Chinese Canadian Library Weblog

3 Responses to Jing came back to cool Vancouver.

1.   Jing
   July 30th, 2007 at 8:02 pm

   It was heartbreaking to see the poor public libraries in Western China. The shabby and worn-out books on the shelf show that kids do need to borrow books from the library, but librarians don’t have money to update their collection and get what the kids really need. Library leaders are not librarians, who don’t care about books.

   A fancy hotel facing the Green Lake in Kunming was hosting the national bankers’ conference. Cost at SPAs and Teahouses around the Lake are amazing. Why can’t the people save some money for the poor and for the “Have-Not”?

   The weather had changed right after we wrapped up the training program. We didn’t want to be hotel-bound during the free days, so dashed through the heavy rain to the Golden Temple, and climbed up to the top of the hill. The Temple was built by Wu Sangui for his concubine– Chen Yuanyuan. I’ve never paid attention to their stories until that day. Having tried to avoid the chilly wind and rain, I read their story in the exhibition hall. I love the trees whose dust was washed away by the rain.

   Unfortunately, Wu had more and younger women after he moved to Kunming. Yuanyuan walked into a lake near the temple to end her brutal life.

   We couldn’t find any taxi that rainy day, but bravely waved to a car passing b and driven by a pretty woman. She drove us back to the hotel and told us her own story which is not better than that of Chen Yuanyuan. But she is independent, running different business and gained respect from others. China is changing, for better and for worse…

2.   Mindy
   July 31st, 2007 at 9:16 am

   Thanks for sharing, Jing. I too always feel sad whenever I think of the public libraries back in China, especially in the western region as you mentioned. I came from Guizhou, one of the poorest provinces in western China, so I had a personal understanding of what the public libraries were like in a poor region. And as you noted in your post, the gap of the ‘haves’ and ‘haves-not” is becoming wider and wider, which is quite a dismay to many people. I’ve always cherished a dream that someday I can do something to help the libraries in the poor regions in China, like my hometown. Now as a CALA member, I wish I could have a chance like you in the future to go back to make some contributions, no matter how little it seems to be, I’ll feel great that I finally can DO something about the poor public libraries system there instead of just sitting here worrying about it.

3.   Jing
   August 19th, 2007 at 9:55 am

   Next time is not in Guizhou though, but Dongguan, Guangdong. I will email you the details or make a new posting.

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