I Will Stand Up
By Samtsogye (Whitney)
Samtsogye is from Xiahe County,
Gannan prefecture, Gansu Province, China. She is currently pursuing an Associated degree in English from Qinghai Normal University Nationalities Department's English Training Program.
Last summer, I went to visit a friend who is a teacher in Tibetan primary school. One day while I was with her at the school, a pretty young Tibetan girl ran breathlessly up to us, a silver book clamped tightly under her arm. Her eyes were swollen and it was obvious that she had been crying. Before she could talk to us, a tall dark man came chasing after her, scolding her , “ You nosy rat, you coot, why don't listen to me? I've already found a good match for you. I'm your father, listening to me is always right!"
“But father," she implored. "I really want to study. I like reading books. I promise I won't let you down. Trust me. I beg you, please let me continue going to school, ” as she begged for her father's support, tears streamed down her face.
“Fool," he scoffed as he grabbed her delicate arm and dragged her towards home. "Going to school is a waste of time and money. Good girls stay at home and help their parents. Let's go.”
Being women, my friend and I understood this young woman's difficult situation and wanted to help her. We immediately ran up to the father and said , “ Please let her go to school. Education is not a waste. It is the key to getting rid of poverty and getting access to more opportunities in life.”
The father turned around and stared at us furiously, "Shut up," he fumed. "It's none of your business. She is my kid.” And they both went away.
I was astonished and I sympathized with the little girl. Meanwhile, my own family popped into my head. I thanked the Buddha for giving me loving and perceptive parents who, unlike the stranger that I met that day, have supported me in my education and in making my own decisions. Even in the most challenging situations, my family urged me to continue studying. They broke with traditional expectations for women and let me stick to my aims. Despite the way that the villagers felt about female students, my parents insisted on supporting me. Their love and support has taught me the importance of going to school and of being a responsible and confident person.
I had a golden childhood because of my family. As a girl, my birth was very different and special compared with most of my peers. My birth differed from that of other girls in the village because my family wished for a daughter. Especially, my sunny mother dreamed of having a daughter. She spent precious morning time during her pregnancy to pray to the birth god to have mercy on her and grant her a girl. Most people in the village did not think this way. When a girl was born, most families make the girl stay at home and find a husband as quickly as they can. None of them considered sending their daughters to school.
But I was different; my birth was welcomed among my three elder brothers. I fulfilled my parents' dream. Therefore, I became their treasure. My parents listened to me as much as they possibly could and my brothers never stopped treating me like a child who always needed to be taken care of. Therefore, I cried for school bags, colorful books with pictures, the popular milk candies, oranges, and chocolates a lot. Since then, I have had a nickname, “Milk Crier,” and I still have it even today.
When I was little kid, I knew going to school was the right decision. Whenever I saw the village brothers who carried school bags and sang, “I am going to the school, and I will never be late…” and heard my other friends brag they that would go to schools when it was the time to go, I admired them, I even envied them. I thought that I would not have a chance to attend a school in this life because I was a girl.
In my village, most of the people looked down on girls and said that they are debts for the families. Most people thought that it was useless to send girls to school because, in my village, women do the most work, and do not have time to go to school. They are busy the entire year, but they are not powerful in their families. In my own family, my sister-in-law is the busiest of all. In the winter and spring, she gets up very early, about 4 o'clock, to milk the yaks, and then she has to go to the far distant mountain to collect yak-dung. It takes six or more hours to go back and forth on foot. When she is finally finished she returns home very late, but she still has to prepare the dinner for the family, despite her fatigue. The next day, she has to go to the town to sell the yak-dung. In summer and fall, after she milks the yaks, she carries the milk for nine kilometers from the pasture to the home. Then, she makes yogurt and butter, and then she walks four kilometers to sell the yogurt and butter to the town people. She returns home and works on the farm a little, and then goes to the pasture again. This kind of life cycle has been "enjoyed" by almost all my village sisters. They exert so much, but for very little reward.
