LUST FOR LEARNING   Sun Hong Student at Beijing Broadcasting Institute
[Danish Version]	It is very cold in Beijing this year but  I feel great. I chatted freely with my co-passengers on my way home for New Year. Do you know why I was in such good humour? It was because I  had told my father that my report-book was a gift for the family. Everything had gone well for me. My parents´ joy at my arrival as well as the idea of the new millenium made me feel that this really was the best New Year ever. Naturally I told my old grandma the good news. "I got my passport and I will be going abroad to study!" Grandma had a look at my results and even though she doesn´t  understand the system, she is fully aware that I will soon be fulfilling my dream to study abroad. Grandma looked at me, looked at my exam results, was then about to say something but refrained at the last minute. She suddenly put her hand into her little box and pulled out an old crumpled piece of paper which she gave me. "A school- brochure?" I looked at her in surprise, ! "Zhenjiang Christian Girls´School, nr. 1. Is it yours grandma?" The town of Zhenjiang in the Jiangsu Province, our family homestead, was one of the first towns to be ´opened` by foreigners after attacks by the English during the Second Opium War( 1860 ). The father of Pearl Bucks (1892-1973) , Nobel prizewinner and famous american authoress who wrote books about China in the 1920´s, he founded this school which my grandmother wanted to attend. "I knew nothing about anything, I just wanted to sit in a classroom". In those days , my own grandmother was just an innocent romantic young girl. She obviously had no idea who Pearl Buck was, but the brochure about the school had kindled a burning desire in her `to sit in a classroom´. Grandma ran home to her mother with great expectations: "I want to go to school!". She recalls the entire story : "Our family was not particularly poor, in fact we were quite well off, we had enough to pay for my schooling. Besides,  I was the only daughter, so I was  the apple of everyone´s eye. I thought my parents would agree immediately and not deny me my biggest wish : Then they said, boys go to school, not girls. Girls should learn to make food, sew clothes and embroider. Were you to go to school and read many books, how do you ever expect to marry, the asked. My brothers were enrolled in school. When I saw them running off to school with their bags on their backs, I would go hide and cry my tears all alone. Why couldn´t girls come in and sit in a classroom? I got up early one morning , washed clothes, prepared some food and ran out to my brothers and begged them to take me with them to school so I could stand outside the window and hear what the teacher said to the class. They didn´t dare bring me for fear of my father. As soon as they were rid of me, they hurried away to school. I was left standing by the wayside, totally engulfed in tears and not in the least bit ashamed of my behaviour......many of the other children on their way to school stopped to ask what was wrong. I just cried even louder. I decided to approach my father about my wish to go to school but his reply was just like my mother´s : `Girls work in the home`. I assured him I would do all the housework before I went to school and again after I came home. That wouldn´t be a problem. Then he found another excuse : he said that girls had no need for reading or writing. I was not convinced and pleaded : ´Why then do all the foreign girls go to school and learn to read and write?` Dad became angry :  ´Foreigners are foreigners! The Chinese have their own customs!` I posed the question : ´What are the chinese customs?` ´Girls must not be clever but obedient and dutiful, that´s the rule. If you learn to read and write, how do you expect to marry?` ´I do not want to marry!` ´You are not allowed to go to school even if you never marry!` All my protests fell on deaf ears. I had to bury the brochure about the school in my bottom drawer and hope that I might have use for it again someday.My parents couldn´t accept my ´rebellion`, so a marriagge was arranged for me when I was 16 and that put paid to all my dreams. I never did learn to read, never had a regular job and resigned myself  to my pots and pans and to being a good housewife. One of my brothers became a doctor, the other became a scientist but I..... I can´t bear to talk about it. How I would have loved to have gone overseas to study!" "I don´t like the idea of you travelling to USA to study, my dear!", grandma said as she gently stroked my head. "What?" I got angry, "Grandma, ´girls are not supposed to be clever, but obedient`- those days are gone. How can you oppose my leaving to study? You who were a victim yourself." As soon as she saw my anger, she smiled : "I haven´t said you shouldn´t leave. I am just afraid that you will miss grandma´s home-cooking, get homesick and cry yourself to sleep. I wouldn´t forbid you to study. I have enrolled myself in evening-classes, have I not?  Come now and have something to eat. I have made your favourite dish." Yes, I am definitely living at a good time in history, in a new era, where equality of the sexes is generally accepted. At home, I am everybody´s pet . My parents spoil me more than they ever did my seven year older brother. He has actually spent his savings on a computer for me. In school, I am the teachers´ ´favourite`, winning praise since I was little. Whether in junior or highschool, I have always loved school more than anything else. Now I have been accepted to study abroad. It is 60 years since my grandmother nurtured the unfulfilled desire to attend a school founded by Pearl Buck´s father; I have been accepted to attend a university in Pearl Buck´s hometown 60 years later. What is grandma´s tragedy is my good fortune. What better way to illustrate the changing times! And because of change and innovation, the brochure depicting the trials and tribulations of my grandmother has already been buried at the bottom of a dusty old box. In the meantime, my grade-book has paved the way for my stepping onto the path of learning. Some say that the new millenium will bring good fortune. Yes, I really like the era in which we live. I yearn for knowledge and I am grateful to be alive in the Age of Enlightenment, an age which belongs to the individual. Translated from Danish to english by Maureen Eriksen
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