After getting up at 4 a.m. on an April morning in 1996, and having to transfer flights in Dallas and San Francisco, my Mom and I finally arrived on Chinese soil, in the capital city of Beijing, 26 hours later. Such a long trip is hard for such a young person, so of course I was exhausted and unable to continue the journey to Chongqing, the city where my relatives live. We had to stay in Beijing overnight to allow me to regain energy for one last plane ride before the long-awaited meeting.
The next day, we left the capital for a two-hour flight directly to Chongqing, which is located in the southwestern part of China. As soon as the plane touched down, I became very anxious and couldn’t wait to get out of the stuffy plane and jump into the arms of my family. Right as we stepped off, my Mom started screaming and crying with joy as she saw her entire family and began to run towards them, while I tagged along. My two uncles, my aunts, and my cousins scooped up my Mom and me with open arms and everyone began to cry. I had no time to look around and take in my surroundings; my relatives were around me, smiling and talking in fast Chinese to my Mom and me. It was the first time I had ever met them, and it had been eight years since my Mom had seen them. There was happiness and joyful laughter with tears of elation all mixed in. My Mom and I were surrounded with family love. While my Mom was enjoying her happiness, I wanted to be with her all the time. However, it seemed that my Mom did not understand my clinging and felt completely comfortable letting me go off with my cousins.
It was quite a distance from the airport to my Uncle’s house and it took over an hour for us to travel there. My Uncle’s house was located downtown and the airport was far from the city. It was too expensive to take a taxi directly to the apartment, so we all first took a bus and then switched to a taxi to my Uncle’s house, where my Grandma was waiting. It was a 10-story apartment building, located right in the center of downtown Chongqing, convenient to everywhere: grocery stores, restaurants, and shopping centers. My Uncle’s apartment was on 7th floor and there was no elevator inside the building. The only way of getting up was by stairs. Looking at the steep stairs made my legs shake uncontrollably. I had never in my life seen such steep stairs, nor had I climbed so many flights of stairs all at once before now. I was definitely not ready to climb these stairs on my own. I stopped and turned to my Mom to ask her to help carry me up.
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About the Book
China Changing In My Eyes: People, Schools and Landscapes is written from the unique perspective of a high school student, Sonia M Chen. Sonia visited China six times between 1996 and 2007. Her observations, through the use of interviews and travel to places within China, were well documented. Sonia portrayed the life journeys of a group of ordinary Chinese people, including her family and acquaintances, which range in age from five to 95, bear the marks of remarkable changes in China for the past 100 years, especially over the past three decades. She acutely captures distinct differences in school systems and educational approaches between both countries, using her own experiences in the US and her keen observations in China. She also vividly describes the landscapes that she visited, like the Yuanmingyuan, the Three Gorges of Yangtze River, the Giant Panda Reserve and Institute, or southwestern hilly city, Chongqing, which signaled China’s physical transformation and rapid modernization. Overall, from her stories, readers can see a window of China and realize how China is becoming a dynamic, modern country where change and perseverance exist side by side.
About the Author
Sonia M Chen, a senior at Suncoast Community High School in Riviera Beach, Florida, was born and raised in America, but her heritage traces directly back to China. She loves both countries sincerely and has a deep desire to promote a mutual understanding between the two countries and two cultures. China Changing In My Eyes: People, Schools and Landscapes is her second book that shares her fascinating and incomparable experiences in China to an American and world audience. Her first book, on the other hand, introduces her own childhood journey in America to a Chinese audience about learning and growing up in America. The book, in both English and Chinese, is entitled, “An Incredible Childhood Journey: The Educational Experience of an American-Chinese Girl”.