Fortunately, my family did not think this way, and I was lucky to become the first girl in my village who had ever attended school. Although my family did not have very much money, my mother wanted my first day at school to be special and so she dressed me in the latest fashion, which was a silk covered lambskin Tibetan robe. Neither my peers nor my brothers had ever possessed this kind of expensive clothing. Once school started, my family paid a lot of attention to my studies. Even though both of my parents are illiterate, they both checked my homework every day to make sure that I had completed it. They were overjoyed every time when I made high marks on my exams, and then they treated me by buying me nice clothes or interesting toys.
My parents always felt that an education is important for children, no matter how poor and harsh the conditions are. This taught me to be more responsible. The more my parents were nice to me and supported my education, the more I felt a heavy burden on my shoulders. I felt that the only way to return my parents' limitless support was to study extremely hard. I studied twice as much in comparison to my other classmates in the school. During the weekends, every student went to the park or went shopping; only I was left in the dorm, studying. I never betrayed my “friends,” my books. As a result, I was the one of the best students in my school. When people spoke about studying, I was always mentioned. The teachers praised me, and the students wanted to be my friends.
I was very happy in school; however, when the holidays came, I was both happy and sad. I enjoyed visiting my family, who were almost 20 kilometers away from my school, but I feared asking for money from my parents when the new semester started. At that time, I cried and sometimes decided to stop attending school to help them earn more money. But my parents never agreed with me. They went to many households to borrow money. My father is a tent maker. He always concentrated on the tents, which hurt his eyes and now he cannot see very far. Making one good quality and beautifully designed tent takes one entire year. Sometimes, when we are lucky, we can sell a square tent for between 6000 and 7000rmb.This is the only large income that my family makes. Unfortunately, this amount of money pays for my tuition.
No matter how difficult the life condition was, my parents insisted on supporting me through school, even when it jeopardized my family's welfare. One cold, dark night in 1998, I watched in terror as a shabby truck carried my sick mother to the nearest city of Lanzhou . My mother had contracted tuberculosis, and the doctor said that she had to get surgery to cure the disease. The news was like a clap of thunderbolt for my family. The news hit me especially hard, because I knew that my mother had contracted the disease while working to pay for my tuition.
My mother is a traditional Tibetan woman. She works extremely hard for our family and she has sacrificed everything of hers for us. At the age of nineteen, while picking up a heavy load, she suffered a hip injury from which she has never fully recovered. Her hip problem makes it difficult for her to walk, but she walks miles everyday anyway, and never utters a single complaint. For years, she has always dressed in her tattered old Tibetan robe. She eats very simple food. In order to help raise money for my brothers' and my tuition, she sold dried yak dung everyday to the local townspeople. Each day, she carried yak dung and water in her “best friends" basket and bucket all her life. The hard work weakened her body and made her more susceptible to diseases like TB. Her sickness became a disaster for the whole family. My father spent all the money he had saved from herding sheep and yaks. In addition, we borrowed a huge amount of money from the bank. Poverty plagued every corner of my family. Our going to school was threatened severely. A lot of my relatives suggested my father let me quit going to school in order to save the family from a financial disaster. They said sending a girl to school is vain and worthless, and a mistake.
Luckily for me, my father and mother did not pay attention to the other villagers' advice. They knew that without education people would be like limp yaks, which could not walk, and therefore, were never able to catch up with others. They hoped that their children would not be like them, herdsmen and herdswomen. They found a solution - send me to Zhongzhuan School (students in that school are only required to study two years, then they can find a job, and also the school asks for less pay than colleges) so that I could start to earn money earlier and take up the burden of family with my other family members sooner. Of course, the job I was supposed to get would be simple and with low payment.
I dreamed about going to college later. But at that time I was deadly sure it was a big fancy dream for me, because my mother‘s illness meant my family could not support all three children. They owed much money to their relatives. The idea of dropping out of school tormented us three siblings. We were all sure that any day, we would have to drop out because of our family's condition. One day soon, one of us did - my second brother. My parents let him drop out of the school to become a monk. Then, they had to pay for my tuition only. I now knew that I had to bring them a result worthy of how much they offered me. In fact, I did study all the subjects well in school. Therefore, many students said that I might have a chance to make my dream of going to college come true.
