Press Interpreter

02/23/06 -- On New Year's eve 2006, 23 year old Xu Ping, a female village school teacher, looked around the table full of family members. She was on the verge of tears.

Xu Enhuai looked at the unusually mature face of his daughter and said something of deep significance to his three sons: "In the future, when life is good, you absolutely should not forget your older sister."

These words brought back the past four years' of bitter memories for Xu Ping. During Spring Festival 2002, as the oldest daughter, she went out secretly to sell herself in order to pay off the family debts and her brothers' tuition. From that time on, she taught school in the village from Monday to Friday and travelled to the city Saturday and Sunday to sell herself. It was not until two years later when the pressure of remorse, illness and injury were on the verge of destroying her that she ended her career as a prostitute.

At the end of 2005, Xu Ping contacted this reporter by email as well as began posting her story on internet forums like Tianya, 263.net, and Bihaiyinsha. She described the difficult road her heart had taken in its struggle between love of family and feelings of guilt.

These posts were closely followed by the public. Was she an angel or a degenerate devil? How can human beings behave so contradictorily? This reporter has opened an investigation of these questions.

What She Faced as the Oldest Daughter

After some twists and turns, this reporter found Xu Ping's home. It was in a certain south Chinese province by the side of a rural road, a one story house of red tile and boards. White plastic foam boxes were everywhere beneath the roof beams. Her father, Xu Enhuai, explained that on rainy days these were needed to catch leaks from the roof. They didn't have enough resources to fix their aging roof.

Xu Enhuai's oldest son is currently attending college in a big city in North China, his other two sons are in high school. A year's tuition for the three is at least 20,000 Yuan [=2,500 USD]. The second son was in fact admitted to college last year, but since the family could not afford college tuition for two people he chose to retake his final year of high school to wait for his older brother to graduate from college and get a job. The family went into debt by 4000 Yuan in 2005 to pay for tuition, and it has old debts from 1994.

Xu Enhuai's wife, Chen Rong, told the story of the origin of those 200,000 Yuan [=25,000USD] of old debts. In 1994, her husband, filled with hope, borrowed 140,000 Yuan [=17,500USD] from the local "village lending association" to buy a truck. He and his wife ran a banana transport business, but within three to four years high administrative costs and three truck collisions completely defeated this peasant, who did not have the capacity to absorb business risks. In all he owed the "village lending association" 200,000 Yuan. As a result of illness caused by exhaustion, in 1997 his gallbladder was removed. Later, however, he developed liver trouble. He not only went into debt by 100,000 Yuan to pay for medicine, but he is now no longer capable of hard labor.

The huge size of his debts made Xu Enhuai, normally not good at speaking, even quieter. He forced his sick body to work, contracting to farm lichees and bananas.

Even though her days were difficult, the childrens' mother, who could not herself recognize a single character, still beleived that the children could not be allowed to miss school. "Only if you finish your studies will you be able to escape from a life such as our own." As Xu Ping was finishing high school, her three brothers in turn were entering junior high and high school. The penniless Xu Enhuai, gritting his teeth, sold the truck he had purchased for 140,000 Yuan for 10,000 Yuan [=1,250USD] in order to pay tuition for his four children.

Leaning on her mother, Xu Ping cried. She told this reporter that if her parents had not required them to go to school, they would have lived much better. They might have, through hard work, been able to build their own home, like more than a few villagers. "In our village, there is hardly an average family that wouldn't become poorer if they had a child attend college," said Xu Ping. Results of an investigation of the village conducted by this reporter show that even though in the past few years universities have been expanding enrollment, the number of students from this village enrolling in college has not increased. Over the past three or four years, only three or four of the village's students have enrolled in college. Interviews with villagers show that they are unwilling to take on a burden that defies common sense in order to pay tuition costs for their children.

As a result, her parents' sighs increasingly became "a forever unbearable weight on my heart." In 2001, when Xu Ping graduated from high school, she became a substitute teacher at an elementary school. That year, she bought 300 packages of hot pickled mustard and ate them for a semester. She saved as much of her salary as she could to pay for her brothers' tuition.

That year, Xu Enhuai fell ill again. But he was reluctant to spend money on surgery, wanting only to spend his money on his childrens' tuition. But Xu Ping was determined to raise the money for her father's operation. A man in the village who coveted young Xu Ping sent her word that if she spent her first time with him he could lend her 2000 Yuan. "In order to help my father I nearly risked it, but my aunt persuaded me not to and even lent my family money to treat the illness." Recalled Xu Ping in a reply to an email from this reporter.

Before spring festival 2002, the village lending association once again came to collect its debt, threatening to go to court to seize the family home. Xu Ping was distraught, "at that time I was especially worried that the next time the new year came around we would not have a house. My older brother was in his third year of high school, his grades were good and he would certianly be accepted to college. But tuition was at least more than 10,000 Yuan. What was to be done? The pressure was intense. I could find no relief."

