By ZHANG AILING

IF in future I can’t find a job, I’ll open a kindergarten,” he told me after class, “the children and me are sure to have fun.”

“That’s great,” I said.

As the mother of a son, I particularly wanted more men to enter education to act as role models for the children.

As I wondered how this prospective head of a kindergarten might refresh its boys’ mentality, he told me that after he went to university he would pack all his dirty laundry into a parcel and mail it to his mother, and that after washing it, she would send it back to him.

I shook my head, lost for words.

He just grinned and looked a bit embarrassed.

His name was Wang Jianping, and had entered the college in 2005. As a freshman he was class monitor, and during his sophomore year was vice president of the student union of the Chinese Department. He hoped to be voted president the next year.

A new situation arose at the end of his sophomore year. Suihua College launched a teaching practice program at the beginning of the 2007 semester, and the first batch of intern students was to do their teaching practice in rural elementary and secondary schools.

When I met him on campus, he said he had applied, and was receiving pre-job training, but still had reservations about going.

“If I were you, I’d take this opportunity, because you’ll learn much from it,” I said.

He accepted a teaching internship at a rural middle school in Wangkui County. The teaching faculty there was aging, and as a result some children attended instead schools in urban areas, while others dropped out. In its heyday the school had more than 1,000 students, but there were now less than 500. Wang Jianping was assigned as class advisor to Class Three of Junior Grade One, and taught Chinese to classes three and four.

Still asleep early on his first morning at the school, he awoke to the chirping of birds outside his window, and found a group of students talking there. Having heard that a new teacher was coming from the city, students near and far had arrived at school before dawn. After that he got up at 5 o’clock every morning and arrived in the classroom at 6:30 sharp.

There were 73 students in his two classes, more than half of whom were illiterate and knew nothing about pinyin. This rendered useless the teaching plan he had prepared. He taught them pinyin in his spare time, and asked the more adept students to help those who lagged behind. One month later, in a joint exam among five schools, his two classes came top in the Chinese test, and he received from the headmaster a RMB 30 bonus.

Once, as he was engrossed in giving a lesson on the poem entitled “Ideals” by Liu Shahe, a boy raised his hand and said, “Teacher, I need to go outside.”

“Why?” Wang asked him.

The student lowered his head and said nothing.

The class continued.

A few minutes later the student again said, “Teacher, I need to go outside!”

“Why? What’s the matter with you?” Wang asked again.

The student did not reply.

Wang was a bit unhappy at these interruptions to his class, and was about to admonish the student when the class bell rang and the boy dashed out of the classroom.

When he mentioned this later in the teachers’ office, his colleagues roared with laughter and told him that “to go outside” was a local euphemism meaning to go to the bathroom.

Wang also needed to “go outside” every day, but the public toilet was a few minutes’ walk from his dorm. It grew dark early in winter, and the cold wind made this necessity a task.

The school had four college students working as volunteer teachers, two men and two women. At first, they had no idea how to cook. Luckily, Wang knew how to use a rice cooker, and on that basis learned to cook meals for his fellow volunteer teachers.

While at college, he seldom went to the library, even though it was only a few hundred meters from his dorm. During his time as a volunteer teacher, however, he would borrow books from the public library and bring them to the school, which was some distance away.

The students thought that these young teachers, who not only gave lessons but also played football with them after class, would never leave. Many volunteer teachers said that bidding farewell to these students was quite a wrench. Without going into detail, Wang told me that he had urged his students, “No matter what happens, you should continue your schooling.”

After he came back, I did not ask him what he had learned. And nor did I ask whether he still sent his laundry to his mother to wash, because I thought it unnecessary.

After graduation, he became a teacher in a well-equipped primary school in Changchun.

When I met him online two years later, he told me that he wanted to work at an orphans’ school in Jilin Province. “Although the conditions of the school are poor and it’s located in the suburbs, they really need me there.”

“What’s your parents’ opinion?” I asked.

“They did not agree at first, but later respected my choice. My elder brother will take care of them. I feel more released and can do whatever I like.”

“This choice might be a little unwise.”

“That’s what my mother said.”

“It is the choice of an idealist.”

“An idealist is precisely what I am.”

ZHANG AILING is vice president of the Suihua Writers’ Association.