“I can do it.” This sentence plays a very important role in my career as a student, as well as in my every day life. While I was studying at the Zhongzhuan School, one day (I clearly remember it was the first of September, 2002) some teachers from Qinghai Normal University came to pick students to study English at their school and luckily, I was chosen to join their English Training Program (ETP).
When I first came into the English Training Program, I was a quiet, shy girl. I was afraid to ask and answer the questions the teachers asked. I was afraid to talk to my classmates who were from different places. I became more and more silent. Everything was like a heavy burden that just pressed on me and made it difficult to breath.
Another thing was that I could not find a good method for learning English, this strange subject, at the beginning. I hated English classes; I felt I was going into a battle while I was taking English classes. Whenever teachers accidentally asked me questions, I mostly kept silent. However, sometimes I would respond to the teachers' questions, and because of my incorrect answers, the students would all burst into laughter, teasing me after class. They looked down on me all the time. Because of this, teachers paid less attention to me and of course, I was not among their favorite students. I was totally depressed. I had been a top student before, but I was suffering. I could not bare that situation any longer.
One Saturday morning, I packed my luggage and phoned my parents saying that I was coming home. I told them about my bitterness. I imagined that my parents would say I made a good decision. On the contrary, I received an unexpected answer, “Stay there, never give up, we trust you are the best.” Just a few weeks later, to my surprise, they came to the big city of Xining to visit me from the distant, rural grassland without forewarning.
At that time, I felt very sad and sorry to have made such trouble for them that caused them to come from very far away to visit me. My parents' action made a special spirit arise from inside of me. Whenever the family and I had problems, my parents solved them. They are illiterate, but they could find me in this big city they had never seen. However, I at least had been studying for 12 years. Compared to my parents, my situation was much better. I was educated and I know Chinese and Tibetan very well. I knew I could learn English as well.
From that day on, I tried to communicate with other students and answer every question that teachers asked. I, myself, was always reading the different books in the school library, soaking up all the new information. I tried being brave and asked many questions. I was not afraid if I was wrong or if my classmates would laugh. They no longer laughed at me; they began to help me. They were very kind to me and explained each question very clearly. Whenever I made progress, my teachers praised me and my parents were also very happy. I enjoyed that moment, which was after two years of studying English in the pre-college program . We took the college entrance exam. Luckily I made a high mark and passed the exam. Then I believed that I could do as much as others do, even better. I do all my homework. I study much harder than others and I have become an outspoken yet easygoing girl, who can speak English.
In college, I have met supportive people who, like my parents, have taught me to be confident. In these three years studying in the ETP, I have met so many amazingly nice and knowledgeable teachers and interesting and helpful classmates. The teachers are not only my teachers, but also my best friends. They encourage me be thoughtful whenever I encounter any kinds of problems. The teachers have not only taught us about academic knowledge and skills, but also shared their own discipline and experiences about how to communicate with others and how to be a good person. When I have difficulty in my studies or in other things, they welcome me to share with them. Their advice has helped to relieve many of my sufferings.
The ETP opened my eyes and mind. Now I am really different from the local women, who are always working, with their faces to the fields and backs to the sky. I can speak English. I enjoy meeting different people, from different places, even different continents. My parents created all of these good things for me .
When I was playing rock games with my little buddies in my far, remote and poor village, I had never thought about attending school. When I entered the Zhongzhuan School in my township town, I did not dare to dream about learning a strange language called English; yet, now I am in this quite developed provincial capital city, communicating with different people from different parts of the world. But I could not have done it without my parents. My mother told me that they are already very proud of having such a daughter like me. Whenever I think of this, a kind of gratitude arises from the bottom of my heart for everything my family has done for me. Now that I am educated, I want to use my skills to help children like the girl I mentioned at the beginning of my story. I will use my example to encourage parents to support their children to go to school. For those who have supported me, I will give my all. When I am called upon to speak up for my family, my community, and myself, I will stand up.
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