An madam helped her to become a prostitute. At the time she told herself "I can't stand my parents' sighs," "so I will take this risk and conceal it from my family." "I thought that maybe in a past life I had incurred a debt to them, so in this life I had to repay it. Moreover, my body was given to me by my parents, so I would use my body to repay the debt I owed them."

The Struggle Between Love of Family and Morality

While Xu Ping recalls these past events, her tone remains calm. It is as if she were telling someone else's story.

The first time she sold herself was to a man not quite 40 years old. As Xu Ping recalls, that day she took a very deep breath and entered the room as if determined to go to her death. "I just closed my eyes tightly, my mind was a blank, just like a puppet's whose job is to be ordered about. Puppets don't feel pain, but my heart, along with my body, ached." Afterward she was paid 300 Yuan. Later, whenever she had to "do business" she would take a deep breath and comfort herself by telling herself "if you're going to die, you're going to die; in any case, it's just for half an hour."

She described her life as "being a devil on Saturday and Sunday and an angel from Monday to Friday." She gave every last cent that she earned to her brothers to pay for school. Every day she ate 50 jiao [=.5 Yuan] of Tofu and 50 jiao of bean sprouts. Her family provided rice. Thus she spent 1 Yuan per day. At that time her "heart was bitter" and she was despised by the community, but she firmly believed that "to be cold is to be bitter but to love is human."

"Only when I was with my students did I find my true self." Xu Ping recalled that once when she was doing a house visit she discovered that a brother and sister of about 10 years old were eating fried rice every day for dinner because their parents were out working. "I felt very bitter about this so I gave them 10 Yuan to buy egg salad." Then there was the student whose feet were bare all day in class. When Xu Ping went to the city one weekend to entertain customers, she bought this child a pair of shoes.

When summer vacation arrived, she would become even more anxious because at the end of summer vacation her three brothers would pay nearly 20,000 Yuan in tuition. At that time even were she not to eat or drink her year's wages would not amount to 4000 Yuan. So over the summer she had to redouble her efforts to secretly prostitute herself in order to earn her brothers' tuition.

In 2003, one of her customers was an engineer of the same age as her father named "Wen." Wen was moved by her experiences and fell in love with her. Every month he gave her 800 Yuan, which let her give up the business. He even celebrated her 21st birthday with her. Between the birthday cake, the red wine, the roses, and the platinum ring she was moved beyond words: "it was possible after all for a woman who had been a prostitute to find love. I felt very fortunate to be loved, adored, and suffered for by someone."

But after getting along with Wen for six months, she discovered that she had venereal disease. Her family's finances were still tight, so unbeknownst to Wen she prostituted herself. The disease made her break out in moist nodules, which the hospital treated with lasers. "I myself don't know how I endured it, I was completely scorched down there, my entire body was drenched in sweat." Not long afterward, Wen found out what had happened. Crying, he said: "Xu Ping, this time I'm done with you." She cried herself to death and back to life again. Walking down the street in the winter sunshine she "couldn't feel the warmth, my heart had frozen."

Several days later Wen suddenly came back to her, bringing medicine for her disease. The treatment process was more painful than Xu Ping had imagined. "I couldn't sleep at night, I couldn't stand up, I couldn't lie down, my whole body ached, I was constantly banging my head into the wall, crying, calling for my mother, torturing myself to exhaustion until I could fall asleep." The disease did not return. Xu Ping quietly left Wen for a time. He had wanted to marry her. "I didn't want to hurt his family." "Having once had a man worthy of loving in this life was enough for me."

Salvation

Her heart was mangled. "Why didn't I go insane?" Because she found consolation in religion. At first, she believed in Christianity. The pastor's sermons often made her weep. But she also felt that her behavior would land her in hell. So her beliefs only increased her anxiety. She looked for a creed to relieve her suffering online on "Jieyin Net," hoping to live with a peaceful heart. She encountered a Buddhist net friend, who "converted" her. But after starting to follow Buddhism she discovered that the sutras contain "the six ways of the transmigration of souls." She thought that the consequence of her behavior would mean that she would never be reborn. As a result, she suffered even more. Later, a Buddhist friend untied the knot in her heart. He said that if her motive was to help her family then it was good. At last she found the determination to "extract herself from suffering" and "promised the Bodhisattva not to ever let a stranger see her body again."

She wanted with all her heart to become a normal person. To be able to devote herself to the teaching profession that she loved. She expressed the following sentiment to this reporter: "when I was little my ideal was to become a teacher, at that time my motive was to be the recipient of cards and drawings from students...even if every month I only make 300 Yuan, live in inferior housing, and teach in inferior facilities, when I see the angelic, naive, innocent faces of elementary school students, my complaints disappear without a trace. At the end of 2003, she took the official teacher's employment exam, scoring at the top of the city and turning from a substitute teacher into an official school teacher.

It was only at this time that her younger brother in college found out the truth about how his sister was paying for his education. On the phone he couldn't speak from crying. "Sister, don't be this way. If you keep it up, I'll drop out of school." After that conversation, however, they rarely talk directly about it. In 2005, a long time after Xu Ping had stopped prostituting herself, her brother once sent her an email containing an article about a Wuhan University student named Zhu Liya who had been infected with AIDS. "I knew what he was trying to remind me about," said Xu Ping.

Beyond Love

In May 2005, through her new position as official teacher, was assigned to teach English at an elementary school in another village. When this reporter entered her dorm room in 2006, one thing that stood out was her desk. On one side of the wall beside it was a likeness of the Buddha, the other was full of childrens' drawings. One was a drawing of a contemplative child, another showed flowers, grass, and sun ... "While correcting homework I like to look at these drawings, the children are always so cute that they make me smile," said Xu Ping.

She had also collected a large number of letters and cards from her students. Some small notes were carefully pasted onto an A4 size sheet of paper. Behind this there was a little story about her and her students.

In September 2005, she learned that her 700 Yuan monthly salary would not be paid. The higher-ups explained that she had just been moved into a category slated for readjustment, they would have to wait until the adjustment was completed before the matter could be addressed. As a result, her life entered a period of difficulty. "What was I going to do about my brothers' tuition?" "The pressure was too much." She thought about leaving home to become a nun. Her students found out about her thoughts, which led to the A4 sheet of paper with the set of strange notes written to the teacher by her students, "teacher, don't become a nun, we love you." "I feel that having you as our English teacher is very pleasant, you have a very sweet smile, you speak to us very tenderly..." Xu Ping was moved by her students: "Becoming a monk only helps me alone, whereas being a teacher helps many children."

Several months later, her salary still not having arrived, she borrowed money from the school and persevered in teaching. When she returned home she learned that her mother had fallen ill with an abnormal period. She bled for a month. But she was reluctant to spend several hundred Yuan to get an injection. Xu Ping, who had lost her salary, "watched wide-eyed the blood flow incessantly out of my mother, her body constantly shrinking." Once while she was teaching a fifth grade class she at last lost control and lay down in front of the class sobbing.

On the afternoon of November 15, the sixth grade teacher unwitting told the students that Xu Ping had been without a salary for the last two months. The students spontaneously decided to help their teacher make it through her hard times. That evening two female classmates climbed onto a bike to get a big bag of things to give to a startled Xu Ping. Inside the bag were twenty catties of rice, two oranges, a tangerine, two cabbages, and a package of plums. After dropping off the things the two children hopped back on the bike and sped away.

The next day, one after another students delivered things to Xu Ping's dorm. There was rice, tofu, potato, egg ... one corner of her room was filled with the things sent by the students.

Xu Ping told her students between tears that "your teacher's family also farms rice, you don't need to give me rice, and as for the vegetables, your teacher can't eat so much alone. It really wasn't necessary for your to do this." After finishing, she twice bowed deeply to them.

That afternoon, the sixth graders once again went to Xu Ping's door. They took out folded banknotes amounting to 42 Yuan in one- and two-Yuan notes, asking her to take them, saying that this was their wish. Unwilling, Xu Ping said, "you want to make your teacher cry again, don't you! Your teacher really doesn't need this money." She told them that "your teacher apologizes to you." She had promised at the start of school to reward students who regularly scored above a 90 on their English tests by buying them study materials. For the tests on the first two sections of the course, she made good on her promise. But several sections later she could not find the thirty or forty Yuan to buy exercise books for her students, the number of whom who had scored above a 90 was increasing. "To instead have you students break the bank to bring me rice and give me money really brings your teacher both happiness and pain. But I promise you that when I finally get my salary I will definitely buy you your exercise books." The students cried.

Afterwards, Xu Ping added 4 Yuan and used all 46 Yuan to buy the students several English test preparaton books and a box of listening comprehension tapes. The tapes and the things sent by the students were still in Xu Ping's dorm when this reporter went to investigate the problem of the unpaid salary in January 2006. A director of the school told this reporter: "I am honored to have such an outstanding teacher as Xu Ping, and moved to have such compassionate students."

[Remaining text untranslated]

Photo Caption: English teacher Xu Ping leads a simple life. Staff Reporter Mai Juan/Photographer. View Photo.

By Staff Reporter Fu Jianfeng & Intern Ma Xiaoliu

--Translated by Ramsi Woodcock

This article was translated using the Translation Wiki ( http://www.translationwiki.net ). To see the original text side by side with the translation and to make additions or improvements, go to the Translation Wiki for this article: http://www.translationwiki.net/index2.php?action=trans&type=view&id=60#1167 (works best in Firefox, http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/ ).

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